Voice

Voice

Students are central to everything we do. We’re a democratic organisation with students at the heart of the decision making and leadership of the Students’ Union. Whether we’re sticking up for students or empowering them to speak up, the student voice is deep rooted into both the day-to-day and strategy of the Union.

The three key areas of focus for Student Voice are:

  • Excellent academic representation
  • Improve University transparency
  • Strengthening connections with schools

With a strong team of elected Course Reps, School Presidents and Students’ Council members, alongside the Elected Officer Team, we ensure student feedback is heard at every level of the University – from academics to professional services.

Key Targets:

By 2024 65% of students will believe we effectively represent their academic interests (National Student Survey)

  • 2023 Result – 75%
  • 2022 Result – 56%

By 2024 75% of students will agree that we keep them informed about work we do to promote their interests.

  • 2023 Result – 86%
  • 2022 Result – 82%

Course Rep Conference

We held our annual Course Rep Conference in person for the first time since the pandemic. We had 44 Course Reps book onto this event to attend workshops around the different opportunities that the University and Union had to offer. We are excited for the Conference to return next year and are planning how we can add more value to this important skills development event.

Graphic with the DECOLlogo on it.

Increasing University Transparency

Staff and Officers are fixed members on many important cross-institutional working groups and steering groups, delivering student voice regularly on a wide variety of topics. We are happy to report that we have been invited into more of these spaces throughout the year. The Communications Team also worked with Officers and leaders to respond and communicate with members quickly and effectively on a number of issues such as; strikes, the marking boycott, a research paper which targeted the Trans* Community and more.

Photo of previous officers
School of Nursing

Building Stronger School Connections

We’ve found particular success working with the School of Nursing this year, which was previously one of our least engaged schools and biggest challenge in all areas of SU activity. We’ve built up a positive relationship with the leadership team, as well as numerous course leads and lecturers from across the school. It is this increased communication and rapport with key staff that has driven a lot of our work with the school this year, including the first ever Nursing Welcome Week for the March intake and a special event to celebrate International Nurses Day in May.

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Burnley Rep

We had our very first Burnley forum led by our Burnley Rep. One issue that came up was the library opening times, so this was put forward as a Big Idea and the University were lobbied. Although we have yet to have 24 hours opening of Burnley library, the hours have been extended which is a massive win for those students!

Burnley Rep
Picture of students

School Presidents

Over in the School of Arts & Media, we helped the School Presidents kickstart what would eventually evolve into a School Social Committee with a community event to bring together students all over the school and help them make friends. Due to the success of the event, the deputy head of the school went on to grant £500 to students to help continue similar events throughout the academic year.

 

Academic Societies

In other school-based engagement, the number of academic societies has increased this year which is a positive indicator that we are building stronger links at an academic level through this work.

Academic Society

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