 Well, good afternoon everyone everyone's having a very good day at the symposium the second day of the symposium I didn't actually realize that Adelaide was 30 minutes behind Sydney. So I did log on at three in Sydney actually So I'll get started So before we begin in the spirit of reconciliation I'd like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Orinatian upon ancestral lands our city campus now stands UCS And also like to pay respect the elders both past presence and emerging Acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these places and wherever you are joining us from today across Australia For a little bit of introduction, I'll sort of give a brief rundown about me. My name is Kurt obviously I'm currently a third year law and communication student here at UCS in Sydney and by virtue of my role in the university's academic board I was asked to join SVA and by that I sort of Wanted to present a bit of a bit about a sort of what I've been doing at UCS And I'm also a number of on a number of other committees including misconduct Which is also under governance and at a society level vice president for our law society In terms of exciting projects. I've done in two years In my leadership roles at the university last year worked on embedding indigenous graduate attributes This looked at how do we improve the embedment of cultural competency across our curriculum followed by some indigenous Representation reforms which I actually did in the past three months where we added an indigenous student onto academic board Which took about three months of governance and policy changes and was officially voted on unanimously by academic board last Wednesday Followed by next month after exams I'll be working on academic integrity in a COVID-19 landscape. How do we ensure academic integrity? When we have for example online exams as opposed to physical and the one bolded is the one I'll be presenting on today Which is a plan that I've been working on since March last year. It's about 14 15 months now And it'll be a continued play over the next two years and I guess for a bit of context I'll probably just go through a little bit at Very briefly use. Yes has 45,000 students 4,000 staff. We're a very very young university We're only established in 1988 So when the 33 years old and we're currently ninth in ninth in Australia and 133rd in the world and we're first in Australia for universities under 50 years old We also have 210,000 plus alumni living across 140 countries. Let's get started A bit of a run-through about what today is going to look like I'll go through a bit about the background of the plan and a simple layout of what governance sort of looks like a new CS Which I'm sure your institutions would look very similar And then I'll go through issues This will sort of be quite brief I think the reason why we're all here today and kind of this imposing is that we know there are issues with student governance and student participation governance rather And we will primarily focus on the recommendations. There'll be the crux of this presentation. How do we fix it? How do we take these issues that for example? I've identified a UCS, but also do all many other institutions But how do we actually fix it and how do we implement these recommendations? And then I wrap up by concluding on the end goals of what this whole plans about And there will be an opportunity for Q&A at the end as well So for a bit of background, the Student Leadership Plan Students as Partners Plan was devised over 12 months with 75 individual consultations in 2020 The plan identifies issues with a lack of student participation in university governance and aims to address this with nine recommendations When I started the plan in about March last year, it came about because after three months in my first year on academic board I realized that no one was actually motivated to get involved and quite a lot of my student colleagues were actually at the time We only had four out of nine Because the five remained remained and so remaining Had to be nominated because no one went in the election So they were waiting for someone to be picked by staff member So I thought how do we fix this? So over the course of 2020 last year, I started planning started consulting I see at least the person is also with us today. Who's from UCS? So I've consulted her as well out of the 75 And subsequently in December last year I handed down a report as well as the plan to deputy vice chancellor for education students with the support of a key university department including governance On how do we actually implement this? And originally I thought it would be fairly easy But when it comes to implementation it came Came to a quick reality check that it does take time. So we've decided to wait two years over this year and 2022 currently the plan of UCS is up to The second recommendation out of 12 and it's progressing very well Recommendations are grouped into short medium and long-term goals over two years So for a bit of background it's at a glance about the structure of governance to UCS I'm sure this is very very similar with many other institutions Joining us from today It's essentially our council, which is essentially the university council or the senate Other universities might call it the senate and of course you would have academic board or academic senate However, however you wish to call it And then you have a number of committees under that and you have faculty boards that govern each individual faculty school or division And then committees of faculty board. So the blue icons in the blue box Is the university governance roles and the ones in gray Are the external bodies So there's essentially three problems of student leadership at our university You have governance, which is the blue ones the main ones the boards or committees And on either side of it you have the src, which i'm sure Many students who are joining us today from your institutions. You might be from your src But also we have what's called activate us. Yes, we use our on-campus service provider So this is the organization that runs all the clubs and societies or the fun things, I guess And many people at the end of the day just get very confused about these three problems So The next slide you'll notice there'll be a slight change And it's grayed out Basin