As promised, this one is just the speech I will make for the first ever 'State of the Union' address to university and SU staff. 

Hope you find it an interesting read. 

 

Good morning.

Let me begin by welcoming you all. Welcome to our university staff, council colleagues, SU staff, students, and colleagues from B&NES and the SCP. I am delighted to have you here with us.

Let me also spend a minute thanking the thousands of student leaders and SU staff who make events like this possible... It is them who share with me the vision of student life at Bath that I stand before you to share.

During the next few minutes, I’m hoping to take you on a journey.

I don’t mean a journey of emotions, or a rollercoaster of narrative and abstract ideas.

When I invite you to join me on a journey, I mean one of reflection, understanding, and finally, envisioning, of the student experience at the University of Bath.

In 1965, when the Bristol College of Science and Technology moved to Bath, and eventually received its royal charter as the Bath University of Technology in 1966, there was already a Students’ Union president working in the background – to gain recognition for the student movement, gain spaces on the newly built campus for student activity, and even give officers a sabbatical year to dedicate themselves to pursuing the student agenda. All these things were achieved in the 1960s and 70s, and from there the SU’s space, its mission, and its relationship with the university have continued to evolve.

From the opening of our first shop in 1975, our evolution as a union and our ability to support and represent students has been enabled by the university’s belief and respect for student voice in shaping our own experience. By 1989, the SU was running a complete week dedicated to induction: freshers’ week. In 1991, during the university’s 25th anniversary, the students’ union had its first female president. In 1993, the vice-chancellor agreed to give the union the space and permission to run a bar and nightclub on campus.

Step by step, brick by brick, the collaboration between the University and the SU built one of the strongest foundations on which we’ve rested our emblem as an institution: a fantastic student experience. This line of success can be attributed to hundreds, if not thousands, of small moments and decisions. Now, I will do my best to highlight a few we can be especially proud of.

The top 10, the university’s yearly commitment to empowering student voice and allocating senior level staff resource to our student agenda sends an essential message to the student body: we care about what you have to say, and we want to turn your voice into actions. Year on year, the top 10 is a success for us all, and I thank the University administration for their ongoing committment. The top 10 is not only the envy of the SU

sector, but it’s also the most powerful influencing tool known to us from the whole student movement in the country.

The addition of pronouns on library cards, the building of the 3G pitch, and the trialling of an international student early arrival programme are just a few examples where the top 10 has resulted in clear wins for students.

The univesity’s response to the pandemic, also allowed NSS scores to remain significantly above the sector’s benchmark in the student experience space. On more than one occasion, the university committed to financial reparations and rebates for students when the offer by the university had not been what was originally promised. Students recognized that the University made decisions in good faith, placed a tangible value on the student experience, and did not shy away from taking hard decisions. Those bold actions are reflected in how the university has done in national rankings. Consistently within the national top 10 for the last seven years or so in a field driven by reputational capitol more than anything else. Bath’s reputation and clear value proposition is what attracts talented home and international students every year.

Students which contribute to the campus community, add perspectives and back-stories that enhance the educational experience.

Now that we’ve set the scene, let me guide you on the next stage of this journey.

I am deeply aware of how tough times are for the higher education sector. I know all the pressure that we are all under to deliver on budget, find savings where possible, and give students and staff the same offer with decreasing resources. It can be daunting to think of the challenges on the horizon where larger societal factors are effecting campus and student life, such as the cost of living crisis, housing shortfalls, and the tenor of the discussion around immigration.

I also know the value that we have increasingly put on international rankings and our global reputation. As the vice-chancellor and the executive team in the university have eloquently portrayed, remaining globally competitive and improving our links to different organisations, governments, and countries is what will support us in achieving our other strategic aims: foundations for the future, and building on our strengths.

It is that final strategic aim that inspired me to address you today: we cannot sacrifice the power, the value, and the impact of our student experience at the expense of any of our other aims.

Global rankings based on research, citations per faculty member, academic reputation, the faculty to student ratio, and the reputation of an institution as an employer are all enticing and certainly worth pursuing. But isn’t something missing?

Think about word of mouth, and how prospective students decide which university to attend and in which country? What do we want them to hear?

What is more inspiring? Our students and alumni saying, “it was the most enriching time of my life, socially, academically, and morally” or seeing that QS and THE ranked us in the top 100 group rather than the top 150?

