September: Freshers and that

Hi guys! September is start of term aka freshers and it was mad! Its been amazing meeting so many of you. Having the students back on campus really reminded me why I went for this role and want to do my best in it – the students at UH are all so cool and smart and you guys inspire me every day. Anyway! Besides fresher tea parties and movie nights, here is what I’ve been up to: 

Timetables:  

In my June blog post I mentioned “I'm currently working on (…) enabling students to have contact details of their school's timetabler so they can discuss a potential class shift if the same class is happening at a more convenient time” - the head of library responded positively to this and now on every timetable page if you click on the “ Student Timetable for 2018/19 Frequently Asked Questions" link one of the answers is “Please contact your School to discuss any issues regarding your personal timetable” which links to a list of email addresses you can contact to get assistance if your timetable does not work for you. This is a step in the right direction and I was really grateful the university responded to my recommendation.  

But this is not the end of the road - I am on a mission for the next few weeks to gather your thoughts on what you want your timetable to look like, then present it back to the university so their timetable allocations work in your interest. Truly I feel like I could just tell them myself, but evidence helps.    

Debate Club:  

I hosted our first debate, Spiderman vs the Hulk, and the students that debated did so well and enjoyed it - I am more prepared for the debates to come now having had that practice. I’ve developed an October line-up with intense topics – two of which are themed around Black 

History Month: 

Do we need religion to be moral? 

Should we decolonize the curriculum at UH? 

Should we have a Black History Month?  

No sign-up, just turn up :) 

(Spiderman won btw) 

Autism awareness:  

Many of you are just as excited as I am for the autism awareness campaign coming in April 2019 - contact me if you want to get involved <3  

PhD students:  

I plan to deliver a Q&A event between PhD students and students interested in academia, hopefully by working in partnership with Associate Deans since many of them were keen on my idea. If the research office would respond to my emails I would be a lot more efficient in reaching my goals on postgraduate engagement and networking opportunities. I may need to start considering opening dialogue with the students directly rather than wait on staff help. We will see which path I take in the October post!   

Transparency on degree grading:  

I have sent a diagram to every School’s Associate Dean showing a foolproof diagram on how modules get translated into an overall degree grade – many of them have responded that they will be using it to show students how their degree gets calculated – so I hope the confusion reduces! You are here to achieve your best, so you shouldn’t be confused as to how you can do that! I’ve attached an example diagram here:   

Library: 

My ideas on Library services were parked due to fresher madness, but I will get back to lobbying for printing credit increases and improving Studynet room booking soon.  

Enjoy your studies guys,  

Zaina Hakim 

z.hakim@herts.ac.uk  

August: Ups and downs

Hi guys! It’s been an unusual month and the Uni is starting to feel very lonely without the students so I’m supper looking forward to freshers!  

I learnt a lot more about my job this month and became more aware about the two separate strands of my role. By two strands I mean the academic representation campaigning - i.e. working on the things I proposed in my manifesto, and then there is the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Union. The realization of having to do both whilst lacking team members (in the absence of a President and VP Services) has been extremely stressful for me. I have been struggling with the reality that if I neglect my duty as a Union Executive member the Students’ Union will not run by those with a mandate from the students to be an Exec member, however if that responsibility distracts me from my role as a student-advocate in the wider University I am not fulfilling on the promises I made to students. In recent times trying to do both has exhausted me. I hope going forward I will know how to find the right balance and deliver on both responsibilities efficiently.  

As mentioned, since there is no President this year the team decided it was pointless to refer to ourselves as Vice Presidents. So, we decided to drop the Vice and I’m now considered President Education. 

Anyway, here is my monthly progress on my manifesto promises: 

I visited the Head of LCS (Library service) and discussed these three points and why they would be beneficial to students: 

• £10 printing credit annually  
• A clearer study room booking process 
• A 3-hour cap policy on timetables 

The outcomes of that meeting were very positive. The Head of LCS said he would propose for the money to fund an increase in student printing credit from the Vice Chancellor. He also informed that the page where we make a room booking is not easily changed since it comes from an external provider, however the page just before going into the actual room-booking page can include information on the space and facilities provided in each room. If this information is included, we can have a swifter booking experience. Reducing timetable gaps is looking really difficult. The impression I am getting from the university is that they really struggle with timetables. I was told that the function which allocates students into a timetable already is supposed to avoid long gaps. I don’t consider this answer satisfactory however since a computer does not realize that each and every student is a real person who doesn’t want to wake up at 7am to go to a Lecture and then wait around till 4pm to go to a tutorial. So they must find a better timetabling system/ more available lecturers/ more rooms/ or do something to reduce timetable-related complaints. Your timetable has a significant impact to your learning so the more student-friendly it is the better. 

Transparency on degree grading:  

I have met with a few Associate Deans to tell them the degree grading system can and should be made more understandable to students. I have presented to them an example of how modules get considered into an overall degree grade and recommended they add a model like this to their program sec/module guide. 

PhD student opportunities at UH:  

In meetings with Associate Deans I have asked them if they would be interested in partnering up with me on an event I proposed called The Secret Life of a PhD Student which would be a networking and Q&A opportunity between PhD students and masters students (available to undergrads too). It went down really well with them – now I just need to start working on it! I believe February is a good time for the event. 

I also had the amazing opportunity of attending the Muslim Leadership Retreat hosted by the Muslim Leadership Foundation and it was such an eye-opening fun weekend and I made some great friends there :)