percentage compares the last slide there are 52 former student leadership positions And I'd use yes in the last five years more than half Of the formal leadership and governance positions on boards and committees more than half remained Reagan's after elections and this goes usually If a single person puts the name up for the role they automatically get it If no one goes to the role then over a few months in the following year A staff member just chooses someone to fill the position But you need to meet quorum you need to meet requirements and just choose someone So that's just for a bit of background and context About the plan and what it looks like at ucs, which i'm sure is very similar to your institution as well So now the more important part the issues The plan identified six issues I'm I thought the and for all intents and purposes this whole presentation is a more simplified version It allows you to take it back to your institution and actually have a look and actually apply it to the institution because The actual plan at ucs is very ucs centric So I've diluted it a little bit for the purposes of this presentation. The first one is confusion Which i'm sure is very analogous of many, you know, many other universities There is a general confusion about the term student leadership We throw it around everywhere. It's a term people use to get students to come to our university It's a term people use to get involved. It's a term that student societies use to get people to come to events So it's just a lot of confusion. How do you distinguish bodies such as activate which is your on campus society provider And the student association which is the src, but also 52 formal board and governance committee positions It's very very hard and it doesn't help when the elections all happen in the same week Which happens at our university So you're asking students to vote in so many different things in the one week for three different things That have hundreds of different positions in them It's quite confusing obviously But it also comes down to university wide awareness. It comes down to culture So awareness of elections and misconceptions about the three different Representative bodies need to be addressed. But how do you actually do this? um Cultures are very hard thing to change at universities um, obviously From obviously i mostly just know about new south wales universities, but um, we We're on for example, you know, we're only 33 years old. We're not university Sorry, we're not the university of sydney or university south wales have been around for well over 100 years And have a very strong, I guess student Activism culture a very strong student political culture as well a very strong culture on election time So how do you change that and how do you actually address it? It's one of the key issues we'll focus on And now we move on to the student experience. So congratulations. You've won a position. You've been nominated officially on a board or committee But what's the actual student experience on there? So the experience of an elected student leader is quite often Basin consultation is quite mundane I mean, you have a lot of dead time in between meetings. You might have a meeting every two months But what happens between these meetings? Or for example, you get into the position in january Like your first meeting isn't until march about three months is already Sort of easing out of your one-year term And that three months you could have done a lot and that means you probably have about nine months remaining And most meetings happen in between the semesters of six months So technically your term is one year, but the actual work that you're engaged in is probably six months How do you maximize the amount of time? And cater to this student experience when they're on these positions The fourth one is limited direction once you're in the role Once you're actually in the role and doing stuff How do you sort of scope out? What are you actually meant to do? What happens if a student comes here with issues? Who do you actually contact if there's an issue? Who is actually who do I actually report to technically? You know, I might be on the academic board, but is there a person that I can go to specifically? If I have a particular issue Or if I need an issue of raise or requires attention, is there actually a particular person that I sort of have to speak to? Or give you know, if I was in a role, that's quite new. I'd like some direction But you're in the role where you simply kind of contact anyone And I'll now go to the networks and opportunities So by virtue of a person's position Student leaders have the opportunity to capitalize on the opportunity to meet staff Work and projects and be invited and contribute in other ways For example, me coming on to SVA is By virtue of our DBC asking me to get involved And I'll finish off with handover and recognition There are no formal processes for handing over the role to an incumbent Nor is it tangible recognition for a student leaders participation You want recognition? I know, you know credit isn't everything But you would like something to recognize that you did something and you spent a whole year during a university degree So now go to how do we fix this confusion and awareness? Firstly, it's a website So we recently went through a whole redesign of our UCS website to include the names and headshots of the top 12 student leaders Obviously not feasible to include all 52 or every single student representative So we included the 10 on The governance roles of the boards and committees on council and academic board one on activate UCS and one from the student association The election frequently asked questions information will soon be very recent by student leaders From a student perspective, but the moment when you read it from I guess When we read it from I guess Our perspective you can tell the staff and wrote it You know, no one knows what you know, what electorate are you in or what constituency are you in that? You can only represent constituencies in law very very complex information in the moment on our website So over the summer break the winter break. Sorry coming up. I'll be working on rewriting this as a whole But it's also coming down to social media. We all know how powerful social media can be Um, it is a great medium for