Posted on Fri 30 Jul 2021 at 15:54 by
Megan Crossman
Hello all and happy Friday! It's the end of another week and time for some more updates from me! The main update really is that I'm very upset about the rain and fail to believe it's almost August because the sky says otherwise.
Disability/Accessibility:
- This week I've been continuing looking into how we can liaise with disabled students on improving accessibility across the university and SU. Gathering this student opinion should guide and organise the work being done for disabled students, so it'll be really valuable
- Jacob (Education Officer) and I have started thinking about the accessibility of campus buildings - reviewing the accessibility of existing buildings and identifying areas to improve, which is work we're both really passionate about
- I also attended my first university Disability Strategy Meeting this week!
Local Community:
- As Community Officer, I sit on the Student Community Partnership (SCP) meetings. This provides an opportunity for connections between us and the local community and to discuss any emerging issues. There are various sub-groups, covering river safety, personal safety, housing, and various others
- Following on from this, I met with one of the SU Officer from Bath Spa - it was really great to chat with her about our respective priorities and opportunities for collaborative work on local community issues
- Annie (SU President) and I also had a meeting with the Ward Councillor for Oldfield Park to discuss our priorities for the year
Student Services:
- This week it was announced that the university has joined Student Minds University Mental Health Charter! I was so excited to share this news as this is such a great scheme to help achieve long-term improvements in mental health and wellbeing provision for all students
- I've also been working closely with student services in editing their sexual consent module which will be completed by incoming students this academic year. We've been making edits to the module using student voice to ensure this is as effective as it can be. The edits we've suggested have been accepted by the company behind the original module, and are hoping to be implemented across other universities as well!
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI):
- At the end of last week I attended my first SU EDI Steering Group.
- I'm really hoping to improve links between our student groups and the SU more generally, so student voice is at the heart of all of our EDI ideas. We've been drafting out our plans to ensure there is a network for gathering student opinion on EDI issues, representative of all D&S groups and underrepresented groups - so watch this space!
Student Groups:
- As always, my favourite part of the role has been meeting with amazing students
- In particular, this week I met with a committee member from LGBT+ group and we discussed ideas they had, as well as gaining their opinion on some of my current projects. It was really inspiring to hear their passion and I'm really looking forward to supporting them going forward
- I also met with the Nightline Chairs and their staff lead to continue supporting them as they look to reopen the service after the summer break
- Finally, I've been working with staff on student leader training and developing effective wellbeing training for our student group committees.
Top 10:
- The Officers are in the process of researching our shortlisted ideas for our SU Top 10 this year. We've got a whole load of really exciting ideas - more updates on this soon!
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and, as always, please do get in touch if you have any questions or ideas! My email is sucommunity@bath.ac.uk
Meg x