Accountability reports

Student voice conference

MDXSU

Monday 9th November 2015

These reports are put together by your Full Time Student Officers and will be presented to you at Student Voice Conference. When you are reading them it is a good idea to think about any questions you might have for them.

Aman Siddiqi Report

Roles and aims for the year:

o Strategic oversight of the Student Union.

o To help the 3 Vice Presidents and support them in fulfilling their roles and functions.

o To lead and represent all students of Middlesex University.

o To help support, facilitate and deliver an ever growing Welcome programme.

Student related activities since end of June up until beginning of September:

o In the later months of June, I planned and help organised activity with the Summer school to help enhance the student experience of the summer school cohort and Pre-sessional students who were here from China, Brazil and Hong Kong. With the help of the CSSA (Chinese Students and Scholars Association) we held a Karaoke night in the Claddagh ring which had over 100 students attend.

o As part of my promise from last year we found that we needed to host and organise a Graduation Ball at Middlesex. Initially it was meant to happen on campus but because of the hurdles put in place by the institution and their planning timelines, we were left with no choice but to take it off Campus. They event was successful, however as part of a new partnership proposal the institution have invited me to sit on their Graduation Committee to avoid last minute confrontation.

o We hosted our 3rd Scouts Residential in Gilwell Park in Chingford and saw just shy of 100 students attending. The outcome of the workshops that we held on lad culture, our housing campaign, #CutTheCosts campaign, The Syrian refugee campaign was phenomenal and has seen a rise in the percentage of our students involved in our campaigns well before term has started.

o The Students’ Union Officers attended the Student Ambassador training and informed them of what the purpose of a Students’ Union is and what we do.

o A student and I launched and did some work around Alumni students who study in the schools, Art & Design, Media & Peforming Arts to be able to come back to the University and use the facilities during off peak hours. This has been looked into and has received some criticism from the Dean of Media & Performing Arts, however the Dean of Art & Design is very much on board as it is more relevant to her school.

Fresher’s Welcome Programme:

o Started our year with events focused on the Early starters and Nurses. As two of my first cousins were getting married in two different countries I was on annual leave from the 11th of September until the 28th, missing most of our early starters programme.

o Ever since I came back on the 28th of September I have attended most day events and every night event that has been organised on our calendar. I have continued to make an appearance at other events, which aren’t hosted by MDXSU (training for football and rugby trials) etc.

Campaigns:

o One of the campaigns that I will be taking the lead on this year is the #CutTheCosts campaign which will focus on the National Issue of Student Maintenance grants being cut, but also a local issue that Middlesex University student’s face, which is the increasing cost of being a Middlesex Student.

Training, Residentials, Conferences & Appointments:

o Attended NUS Students’ Union 2015. I ran for a position for the Union Development Oversight Board in NUS Digital and was elected to the position. I was then recommended by the VP UD to be on the sub-committee of Audit and risk which I agreed.

o Attended the Presidents Lead & Change in August in Warwick.

o Attended the Student Officer residential where we worked on a presentation that explored our key priorities for the year and off the back of this we then created an action plan that we designed for 3 key groups of people with in the University (Students, Internal staff, Senior university staff)

o Ed & I attended a 5 day National training conference for the Citizens UK where we deeper explored in depth

our understanding of community organising and how to try and get the most from your institution.

o Attended the ‘Student as a Governor’ Training in September as I had missed it last year.

o We attended our Staff Residential in August where we delivered our presentation for the first time to the

entire staff team.

Other meetings:

o Board of Governor(s) meeting. o Academic board meeting. o Regular meetings with different members of the Senior Executive team. o Regular meeting with Estates and the Director of EFMS. o Regular meetings have now been organised with the new Vice Chancellor, Tim Blackman. o Meetings with the Director of Corporate Engagement. o Regular Internal meetings. o Regular meetings with the Director of Employability. o Regular meetings with the Director Learning & Teaching. o Regular meetings with Sport to try and strengthen our partnership with them and work together on joint

projects.

Introduction to Manifesto

In my manifesto of 2015, I promised a series of things that I was mandated to do:

As you can see from the lovely A4 page they are under 4 sub headings. The left side (In Purple) are things which we

won and I achieved in my first term as President and on the right side (The blue side) are new things that I promised

to do for students.

