Oxford University Student Union
ANNUAL REPORT 2013/2014 Student Engagement & Representation Student Training & Support Improving the Student Experience OUSU and the Community Looking Ahead
Oxford University Student Union
ANNUAL REPORT 2013/2014 Student Engagement & Representation Student Training & Support Improving the Student Experience OUSU and the Community Looking Ahead
OUSU is here to: represent support enhance our vision is of An Oxford where students are genuine partners in shaping their University experience
Message from the President I hope you enjoy reading OUSU’s Annual Report 2013-14. Our achievements are not just those of elected OUSU officers – they’re the result of the dedication and passion of students across the University to change our university and local community for the better. Whether it’s launching exciting new access projects, or picking up a placard to protest against cuts to homelessness services, our members are more active than ever in driving change on the issues that matter to them. I know that all of the Sabbatical Officers have been inspired as they have watched students develop into leaders, as they have seen through projects, and made a lasting impact in their roles. It’s been an incredible year for OUSU – and it’s clear that next year is full of opportunities to make the student voice stronger as OUSU becomes embedded in the everyday student experience.
tom Rutland President Academic Year 2013-2014 Annual Report 2013/2014 www.ousu.org
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Student Engagement & Representation OUSU exists to represent, support and enhance the lives of Oxford students and works towards an Oxford where students are genuine partners in shaping their Oxford experience. Access and Student Support: OUSU’s Target Schools access campaign ran a 3-day roadshow in July 2013, reaching over 650 students in Years 9-12 at 4 different schools in Essex and Camden. In Michaelmas and Hilary terms, 8 shadowing days gave almost 200 secondary school students the opportunity to experience life as an Oxford undergraduate. Target Schools has also set up a termly training session, ‘Target Schools on Tour’, for Oxford students; to aid and encourage people going back to their old schools give talks about Oxford life to dispel myths about the application process. The campaign is working closely with the OUSU Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality to improve access to Oxford for black and minority ethnic students. OUSU produced a brand new Alternative Prospectus, which seeks to give an insight into student life at Oxford. Written, designed and created by students from across the University, it will provide prospective students with a chance to hear from current students about what it’s really like to be at Oxford.
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OUSU worked closely with the University to draft the next Access Agreement, playing a vital role in providing feedback from students who receive financial support under the current package. OUSU partnered with the Oxford Hub to host the inaugural Oxford Education Conference to discuss education inequality and potential solutions. Over 100 students attended and enjoyed panel discussions and a keynote speech by Lord Adonis. Issues concerning the interrelation between access and gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background were considered in depth by panel members and attendees alike. OUSU contributed to the University’s successful bid for £3m of HEFCE’s Postgraduate Support Scheme. This funding will be directed at assisting underrepresented UK/EU students in entering Masters courses. OUSU has continued to maintain pressure to increase the funding available for postgraduate students and is working in partnership with the University to secure
a second phase of the Oxford Graduate Scholarship Matched Fund. OUSU oversaw the awarding of several Reach Oxford Scholarships, an OUSU initiative designed to promote access to Oxford for students from developing countries who have the academic talent but lack the financial means to study here. OUSU’s Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality contributed to the University’s inaugural Race Summit in Hilary Term, an event which brought together 60 key stakeholders from across the University to discuss race and ethnicity at Oxford. Students had the opportunity to tell their stories about the black and minority ethnic student experience, and the University has committed to making race a priority and is looking at reviewing the curriculum of courses to include more BME voices. OUSU partnered with Future First, an education charity seeking to create alumni networks in state schools, to provide role models for current pupils. OUSU signed up more than any other student union in the country, accounting for nearly 5% of the national sign ups. OUSU Council remained an active forum for debate and discussion on issues that matter to students, with a robust response given from the student body when the Vice-Chancellor made a speech calling for higher tuition fees. International Students OUSU’s International Students’ Campaign held the successful OUSU International Festival 2014 in the Oxford Town Hall, with over 1000 students joining us to celebrate the international experience at Oxford. OUSU, as part of a National Union of Students coordinated effort, lobbied over 170 members of the House of Lords to oppose elements of the immigration bill - especially the part that would see our 8,000 international students face a £150
charge to use the NHS. OUSU has produced a leaflet for incoming international students informing them of all the health services available, which we hope to provide to next year’s freshers.
