Your Big Ideas

Your Big Ideas

 

 

Do you have an Idea about how to make the Students’ Union, University or the wider community better for students?

Your Big Ideas are a great way to make meaningful change on campus. Submit your Idea online and share with your friends and course mates. If your Big Idea achieves 50 or more votes in favour after 28 days, it will be taken forward; either to an appropriate meeting such as Students’ Council or by meeting with the appropriate person(s) to help make your idea a reality. If a Big Idea gets approval at Students’ Council, it will become Students’ Union policy and we will work with you on making it happen!

To submit an Idea or vote on any of the current Big Ideas below, you must be logged in using your UCLan student login. Once logged in, the option to submit will appear and to vote, just click the thumbs up or down button - depending on your opinion! 

Previous Big Ideas-turned reality have included free period provisions on campus, an extension to the academic calendar and free disability screening.

Anyone can submit a Big Idea. It’s an easy way to change the lives of students!

Big Ideas Top Tips

  1. Identify the issue you want to solve.
  2. Do your research and talk to others. Staff and Elected Officers can help you prepare to launch or promote your Big Idea.
  3. Plan what you think should be done to solve the issue and decide how you'll know when it’s fixed.
  4. Submit a Big Idea! Go change Students’ lives.

 

Need some help submitting Your Big Idea? Follow the steps on our how-to video here

Click here to view all  current policies passed by Students' Council 2023 / 2024

Got a question? Get in touch at yourunion@uclan.ac.uk.

 

 

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  • 107 score
    111 Voters

    Lobby the university so that students have self-certification as an option for non-evidence based mitigation

    Expired

      The current system is rigid and doesn’t allow for flexibility for students whose circumstances don’t have evidence, so as a result, students aren’t achieving the best grades they possibly can as they’re not given a very common courtesy that the "real world" implements. 

      So my big idea is that we, YOUR students union, lobby the university so that we have self-certification as an option for students who are unable to get evidence or an emergency happens that they still have the opportunity to complete assignments to the best of their ability. 

      As a widening participation university, we have a diverse student body, with differing life experiences and journeys, UCLan should be empowering and nurturing students to succeed in their studies, “where opportunity creates success” and yet the mitigating circumstances policy doesn’t allow the students to fully succeed at university when life is challenging. 

      A self-certification mitigating circumstance typically refers to a situation where a student faces an unforeseen challenge or difficulty that significantly affects their ability to meet deadlines. These circumstances are usually temporary in nature and could include illness, family emergencies, or unexpected personal issues (because we’re all human at the end of the day).

      The self-certification part means that the student can claim mitigating circumstances without providing specific evidence or documentation, relying on their own honesty and integrity (and let's face it, going through mitigating circumstances is more work than the assignments themselves). However, universities usually have guidelines regarding the types of circumstances that qualify and may limit the number of times a student can self-certify within a given semester or academic year.

      This policy change recognises that students might face unexpected challenges that affect their studies but may not always have formal evidence to back up their situation. It allows students to request deadline extensions or rescheduled exams, based on their self-declaration of the mitigating circumstance.

      It's not only something UCLan students want, it's what they need and deserve. Students should be trusted until proven otherwise. In the “real world” employees are allowed to self-certify for 7 days and are trusted so why doesn’t Uclan do the same for its students? 

      Universities that already do this include but is not limited to:

      University of Manchester

      University of Westminster

      University of Warwick

      Imperial College London

      Oxford University

      University of Reading

      University of Salford

      Manchester Metropolitan

      University of Surrey 

      Cardiff Metropolitan

      Nottingham Trent University

      University of East Anglia

      There is also currently a form going out to all students regarding YOUR experiences with mitigating circumstances the link to the form is here and we would love to hear your views!

    Jodie Roberts
    12:27am on 9 Dec 23 Completely support this idea. Many people feel MCs are based on favouritism. The staff simply don't believe that what we say is true. I keep told that my experience is very strange and doesn't happen. I was told I had issues with corroborating evidence just recently even though I have provided evidence multiple times. (One piece of evidence which I paid for.)

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