Over the coming year, sparqs’ project on departmental representation will be developing resources to assist institutions and students’ associations to enhance the way they engage students at the departmental level – structures which are often also called faculties, schools or sectors.
Project work will include researching and producing toolkits on topics such as defining, recruiting, training and incentivising departmental representative roles, plus providing guidance on developing training materials, engaging staff, and sharing effective practice between institutions. The aim will be to provide support not only to those institutions with well-established departmental representative systems, but also those with new or developing systems – as well as those who do not have departmental representation and are interested in exploring the concept.
This work is being supported by an advisory group of students and staff from different institutions across Scotland, and while the HE sector is well represented on the group, at least one more participant from the college sector would help bring valuable perspective about the challenges and opportunities of departmental representation in colleges. This could be someone in any staff or student officer role who has an interest in the engagement of students in departmental structures.
The project is likely to last for around a year, and while the bulk of the advisory group’s work is conducted via email, there are occasional face-to-face meetings (for which travel is reimbursed).
For more information about the project, or the opportunities for staff or students from colleges to join its advisory group, please contact Simon Varwell on 01463 273572 or simon.varwell@sparqs.ac.uk