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Engaging Students in their Union
Turnout in our annual elections grew marginally (by 0.1%), giving us a total turnout of 21% – 2% higher than two years ago. A hotly contested set of elections for all sabbatical posts, combined with publicity that began at the Freshers’ Fair, helped to increase turnout. OUSU received a satisfaction rating of 90% in the Student Barometer 2013, demonstrating that the students we engage with value the work done by their student union. OUSU, in conjunction with the Preview Show, produced its first ever welcome video for Freshers’ Week, introducing them to both Oxford and OUSU. This forms a part of our wider strategy to improve communication with our members. OUSU won a landmark increase in its budget for the next three years, allowing us to develop our work on academic representation and supporting clubs and societies, as well as bolster the support we can offer to students through the Student Advice Service. Annual Report 2013/2014 www.ousu.org
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Student Training & Support
OUSU exists not just to represent and support students, but to develop them as empowered leaders who can make positive changes in their common rooms, campaigns and local community. Students’ health and welfare underpins their Oxford experience, and as such OUSU provides support to common rooms to ensure that every student has the support they need. Training and supporting students OUSU has worked with the university to secure access to all central university facilities for suspended status students for academic year 2014-15 and beyond. The collegiate nature of the university means that provision can vary from college to college for such students, and OUSU has been working with college representatives and informing common room leaders on this issue, so as to move towards true parity of experience for suspended status students at different colleges. OUSU’s Student Advice Service has handled hundreds of student cases, and seen an average of 15 students a week in the past year. It continues to be one of OUSU’s greatest services to students, providing confidential, independent and expert advice to students. OUSU trained 68 sexual consent workshop facilitators to run consent workshops in their common rooms, with 17 common rooms adopting the workshops into their Freshers’ Week timetables. OUSU’s Women’s Leadership Development Programme trained 35 women in leadership skills – Annual Report 2013/2014 Page 8
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Student Media
ousu has worked closely with students to educate and train them in media production. hundreds of oxford students have been able to learn more about producing content – from video production, to producing a radio show to writing for a newspaper or magazine.
specifically public speaking, assertiveness, teamwork and negotiation. OUSU’s Mature Students’ Campaign has held twice-termly socials to bring mature students from across the University together. The committee has also planned a brand new orientation day for mature freshers in Michaelmas 2014, ensuring that all mature students have the opportunity to make the most of their time here in Oxford. OUSU has trained divisional board representatives to ensure that students are well represented at a divisional level by representatives who are confident and able to understand their role. Health & Welfare OUSU partnered with the local GUM clinic to host 2 HIV testing sessions in the centre of Oxford to encourage students to check their sexual health. Over 100 students were tested, and many more took chlamydia tests. OUSU’s Student Advice Service is working closely with the Lifeline project, an organization that tackles drug and alcohol abuse, to develop support specifically for students. OUSU held a taster session with them in Trinity Term, with a view to holding regular student-only recovery sessions in OUSU in the future. OUSU’s Mind Your Head campaign partnered with the Oxford University Women’s Rugby Football Club to create a naked calendar that raised over £4000 for the campaign. This funding has allowed the campaign to host an unprecedented number of awareness events across the University, encouraging students to think about mental health, hear personal experiences and gain an understanding of the support available to them. The campaign has built links with groups like Student Minds in order to bring together different forms of support for issues surrounding mental health.
