Being a Student Representative

University of Manchester – EAS Student Representation
Matt Crow (matthew.crow-2@student.manchester.ac.uk)

There are a number of different levels of representation for students of English and American Studies at the University Manchester running from University, through Faculty and School to Subject level.  Last year I sat on the EAS taught programmes committee, the EAS staff-student liaison committee, the School Undergraduate Student Representative Committee, the School Undergraduate Programmes committee and the Faculty staff-student liaison group; all of these groups meet roughly once a semester, some more regularly.

Liaison committees act as a forum for students to express concerns, constructive criticism or praise about their courses or their experiences of study at Manchester, be this access to library resources or feeding back on developments relatively new to the University, such as student use of Blackboard.  Programme committees discuss developments and introductions to course units, among other roles. Here students can feed back on how successful they felt their particular courses ran academically and discuss proposed amendments to courses. Minutes for all meetings are documented, copies of which can be obtained from your representative; all actions taken over points raised in meetings are fed-back at the next committee where relevant.

Representatives are appointed after having nominated themselves for the EAS staff-student liaison committee and draw from both their own experiences and those of a range of other students to contribute to committee discussions; representatives can always be contacted by other students and their details are publicised throughout the year.