All this is not to say the pursuit of a higher ranking is not worth while. It is. But to be clear: our strength, by definition, on which we should build all others, is our student experience.

Our university’s motto – generatim discite cultus, “Learn the culture proper to each after its kind” - I think sends a beautiful message. Understand and appreciate the role that each of us play in our environment; in making this community, this space, and our world, the best it can be. It has shaped our mission as a union: to empower students to change the communities they’re a part of for the better.

In protecting the strength of our student experience, recognising our roles is at the centre of our success.

The SU can and will continue to be the hub for student voice. We pledge to remain devoted to pushing the student agenda while reasonably considering the university’s constraints and opportunities. We pledge to be the blunt voice in the room. We pledge to mediate, where necessary, between students and the institution. We pledge to recognise injustice, speak up when necessary, and to suggest a better way forward.

But for us to be able to do all these things, we need to continue to be recognised as the only stakeholder that can represent students, as is not only recognised by this university’s culture, but dictated by the law.

Together We Shape Tomorrow is a massive success in this space. After almost a year of collecting data, we came up with the six core ambitions that could enable us to become the best student experience in the world. We have the strong conviction that this can be true, if the university decides to make its own pledges.

Today, university colleagues, I invite you to pledge to look after student experience as the thing that identifies Bath as what it is. I invite you to pledge that, under the significant pressures of the sector, you’ll continue to look at our student experience scores, be proud of where we’ve gotten to, and strive to be even better. I invite you to pledge to make that satisfaction with life at Bath universal – so no student from underrepresented backgrounds, students that are distant learners, or students that are here to do their research, will look at Bath as anything other than their home.

And, if you let us, the Union and all the students we represent will take the lead in areas where the University cannot. I invite you to join us, to work collaboratively, and at every

step of the process, we’ll support you where we can and expect the same in return. Together, we’re not powerless to confront the challenges facing higher education today. On Immigration, the cost of living, and housing shortfalls – the broader conditions of society which effect recruitment and student persistence to degree completion – we should have a unified and cohesive approach centred on student experience, and we should be actively engaging the local council and area MPs. Let us continue to show to the world that we’re leaders in this moment.

I appreciate that, despite my saying that I was not attempting to pull at your heartstrings this morning, I’ve been carried away by the possibilities of the partnership – and, what’s even more important, the possibilities of student life at Bath.

Let me pull myself back again and land this in concrete terms. How do we turn these heartwarming sentiments into practical change?

The first step is appropriate resource. And no, this is not a cry for more money (though we would certainly never reject any). Instead, this is an invitation to get you all to properly look at our areas of work, look at your areas of work, and ask yourself the question – are we replicating efforts? Are we attempting to do things that could be better achieved by students? Whenever the answer to this question is yes, we’ll happily support you in empowering students to achieve things for themselves.

The second step is recognising what things need to stop. Where initiatives and services aren’t effective, we want to encourage you to come ask us, the students, what can be done to improve them, change them, or perhaps stop them. We will be honest and say when we think this, too, should be run by students. This step, admittedly, is significantly harder to achieve. A partnership built on trust can enable this change in culture to naturally emerge.

The third step is recognition of our realities. Collectively, we don’t excel in every space. We do get representation wrong for some of our communities, and we haven’t gotten it right when it comes to the offer that we give them and the way we ask them to engage. The continued belief in the SU-university partnership is, in my opinion, the only way to tackle this problem. When we speak to each other, share resource, and respect each other’s ability to influence, we’ll improve our offer.

I’m sure everyone can think of more steps and perhaps better ways to continue this journey.

In this, my final address to you as president of the Union, I can only encourage you to keep this conversation going.

My five years at Bath have been of complete self-development and transformation, constant challenge to myself and to others, and of the emergence of an overwhelming conviction that Bath, under the right leadership and with well-reasoned decisions, will be recognised globally as the best student experience in the world. And wow, what a reputation that will be.

Thank you all for your time, for your support during these two years, and for everything you have done for students in this university. Please do stay in touch past my time in Bath.

If anyone has any further questions, we’ll linger around the stage for a few more minutes.

Thank you.

 

 

See you at the end of handover, for one last dance. 

In the meantime, stay tanned and be kind to one another. 

Much love, 

Jiji x