us to broadcast the messages of student reps But of course keeping in line with the I guess Mantra of the university or the tone of voice of the university Um, they're quite often needs to be screened and ensured, you know, it's consistent branding or whatnot Um, so sharing key achievements, um, or anything really big happens Student leaders have the opportunity To share that with people Um, so what does it actually look like? So this slide will now show us a little bit about Um, what we've been doing use here in the last two months with the plans implementation So our website has recently went through the redesign So the marketing team did a photo shoot of all the 12 student reps As you can see to your left as well as the position headshot a brief bio And an email contact option to contact your respective student leader Based on statistics, this website has had high amount of traffic since its launch about three weeks ago And I realize I've gotten a little bit more emails than I ordinarily would get Before the website launched. So it does seem to be working, but there'll be four more I guess reflection later down the track this year But on the topic of social media And sharing achievements. This is sort of what it looks like These are photos only for the from last three months. They're only photos of me So I hope that doesn't seem too indulgence. I couldn't be bothered to ask for permission from the other student reps to get their photos but these are photos of Me and a few my student colleagues meeting with the senior executive to discuss a whole host of things And they will be shared of social media The one to your far right was last wednesday when we passed historic Reforms and academic board to introduce an indigenous student member who is in the middle there And that was weird. Professor mark mcdaniel who many of you might know from your institutions as well And that is you'd be shared on the university social media in the coming weeks So now move on to The student experience and limited direction. How do you fix this? Firstly and induction Student leaders will receive a tailored induction guide And that details for example how to raise issues key staffs, you know Meeting protocol and who's who the potential for an induction guide is not limited to those four options Um many different institutions would have different ways for students to approach things But our induction guide will focus on those key items Meetings student leaders will have the opportunity to meet with the relevant staff that always have the right to meet with relevant staff For example, student leaders and academic board will meet periodically with the dvc education students Followed by the dean or associate dean from their respective faculty of school that represents Which we did in the past few months It came to a sharpened surprise when I spoke with my student colleagues at other universities Around our area as well in sitting But their dean or associates and refused to meet with the student leader often saying we don't have time or They just don't have time Usually is the answer and no one's that busy to not meet for 15 minutes Just to know the students who will be working with you for the next year who is sitting next to you at meetings for the next year But consultation it's really important that our student leaders were connected with key parts of the university when it comes to consultation um, so before raising issues formally, we should have the option to Go to someone so for example an executive officer for that relevant committee and be like hey I'd like to raise this issue. Should I raise it formally or should I get some consultation beforehand? So for example last year Me my student colleagues obviously jumped the gun a little bit, but we'll move to online learning We had a bit of recommendations how we can improve it Such as the consistency of the length of zoom sessions and all subjects being regulated Some subjects had none some had three hours Etc and we were told that we weren't really told anything so we formally raised it It was a dress immediately at the meeting because It's almost wrong to not offer zoom sessions in the subjects during covid last year But we perhaps could have consulted with the relevant department or even The institute for interactive meeting and learning which could have assisted So it's things like that. I have an ability to consult before formally raising issues Now I'll move on to networks and opportunities So networking at the moment we've hosted two So networking morning after in tears are hosted with all student reps and leaders across university Including governance including activate and the src are invited. It doesn't matter, you know where you're from All student leaders in any leadership are invited And this is an opportunity to speak informally with senior leaders to meet other staff as well But also sit on the respective community that you're on outside of formal business But we find when you meet staff even before and after a formal meeting you might get 10 minutes to chat before and after But it doesn't really go towards its purpose So it's a purpose I guess planned networking opportunity for the students which we've done twice now, which works quite well But a hand over document is really important But when I first got into the role in 2020 I couldn't get in touch with the 2019 student rep for law On academic board because they graduated and I couldn't find them on social media either So there should be a formal document where you have a continuity of student leadership I do know there is another session going on at the moment which talks about continuity Of student leadership when a student finishes up their term How do you hand over the next person? There's a few questions that will let you to read You know, it's just simple. It could be a one page a full document which the student rep completes at the end of their term We you can talk about how you found your time on that committee to see and you know, any final tips You'd like to give your successor And the last one is a thank you from the vice chancellor Recognition last year at the request of myself and a few student colleagues who were on the board I guess previously we thought we don't have an end of your thank you event Which they usually do because of COVID What if the vice chancellor