I can proudly say that before I took office as a 2nd year President I had already achieved some of the things that I had

promised.

Manifesto Commitments

My Unihub Application – this would be downloadable on your smart phones and tablets. Whilst gather feedback to

run my campaign in 2015, one of the keys things that was brought up to me was that the university platform is not

accessible. Students don’t get emails and Unihub is always crashing on the computer.

I thought that it is time we put an end to this, So I have lobbied the university to look into more innovative ways of

students enhancing their learning. The app will be designed by students and we will consult students on what should

be built into it, to make it a more convenient way for students to check their grades, timetables and emails.

I have had to postpone the first meeting that I had scheduled, but am to meet with all the key people on wendesday

this week, to discuss a proposal and what should be incorporated into the application.

Better quality feedback – Based on what students have told us in Student Voice conferences, one of the re-occuring

issue that I has been highlighted in the quality of feedback and how often it is provided to students. This is a campus

wide issue and we are doing some work on this to ensure that feedback is provided on a more regular basis. After

sitting in one of the HER meetings today with students, it seems that some of the students at Middlesex find feedback

to be very prompt, HOWEVER we are working on the time frame and will feedback to you once we have been

updated on this.

Action Plan Proposal:

Context and Vision: At the moment there is feedback that the University platform, UniHub is not very

user-friendly. The proposal is to have an extremely user-friendly app that can be downloaded on your

smartphone where you can access your timetable, grades, email etc at the touch of a finger.

Manifesto commitment: Aman - “The University needs to create a Unihub application downloadable on

your smart phone to ease the convenience of students being able to access their core academic

essentials.”

Partnership proposal: The SU, all 6 schools and registry to work together to supply data to the SU and

provide support to be able to work the application. They would also need to give support in the general

maintenance and up keep of the service to ensure students get a top class experience.

Action: Speak to student engagement (Ambika)/Nick Bevan (LSS) about the idea. Create a written

proposal, which will incorporate all the ideas and cover all the areas such as funding and incorporating it

into our app. Investigate costings, in financial and staffing. Possibly incorporate sport.

Action Plan Proposal:

Context and Vision: The Grading scale used at Middlesex is outdated. The government is

pushing the new teaching excellence framework. We need a system that is easy to understand

for students, staff and future employers. Feedback has been an issue for a number, with

student voice leaders passing policy on it in 2014.

Manifesto commitment:

Andre Thompson (MDXSU VP ADMP) - “quicker and more informative feedback”.

Aman Siddiqi (MDXSU Pres) - “better quality feedback”.

Sayed Alkadiri (MDXSU VP Biz & Law) - “it cannot be right that in a world where racism and

sexism are still so prevailing, that work at Middlesex isn’t marked anonymously wherever

possible. With a sizeable national black attainment gap, and women’s chances of receiving a 1st

improved by anonymous marking it is time to introduce it at MDX wherever possible.

Partnership proposal:

Action: to pass a more evidenced based policy on feedback at the next student voice

conference in October.

Access to previous years University work – this manifesto commitment was for students to be able

to access their final submission and the marks that they have been awarded alongside feedback on

the work explaining why they received a certain mark. This is to develop the student journey from 2nd to 3rd year in

particular allowing them to understand that their performance from 2nd to 3rd year will have to be better in order to

get higher grades, also outlining what they can do to ensure this.

I am yet to start my work on this and will aim to do some work with key colleagues in the University and LSS team to

make sure this is possible alongside schools, so that students are getting feedback on their grades of their final

submission.

More food in off peak hours – As you may be aware catering is an on-going issue on campus. Some of my wins last

year were free hot water (before that it would cost 50p for a cup of hot water), the price of fruit reduced from 45p to

30p (33 percent reduction in price) and an increased halal provision (more sandwiches which weren’t chicken or meat)

however, the student body felt that the university should now lobby the catering outlets to be open till later. I have

been informed that Wings N things will be opened later on a trial basis, and the LSS team have approached

Chartwells to open the Circle Café during the Christmas period. This proposal has not been rejected but we will be

updated on the progress of it. Despite these things I feel that Chartwells close their catering outlet because of a very

small number of customers coming to the vendors. If you feel it would be used I can reignite the conversation and

begin discussions to have these vendors open later.

