It’s an extremely busy period in HUU at the moment. Elections are frantically taking over many students lives in their quests to be the next elected representatives of Hull University Union. I have been really pleased with the ideas and energy provided by every candidate so far and I wish them all the very best of luck in what is an extremely challenging but highly rewarding elections week.

Our Student Conference was a huuuge success. Thank you to the 160 students that came to the event and also a special thanks to HUU:TV, JAM and Hullfire for covering the conference. A more detailed article of the event can be found at: http://hullstudent.com/education/news/index.php?page=article&news_id=310053

At the moment, the NSS (National Student Survey) is live and available for ALL final year students to fill in. Our new and exciting NSS-O-Meter is in the Union foyer and we have set a target of 70% of respondents. Make sure you head to www.thestudentsurvey.com and fill it in. You could win one of 5 iPads!! The survey is also extremely useful to both the Uni of Hull and HUU in helping to measure your satisfaction with regards to your student experience, so fill it in!

Ongoing is our first EVER Student Led Teaching Awards. We are providing you with the opportunity to nominate your lecturers, admin staff, module etc to be recognised and rewarded. Please head to http://www.hullstudent.com/education/news/index.php?page=article&news_id=296363 to nominate ONLINE. The awards are not just a celebration of good teaching, but they are also a campaign to improve the quality of learning and teaching provision across the institution. Through disseminating good practice and innovation we can help to inspire areas of weakness to develop and improve. Also, for the first time ever, we are asking students what they consider good learning and teaching to be. We can then use this evidence to define what student expectations are.

In the next couple of months, we are also hoping to implement a shadowing scheme within the University of Hull. We are proposing that Senior Management of the University follow students around for an entire day and experience the challenges that a 21st century student faces on an everyday basis. Equally, students will follow round members of staff, experiencing what it means to be an academic and the difficulties in managing student expectations. All in all, this scheme is designed to enhance the relationship between staff and students and create better understanding about the issues and frustrations that each hold.

Lastly, I am working hard within the committee structures to represent the views of HUU’s Academic Council. We have achieved institutional agreement for a consistent penalty for late submission as well as allowing online submission. I am also working closely with the eCommons project, looking into creating a new elearning system. Lastly, I am contributing to the redevelopment of the Brynmor Jones Library, a campaign we started last year and hopefully looks set to begin this summer. Very exciting!

Thank you for reading.
Best wishes.

Matthew Barrow - @wheelybarrow.

Matthew Barrow VP Education