sent out a letter to every student to thank them It doesn't have to be personalised every single letter, but Obviously something addressed to the student would be nice and every student leader received one And it's that sort of recognition that came to a surprise to many of my other colleagues when we received it And that's now become a recommendation as part of the plan, but also as certificates it's not It's at the end of the day It's two pieces of paper, but it's two pieces of paper that provides tangible recognition and a student can actually You know have it as a keepsake And I'm not saying employers will ask, you know, show me proof that you were on x board for this year But it's good to have that element of recognition because before this it's almost like 31st of december finishes it up Thank you for your time And the next person comes in on the 1st of january for another year It's there was no sort of continuity or recognition or sort of a transition at all So now a wrap up So at a glance we talked about confusion. We talked about university wide awareness Then we talked about the student experience the limited direction And networks and opportunities And handover recognition and that results in these 12 recommendations And these four recommendations are now going to be implemented over two years different ways of implementation I didn't go into detail about implementation at your particular institution Because we would all approach it in different ways So I'll wrap up by what will all this actually do So these 12 recommendations will over time foster a university culture of students truly Students as partners where senior leaders work closely with students Increase the participation of students in governance roles who achieve authentic representation Choosing a student to simply fill a role is an authentic representation in my opinion at least Reducing minister burden of university staff reaching out to nominate students that goes towards my previous point It takes a lot of time to reach out to 30 staff and ask those staff to choose a student and hopefully the student accepts that offer Develop lasting skills and networks during student leaders time university I would say in my almost a one year and a half on academic board now The amount of staff that I've met From the vice chancellor to the deputy vice chancellor all the way down to security and cleaning staff that are always you know in The area that I'm working in in one of the rooms. I mean now as well is incredible They're people that you'll keep in touch with and even staff I'm academic staff professional staff Who know you and you'll be connected with them well after your one year on a relevant committee And the last one is create the foundation for students to actually contribute to decisions that affect them That's a crux of student leadership and that's the crux of student representation You want feedback on things on the very things that affect them directly in terms of Overall for q&a believe it's an x slide And that's pretty much it. I noticed there is one question in the chat And that is from fiona Do you have formal recognition in our hags as well? Yes, we do But the point towards recognition is it doesn't provide intangible recognition until the student graduates for our a hags doesn't come out until you Officially are graduated So we don't see our a hags until we get our testimony and we're officially graduated So yes, it provides a degree of recognition there But nothing that you get, you know, if I finish my term Today, I don't see on my hags until I graduate in 2023 So that's our sort of element recognition as well We only have time for about one or two questions But does anyone have any questions feel free to unmute or pop it in the chat Okay, if you can just um share your screen there I'm just going to pop up the um The names of the session the other sessions so that people can start thinking about where they want to go next as well Whilst the questions are happening Just to be clear, this is the the next sessions that are starting about now So, um, we'll just take these questions and then I'll pop the links to these For rooms two and three into the chat if you want to leave and join a different Um session. Thanks. Good back to you. Thanks, Rebecca Thanks for your comments Sonia A lot of work into this sort of plan, um, but very glad it's been implemented and I think it's the openness of the university staff To embrace the plan um overwhelming support from the w vice chancellor to expedite the implementation as well, which is incredible Colleen to have recognition for all p leaders past p advisors We do have p networking, which I think is what you're referring to They actually do so the recommendation of the letter from the vice chancellor and a certificate was actually copied from our p leaders who are volunteer people That transition first year students from orientation at the university. So these are volunteers And we actually copy the exact same recommendation We thought, um, you know at the end of the day even committee members on boards are volunteers So they should get perhaps the same recognition She Hi, it's Sally not Sheila I was just writing to congratulate you on the presentation and I have been I was overwhelmed at the Progress that's been made as you know, I'm an ex um chair of academic board and council member at UTS And um, I'd actually hosted UTS hosted student voice australia When I was doing it's so exciting to see the progress that you have made and I really enjoyed your presentation And if you could congratulate you alexander as well for me, that would be great Absolutely. I look forward I look forward to hearing more Thank you very much alisha couldn't have done it without your support and many many chats throughout the year Fantastic. Well, I think that wraps up my session for this symposium. Um, thank you all for joining and listening I hope you can take back some of the ideas and recommendations back to your Institution, hopefully we can really convene um at the next symposium or any other opportunity we've made cross paths on that I hand it back to Rebecca. Thank you. Thanks. Kurt so impressive. Um, so if you are staying with us Our next presenter is Nira Raman with Campbell Ryder and Wajihair Aisha And from the University of Melbourne, I think they're with us