Support for all Communities - One of the keys things that we have at Middlesex, that we should celebrate is the

diverse community, here at Hendon. Middlesex University should take pride in its diverse range of students and until

recently (with the coming of our new VC) we have never done this.

Tim Blackman understands how diverse we are as a student body and because of this, one of his key strands of focus

areas as the incoming new VC is Diversity. How should we celebrate this. Thus I thought it was only fair for me to

support our diverse communities more than we have done.

As a result of this we have decided to allocate an increased budget to our liberation assemblies (There is a paper that

we will be presenting to you on this), we have created the societies community, who have elected a Societies

Convener and funding Committee reps who decided upon the allocation of funds to societies.

We have also agreed to hold elections for our Part time officers to sit on our Executive Committee, giving them a

bigger role in the SU and more presence on Campus.

These were all done in effort to support our diverse range of communities more.

Increase International celebrations – Last year a student approached me and wanted to know why we don’t

organise big International events that are celebrate across the world. Some of these include: Holi, Superbowl, Eid etc.

In order to do these successfully I initiated a project to begin an events Committee. The events committee will not

only focus on monthly People’s Choice Events, but also ideas around international celebrations that we can have on

campus.

The members of the Events Committee will be selling tickets on a commission basis and will be allowed to help

organise, create and plan the events from start to finish. We saw that this would really empower our students to gain

experience in project management, organising events and sales, skills that they may be required to learn once they

have graduated.

MDXSU will also celebrate its diversity as a student body and encourage as many international societies as possible to

hold events.

Free Graduation – Graduation is an event that everybody enjoys. Everybodys loves to dress up, put on their best

clothes and shiniest shoes, wear the gown and mortarboard, walk in front of their entire class and receive the scroll.

What nobody enjoys is the cost associated with it. If you want to graduate you are looking at £50 for yourself (ticket

price and gown hire) and an additional £30 per ticket you purchase. So in a nutshell if your parents attend, you would

be spending £110. What I have been asked by many students is why it cant be made free, they already pay £9000.

What im not comfortable doing is putting a price on the value of your education. Just because you pay £9000 doesn’t

mean graduation should be free, but because of your time spent at Middlesex University and the contribution that

you have made, it should be more flexible, especially around the cost.

Extra funding for Students studying material Based Courses – This is an area of work I am yet to explore. I will sit

down with Andre, who I feel would have most of his students that would be affected by these hidden course costs and

work out a plan to approach his schools and how to build a partnership with them to fund more of the costs that

students have to incur associated with learning.

More funding and storage for charities/societies – This is one of the things that I am most proud of as I achieved this

before the start of my tenure. Societies and Charities now have cupboard that have now been allocated to them that

they can utilise and store their items in.

These can range from t-shirts for RAG, to props for Pakistan society, to banners for Marrow, anything that the society

sees fit.

Increase school focused trips – This is again an area that I need to work on with the Vice Presidents. What students

from different schools have felt is that there aren’t enough trips focused on their schools that the Union or University

take them on.

I have already worked with the Business School on a Msc trip to Rotterdam which can be rolled out to 3rd years also.

Action Plan Proposal:

Context and Vision: The cost of graduation for students at MDX can be extremely high. Students

have to pay for gown hire, tickets and photographs, all of which can amount to hundreds of

pounds. This cost can cause some students to not be able to fully participate in their graduation

ceremonies and some not even attending graduation at all. We believe that all students should

have the right to attend and participate in graduation activities and that no student is put off or

unable to due to financial constraints.

In addition to that some students (particularly Health Care students and students studying

postgraduate degrees) whose course assessments fall outside the traditional assessment

periods have to wait considerable amount of time to graduate. This

Manifesto commitment: Aman - “Free graduation.”

Partnership proposal: MDXSU to work with the University to figure out ways in which the cost of

core graduation expenses can be covered by the University and financially support students

who are unable to participate.

Action: Aman will have to work with Academic Registrar and Katie Bell and draw up a proposal

to the University to highlight the problems with cost of graduation.

This year I will work with the Vice Presidents to roll this out to each department in each school making their a trip per

department.

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Orla Hillary- VP Health, Education, Science and Technology’s report

Background:

This is an individual report of progress delivered by trustee committee member Orla Hillary – Sabbatical Officer Vice President of Health & Education, Science & Technology. This is my first report of the year.