l Working with Common Rooms
OUSU has worked closely with common room welfare reps on a fortnightly basis, holding forums on specific topics to equip welfare reps to fulfill their roles. We have been working alongside common rooms to improve college welfare structures, develop out of term support for international students, and ensure that the peer support network in each college is strong. OUSU ran a skills and negotiation training session for new JCR Presidents in Hilary Term, and is looking to roll this out for all new JCR and MCR Presidents on a termly basis next year. OUSU has provided tailored support to many Common Room Presidents on rent negotiations with colleges, providing them with useful information and statistics, as well as advice on lobbying tactics. OUSU assisted 5 common rooms in running finals forums: sessions that equip students with study skills and challenge exam anxieties. The forums also touched on the gender gap at finals, and discussions were had about how the gap in finals performance between men and women can be eradicated. Annual Report 2013/2014 www.ousu.org
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Improving the Student Experience OUSU believes in improving the lives of Oxford students and ensuring that the best possible student experience is the typical one. Whether undergraduate or postgraduate, home or international student, the years our students spend in Oxford should be some of the best of their life. The wider student experience OUSU worked in partnership with the Oxford University Security Services to source and sell high quality bike locks to students for an affordable price. This new scheme has resulted in the sale of 800 bike locks to students at half price, with 200 being bought directly from OUSU. The local police believe this may be a contributing factor in falling levels of bike theft. OUSU has hosted a Postgraduate Strategy Summit twice this year, in order to bring postgraduate student leaders together to identify key issues for postgraduate students and direct OUSU’s work in this area. OUSU’s Mind Your Head campaign, alongside Students Against Depression and Student Minds, ran a Wellbeing Week in Trinity Term to coincide with National Mental Health Awareness Week. Events such as mindfulness talks and support workshops gave students the opportunity to learn how to look after themselves and their peers. OUSU has delivered talks on Living Out in common rooms across the University to equip students to make an informed decision about where to live. OUSU also ran a poster campaign to discourage students from signing up to house leases early in the academic year, in order for them to view a wide range of properties and not be pressured into renting an unsuitable property.
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OUSU has worked closely with the University and College Union (UCU) representatives to ensure that students and academics can work towards common goals. This year we supported strike action by staff, with the OUSU President addressing the strike rally in the Town Hall, in protest against the real terms pay cuts experienced over successive years by staff. OUSU has contributed to 4 faculty reviews, providing a student perspective on the running of the faculties under review. The student voice in these reviews is vital to ensure that good practice is kept up, and that improvements are made in response to student concerns. OUSU ran its annual Teaching Awards, with financial support from the National Union of Students. A new category, ‘Best Support Staff’, was introduced to celebrate the contribution non-academic staff make to the student experience in Oxford. With almost 400 nominations, it has been the most successful year yet for the Teaching Awards.
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Student Advice Service
OUSU’s Student Advice Service has been professionalized and rebranded, with a full-time manager for the service now in post as a result of our budget uplift. It is beginning to look at preventative measures to support students before they encounter difficulties. The service has registered with Advice UK and will soon be using case management software, allowing cases to be dealt with online.
Liberation campaigns OUSU’s Disabled Students’ Campaign ran a Disability Awareness Week in Michaelmas Term, with many exciting events ranging from film screenings, panel discussions, British Sign Language workshop to welfare tea. The campaign is gearing up to lobby against government proposals to cut the Disabled Students’ Allowance, a lifeline for many Oxford students. OUSU’s LGBTQ Campaign has produced guidance for colleges to create a guide for students who wish to transition. The campaign has also worked closely with the LGBTQ Society to lobby more colleges than ever before to fly the LGBTQ flag during LGBTQ History Month in February. OUSU’s Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality took the opportunity to tell their stories about the black and ethnic minority student experience at Oxford at the Race Summit, and won a commitment from the University to make issues surrounding race a priority. OUSU’s Women’s Campaign committee received training from South London Rape Crisis in understanding sexual violence, and this training has been run locally and been made accessible to women’s officers and welfare officers. It also hosted a Women’s Garden Party with the Women in Politics, Women in Business and Women in Computer Science societies – which brought together women from a variety of backgrounds. The campaign published a zine focusing on inequality that provided a voice for students who had experienced oppression.
