Doctoral Reps are students who represent the doctoral community’s views and concerns. Their core function is to represent their peers’ voices by listening to their views and concerns, to create positive changes with staff who can act on the feedback.
Doctoral Exec
The Doctoral Exec represent doctoral students at a faculty/school and university level. They are extremely influential in bringing about change in the doctoral community and committed to ensuring the best outcomes for all students within their faculty/school. The Doctoral Exec is made up of a Chair, three Open Positions, Doctoral Faculty Representatives, and the Postgraduate Officer.
Professional placements are on of the SU's Top Tens this year.
To support the professional development of doctoral students, we have collaborated with the careers team and the Doctoral College's skills team to embed professional development into the DoctoralSkills programme. We have also been working with the careers team to set up microplacements - short professional placements which doctoral students can attend during their allocated 10 days for professional development. Unfortunately, the application submitted to the research culture fund to support this was unsuccessful, so we are now exploring other ways to support this important work.
Supervision varies widely, and it's important that it can. There's no single, ideal supervisory style. But in some cases, supervisors haven't had the information or the knowledge of best practice to support doctoral students effectively. Given the importance of the role and the ever-changing University environment, it's crucial that superviors have the training they need.
Aim: Ensure good supervisory practice through the provision of training to all supervisors.
Update: there is now a University supervisor hub, with resources and plans to add additional training. A new 'Confident Conversations' session has been promoted to supervisors, to help in addressing difficult issues. However, training is not yet mandatory, and the SU will continue to stress to the importance of this to the University.
Doctoral students are far more likely to report mental health issues than the average person. The doctoral experience has remarkable pressures and can leave doctoral students feeling isolated and unsupported. There have been improvements for counselling provision and a wider acknowledgement that doctoral mental health needs particular attention. But more needs to be done, and Coronavirus has had additional impacts.
Aim: Review and update the University’s current mental health strategy to include preventative actions in addition to supporting provision.
Your SU Postgraduate Officer and the SU Voice staff Team are here to help you if you have any additional questions.