Roles and aims for the year:

Academic representation of Health & Education, Science & Technology schools.

RAG

Green impact / environment

Volunteering and placement opportunities

LGBT

MDX Women – a women’s equality campaign

Fresher’s (Well, being there with the students)

Volunteering

Sport

Irish society

KWAF

Lad culture

Health & Education, Science & Technology schools:

Annual quality and enhancement meetings with Waqar are scheduled.

Course validation and reviews meetings for Science & Technology school in place

Preparing to email all staff in HE & ST to get them ready for the student voice leader elections.

Regularly going to meet with interns to keep them upto date and get their opinions & ideas on where to go next

RAG existing:

RAG are now running 4 international trips. Uganda, Kilimanjaro, Romania, Thailand.

So far the committee have held their first pub crawl waiting to hear back how much they raised.

MDX are continuing to host training events for challenges, these events are to train all challenge team leaders across the country. Each event we can see students from up to 20 different student unions across the country.

MDX RAG will be hosting a ‘challenges evening’ on the 7th of october

KWAF:

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Getting 3000 students to sign the petition is well underway.

Got volunteers to spend the whole day Thursday and Friday going around getting signatures off everyone

Attend lots of training sessions, society events/meetings and games to get everyone signing this

Sport:

Working closely with sport to get their opinions feedback with events/upcoming year

Regular meetings to chat about plans and what we want to bring forward

André and Orla to go to trainings/matches and record them to make and promote sport from mdxsu and sport

Work on getting tour back up and running

Volunteering:

Completed a charity run with some students

Speaking to lots of charities about volunteering opportunities

Running one of the challenges abroad trips and getting people involved and coming to the events night

MDX Women:

As I’m looking after LGBT and Women I have asked a student to get more involved with the women’s liberation assembly as they had massive participation in it last year so will work with her on getting this improved

Recruit lots of people at fresher’s fair

Talk at residential was successful and got lots of people interested and signed up

LGBT:

Got password and access to emails and facebook accounts to get in touch with existing members

Regular posting on Facebook

Had our session at residential – small numbers but still big interest

Had our first meet & greet today and it was AWESOME!!!! Over 30 people came and got chatting to all the other students and staff

Made a whatsapp group and added everyone who came to the m&g into it.

Made everyone feel welcomed and told them about freshers fair

Tomorrow is freshers fair so hopefully will get big numbers there too

Got stuff from stonewall for the stand

Adam made a cake and have some stickers, colourful luggage tags etc..

GREEN:

Have got the green society set up and running now by joe

Regular chats with joe about what to do where it’s going

Fresher’s fair tomorrow should get some people in and interested

Not me but the allotment has been cleared and ready for joe to take on

Facebook page set up and whatsapp set up

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Regular meetings with Mark Wilkinson set up

Aiming for green silver impact award this year

LAD CULTURE:

Set up first session at the residential

Did a talk at captains weekend

Got people signed up from both areas

Agreeance from sport to bring in the captains to do a session on lad culture

Gotten a meeting with David Malpas and Nick wise to work together

IRISH SOCIETY:

Got an irish society set up

Working close with the Claddagh ring to supply us with stuff for it and they will allow us to use their venue for regular meet ups and free food

Get them to join in with the gaelic football team nearby

Introduce them to the irish bars around London

Just get them meeting other irish people

60 people already signed up.. freshers fair hopefully will get more involved

Executive Committee Report - Sayed Alkadiri, VP Business & Law.