Annual Report 2013/2014 www.ousu.org
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OUSU and the Community The relationship between Oxford’s 22,000 strong student body and local residents is one that is vital for ensuring a cohesive local community that students feel a part of during their time here. OUSU believes that students should be active and vocal in the local community, making a positive impact in the city. Students active in their community OUSU built upon the success of its Community Warden scheme, which now employs 10 students on a part-time basis to liaise with members of the local community in Jericho and East Oxford. This year alone, they’ve knocked on over 600 doors in the area. With funding for the scheme now secured, we look forward to continuing the work of fostering good relations between students and local residents in future years. OUSU, alongside students, permanent residents, Colleges, the University, Oxford Brookes University, the police and the City Council, has coordinated the Oxford Student Community Partnership Group to provide a forum for discussion of local issues that may impact upon students and/or local residents. OUSU has worked with the Proctors’ Office to reduce food wastage after the tradition of ‘trashings’ by partnering with Oxford Food Bank, to put food that has been confiscated by the colleges to good use. Student fundraising OUSU’s charitable fundraising arm, Raise and Give (RAG) has had its most successful year ever – on track to raise more than £150,000 in 2013-14. This represents a 50% increase on 2012-13. OUSU’s RAG organized a variety of exciting fundraisers, including the RAG Ball, Jailbreak (with one team getting all the way to Japan), and a climb up Mount Kilimanjaro. Students across the university elected KEEN, Against Malaria Foundation, 28 Too Many and Oxford Homeless Pathways as the charities for the coming year. Students supporting good causes OUSU’s Living Wage campaign has enjoyed an unprecedented year of action and success with a living wage now being paid to cleaners in Estates Services managed UAS buildings (including Wellington Square and OUSU), and staff in Mansfield College, St Anne’s College and the Department of Education. The University’s Personnel Committee has also expressed its support for the living wage, and conversations surrounding extending the living wage to indirectly employed staff continue with growing support.
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OUSU mobilized students to campaign against the County Council’s decision to cut homelessness services in Oxford by 38% - and because of this action (coordinated with other local stakeholders and concerned citizens) the Council delayed a third of the cuts by one year. OUSU, in response to the cuts, launched a new campaign to tackle homelessness in our city: On Your Doorstep. The campaign has been putting donation boxes in colleges to ensure responsible and safe giving. OUSU, in partnership with the Oxford Hub, launched the One Hour a Week campaign which encourages students to use at least one hour of their week to engage in a good cause – whether focused on a local issue, or one of national or international significance. OUSU officers established the very first ‘Oxford Tenants’ Union’, which has been set up to improve the private housing experience in Oxford for students and local residents. Direct support has been provided in the form of community support
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RAise and give OUSU’s charitable fundraising arm, Raise and Give (RAG) has had its most successful year ever – on track to raise more than £150,000 in 2013-14. This represents a 50% increase on 2012-13.
and advice, and a ‘Know Your Rights’ awareness scheme has also been set up. The group aims to tackle the issue of high letting agents’ fees, one which many students have raised as a key problem in the private housing sector in Oxford. Engaging students in local democracy OUSU has met with local councillors to discuss how best to prevent the changes to voter registration from harming students’ ability to express their views at the polls in future elections – whether local, general or European. OUSU hosted a hustings for the local council elections in May, allowing students to hear from (and question) the candidates hoping to represent them.
Annual Report 2013/2014 www.ousu.org
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M Looking Ahead
The year ahead is an exciting one for OUSU.
b Academic Representation
The hiring of a new Academic Representation Officer will allow us, for the first time, to provide training and support to course reps at all levels – ensuring students are active partners in their learning experience.
Ycampaigning
The growth of OUSU’s On Your Doorstep campaign to alleviate homelessness will allow students from across the University to come together to tackle an issue that inspired a wave of activism this year.
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ADVICE
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Communication
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clubs and Societies
The addition of a full-time Student Advice Service Manager to the staff team will double the capacity of the Student Advice Service, allowing us to serve more students more quickly – as well as allowing us to provide advice and support for students before they encounter difficulties.
The new communications team will allow OUSU to tackle one of its key issues: better engagement with the student body. Students will be better able to direct the work of their union and be increasingly aware of the work being done by their elected officer.
OUSU will have the capacity to work more closely with student-run clubs and societies, of which there are over 750 in Oxford. This represents an incredible opportunity to engage with students who may not be particularly involved in OUSU currently, and fits in with our strategy of embedding ourselves in the day-to-day experience of all Oxford students.
Annual Report 2013/2014 www.ousu.org
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