So my first week of training as Education Officer is over, and what a week it's been! The SU put on a packed schedule of induction talks and training sessions, and we were introduced to key members of staff from across the University and the Union. In between all of this, I spent two days at the National Union of Students (NUS) conference for education officers.
The week started with introductions to the Union and its strategy, plus meetings with Mike Glover, the Academic Registrar and Jo Horsburgh, the Deputy Registrar of the University. A session with Peter Dunn, the Director of Press and Policy, detailed how we can work with the press to communicate our messages.
The next day involved an early start to drive up to the NUS Education Lead and Change conference at Keele University.
As a student, the NUS can often come across as a distant body that does not appear to do much, but my experiences at conference certainly challenged this view. The NUS is invaluable to Studentsโ Unions around the country - providing training to officers, resources, research and reports to help SUs and students. Conferences are also a unique place to meet fellow Sabbatical Officers and share ideas.
It was interesting to talk to other Sabbs about how they have gone about campaigning for recorded lectures, online submission and better feedback. It was also an occasion to feel proud and communicate some of the great work Warwick SU has done and things Warwick gets right!
Lead and Change covered some broad topics, from training on leadership and coaching to the national challenges in higher education we will be facing over the next year. One of the plenaries was an eye-opening session on the diversity of the student body: one statistic that has stayed in my head since the conference is that 80% of Black PhD students drop out of their first year. It is clear there are some incredibly important issues we need to work together as a movement to address at a local and national level.
On Friday afternoon, the current Sabbs put on the most challenging and stressful session of the week. Put in our calendars simply as 'Scenarios', we had no idea what it would involve.
The purpose of the exercise was a role-play to see how we as a Sabb team dealt with rapidly developing and challenging situations: essentially the assessment centre from hell! We were given a shared email account which rapidly filled up with tasks to be completed, while the outgoing Sabbs role-played being students and staff members with challenges we had to deal with. ย We were faced with a perfect storm of things going wrong, and had to work together to plan strategy, mediate disputes, write press statements, and more.We walked out at the end of the session exhausted, but feeling stronger and more united as a team!
By far the best session of the week involved us coming in early on a Saturday morning for an equality and diversity workshop led by Amit Popat, a specialist in the area who has worked with the NHS, trained barristers on diversity topics and was the Diversity Advisor for the University of the Arts, London.
Amit led a challenging and hard-hitting workshop, taking us through exercises which highlighted our own unconscious biases. We looked at what Warwick SU and the University does well on equality and diversity issues, together with what could be improved, then spent time discussing cultural competence.
Most importantly, the session highlighted that change and progress does not come as the result of benevolent decisions made by politicians - it comes through radical action. Equality and diversity issues are not a separate sphere: they are ingrained in systems and structures of oppression. For change to happen, we need to be intersectional and we need to be radical.
As our President Isaac commented, we are very blessed to have an excellent team of part-time officers and liberation societies. As a sabbatical team we want to do everything possible to empower others and make their voices heard.
All in all, it's been a pretty phenomenal, exhausting, and at times stressful week. We as a team can't wait for the next week of handover, and for the year ahead!
Charlie Hindhaugh
Education Officer