It's been an extremely busy but successful first few months back as a student officer. Happy to speak at length and answer questions on each item of my report verbally, but here's an overview; Launched the MDXSU Syrian Refugees Campaign: I’m really proud to announce that following our campaign with Citizens UK, Barnet Council has agreed to resettle fifty Syrian refugees in the borough. Councillor Richard Cornellius, leader of Barnet Council, accepted the request at the Barnet Day of Action event on Sunday 27th September, and will take it to a Full Council vote in October (it has cross party support). The Syrian Refugees campaign was launched in July with the aim of addressing the UK’s poor record of resettling refugees, raising awareness of the refugee crisis and convincing Barnet Council to resettle fifty vulnerable Syrian refugees. To help eliminate barriers faced by new refugees, local campaigners approached local medical providers, training establishments, landlords and schools to ensure that refugee needs for accommodation, education, healthcare and employment could be answered. The campaign received broad local support from more than 75 local businesses, schools, churches, mosques and synagogues, as well as Middlesex students and the local community. Campaigning culminated in the Barnet Day of Action event at the Finchley Reform Synagogue, and was hosted by myself alongside local Rabbi Rebecca Qassim-Birk. Around 200 guests attended the day of speakers, performance and celebration, including Middlesex University Vice-Chancellor Tim Blackman. We are now expanding the campaign to lobby the government to resettle 1000 Syrian refugees in the UK before Christmas 2015. Again, we will be working at a community level to ensure that incoming refugees are able to access health, education and job opportunities. Launched the MDXSU 'Call It Out' Campaign - Zero Tolerance to Sexual Harassment with MDXSU Women’s Assembly Chair (Jess Hawke): To coincide with the main Freshers week, we launched our ‘Call it out’ campaign, which is all about students speaking up when they see or experience sexual harassment. We stated that MDXSU does not tolerate it, and nor should they. We have been asking to make sure everyone they know knows that this is not acceptable Also to make sure they report cases by talking to university security or speaking confidentially to the SU. We have always been signing up students to get involved in the campaign – asking for their help to stamp out Lad Culture at Middlesex University. The Call it out campaign stall at fresher’s had a lot of support from students, and Jess & I will be leading on developing the campaign by organising training for key stakeholders (University, Security, Chartwells Bar) Launched the MDXSU Housing Campaign at MDXSU Student Residential: Housing is probably the biggest single issue for the mayoral election, and I suspect is probably also has the biggest single impact on the student experience, however with the exception of halls of residence it is not traditionally an area that local SU’s have really got involved in (in London at least, everywhere else they have stumbled upon hugely profitable lettings agencies which creates some improvement in quality, but because supply and demand are different in London they aren’t possible for us.) We affiliated last year to London Citizens which is prioritising housing as its main campaign this year in the run up to the mayoral election. Member organisations are currently conducting

‘listening campaigns’ with a view to these views then being composited firstly in our regions (north, south, east, west) and then London wide. As part of our MDXSU listening campaign, the officers and interns have been engaging students on the issue of housing, and asking them to draw and write testimonies of their current housing situation. We will then display these creative submissions in a student village in the Grove Building – inviting key stakeholders, local council and the local community to view it. In terms of the wider London campaign, This will all create a London Citizens housing manifesto (by the 1st of December) which will be put to mayoral candidates at an event in the copper box (the boxing venue at the Olympic stadium) where 8000 London citizens will challenge the blue and the red corner to sign up. As part of the campaign I will promote the manifesto to other London SU’s to see if they want to do any joint campaigning around it and potentially take some tickets to the copper box event.

Council consultation on Houses in Multiple Occupation: Barnet Council have launched a consultation on increasing the number of licensed properties in the borough. My position on this is that this consultation is in reality is a sinister plan that could seriously affect student housing in the area; The consultation could lead to a situation where creating a HMO (a student house) will become much more expensive, and harder to obtain a license for… this will reduce the student housing stock, which will increase the cost of student housing, drive students from the area and socially cleanse us out of existence locally. Me and Ed have led on the creation of a paper, which we will submit into the consultation and have had conversation with Shelly Asquith (NUS VP Welfare) about the potential of a big community campaign against social cleansing.

Creation of MU Working Group on Partnership - specifically in innovative learning and teaching. [Manifesto Commitment] I am excited to be working on a new project with the university to encourage a more embedded and bottom up approach to partnership working with a particular focus on learning and teaching. Rather than partnership being solely between MDXSU and the University, it should be between all students and the staff that teach them. The HEA have developed extensive work on how university can increase partnership between students and their institution in terms of teaching, and give collective and individual motivations for doing so such as delivering more engaging student’s experiences, making higher education more accessible and inclusive, and developing a sense of community and belonging. I have committed to working with the institution to implement partnership at Middlesex. I have agreed with Jacqui Boddington (MU Director of Learning, Teaching & Student Experience) of the creation of a working group, and we intend to deliver research early in the coming academic year to provide the principles which can steer the development of recommendations as to how partnership working can be delivered. Once these proposals have been ratified democratically by students, and through the universities own executive, we will recommend that the university should create an implementation strategy for the 16/17 academic year. You can see a vision for how this can be implemented here (this was drawn up for the QAA SWS):

Other priorities: Mooting Court for Law Students [Manifesto Commitment] Success - MU have committed to now utilising the Town Hall for students that want to practice mooting. Partnership with MU Enterprise Development Hub [Manifesto Commitment] Have had conversations with Dr Simon Best (Head of the MDX EDH) on refreshing the partnership between MDXSU and the EDH – we gave them a complimentary stall at the Freshers Fayre. I have said that the EDH is a critical part of our institution; it does and it can significantly aid social mobility for working class students, who have come to our university to improve their life chances. I have said the values of the EDH and the SU intertwine in that, and I would love to develop a partnership in the interests of students, especially those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Lead on creation of the MDXSU position on the TEF - As an appendix to this report, I have attached the position I outlined to the vice chancellor, on the proposed teaching excellence framework. He replied saying he totally agrees on our position on the TEF, but as it seems certain to be introduced we need to prepare to do well. He said my arguments are all good and he hoped the NUS keeps up its principled opposition as it will give the government an issue with legitimising the scheme. He added that this is almost certainly about an agenda to achieve fee differentiation.

Exec Officer Report – July to October André Thompson

Vice President of Art & Design, Media & Performing Arts

Background

This report is delivered by André Thompson, Vice President of Art & Design, Media & Performing Arts. This report

dates the beginning of time in office from 29th June 2015 to 3rd November 2015.

Roles & Responsibilities

As well as being responsible for the schools of Art & Design, Media & Performing Arts, this year I will also be

responsible for Societies, our student led media platform POW! Media, Housing and the Disabled Students Assembly.

Committees

Media & Performing Arts Academic Planning Committee

Art & Design Academic Planning Quality Committee

Strategic Planning Committee (not yet attended)

Weeks

This section highlights some of the significant activity going on in my schedule on a week to week basis. o Week 1 - Introduction to Role

o Week 2 – NUS Student Unions 2015

o Week 3 – Graduation

o Week 4 – Officers Residential (Planning for the year)

o Week 5 – NUS Lead & Change

o Week 6 – Meeting with Deans & Deputy Deans and Staff Interviewing

o Week 7 – Annual Leave

o Week 8 – Annual Leave

o Week 9 – Meeting with sports & services

o Week 10 – MDXSU Student Recruitment

o Week 11 – MDXSU Training Residential

o Week 12 – Societies Action Planning

o Week 13 – Main Freshers Week

o Week 14 - Induction Talks for my schools courses

o Week 15 - DVC & Deans Presentation and SVL Training Video

o Week 16 – Citizens UK Training

o Week 17 – First POW!! & Disabled Students Assembly Meet

o Week 18 – Zones Conference

o Week 19 – QAA Review & First Exec Meeting

Activities

Schools Activity (Art & Design, Media & Performing Arts) Met with deans & deputy deans for schools to discuss my overall vision for the year and how we can work together

to achieve both of our goals collaboratively. The following shows my main aims and actions for the schools.

Voice

In order to give students a bigger voice, I discussed with the deans for my schools the issues with the student voice

system and we narrowed down the issues to, some courses not having a student voice leader nominated, and

nominated student voice leaders not attending board of studies meetings consistently. In order to tackle these

issues, I spoke to the deans about getting academics on board with encouraging students to run in student voice

leader elections as well as assisting with organising filming for, and being the narrator on our student voice leader

nominations promotional video. I also organised with the schools to speak to every course within the schools to

inform them about the students’ union and the student voice leader elections. So far I have spoken to all 1st years

and will continue to speak to 2nd & 3rd Year students. I have also informed deans that they can have more than on

student voice leader for their course if they feel it necessary, however they will have to be elected in a democratic

way.

Collaboration

To encourage cross school and course collaboration between students in Art & Design, Media & Performing Arts, I’ve

been promoting the course collaboration Facebook group at all lecture talks. I’ve made school deans aware of the

Facebook page to inform course leaders on. I introduced a new section to our media platform to showcase student’s

talent, in hope that this inspires and encourages students to collaborate and share ideas. I’ve been talking about the

benefits of academic societies with deans of schools and trying to get them to convince course leaders to help push

them. I’ve had trouble convincing one dean about how beneficial getting involved in societies is, so I’ve taken this

issue to the deputy vice chancellor academic who has agreed to speak to the dean about the issue so academic

societies can get the support they require.

Facilities & Teaching

Spoke to deans about the possibility of getting longer opening hours in a limited section of the arts building for those

students who need to use specialist equipment or software after the building closes. Unlike other courses who have

24 hours access in the library to the facilities they need, for a lot of arts courses they do not.

I will organise meetings with head technicians to talk about doing open creative software tutorials for all students,

especially those on creative courses after brief discussions with them on the topic in Academic Planning Committee

meetings. I also briefly discussed some ideas around managing studio and hardware maintenance.

Pow Media

I introduced a new section to Pow Media called Pow Showcase, which will provide a platform for students to

showcase their talents whether it is their artwork, music, performances etc. This will help inspire students,

encourage collaboration, create new communities, provide opportunities for exhibitions/talent shows. Pow

Showcase will also help students get more exposure for their work, experience in their area of work and build in

their interpersonal skills.

We’ve just approved the new Pow Media website for production to host all digital Pow media. I have also created a

Pow Media Facebook group to go along with the Facebook group to encourage more of a community feel and give

students a place to share ideas and collaborate. We’re currently on over 180 sign-ups for Pow Media, have 3 people

leading in different roles with the Radio, 1 main editor for Pow Magazine and have advertised to students we’re

looking for students to lead on the other media platforms.

Housing

Teaming up with Citizens UK we’re launching a housing campaign to find out what issues people have with housing

in London and turning these issues into questions to ask to the mayoral candidates next year. We will attempt to fill

the Copper Box Arena in London, which has a capacity of over 7000 people, and invite the leading mayoral

candidates down to answer questions chosen by the public. In order to support the housing campaign, we got plenty

of sign-ups at our student residential trip and got students to write down and then illustrate their experiences with

housing, we will then use these images to create a student village. I am now trying to combine this idea with the Big

Draw event at Middlesex with the Art & Design School. The Big Draw is a national drawing event that lasts a week,

which tries to encourage people from all over the UK to draw.

Societies

We have over 70 societies registered for this year, including many new ones created from students posting on the

freshers events Facebook page. Fresher fair was a huge success with generally more sign ups to societies from

previous years. I have also created a societies Facebook group for all societies to communicate with each other and

encourage collaboration. Allowing for funding before freshers fair this year gave the fair a more dynamic vibrant feel,

with more banners and promotional material for societies. I also ensured that funding responses were more detailed,

giving bidders more understanding of what is likely to be approved and why certain parts of their bid we’re approved.

Disabled Students Assembly

We got over 30 enthusiastic sign-ups for the disabled students assembly at the freshers fair, with many of them

suggesting ideas for change on our ‘Ideas for change’ board at the stall. Some ideas put forward could potentially be

national campaigns because of their strength, so we will be looking to launch several campaigns throughout the year.

I created a Facebook group to go along with the already existing page to encourage more of a community feel, and

to provide a place to discuss ideas and post update on meetings and campaigns etc.

Exposure & Promotional Facilities

It was one of my main goals this year to increase exposure of services, sports and the students union as I felt a lot of

students do not know enough about what is available to them. So I have had meetings with services and sports

about using keen students to create videos to increase exposure as well as the students’ skills and experience. So far

they have all been very keen on this idea and I have organised with the sports intern to have regular meetings and

put together a proposal to try and get usage of promotional screen around campus. After meetings with the Vice

Chancellor, it is clear that getting material on screens that is more entertaining and visually dynamic, is to his liking,

so we are hopeful we will be able to achieve this.

Manifesto Point Done Working Towards Started Done

More support and promotion for sports and societies

Faster bidding and funding process for societies

More exhibitions inviting potential employers and selling opportunities for student work

Boost POW! Media to full potential

Open creative software tutorials

Quicker and more informative feedback

Input on where department budgets for students are spent

More examples of what students should be aiming for

More board of studies meets

Online student forums

Longer grove opening hours

Lockers in grove

More creative software accessibility

Better hardware and studio maintenance

Uni hub more user friendly

Better LDU system

Alumni facilities access (limited)

Greater SU presence

More awareness of everything mdx offers

Better utilization of promotional facilities

Collaboration forum

Staff, course & room usage maps

Well-advertised and exposed collaboration networks