 we're actually in the same building, we're just in a different space at the moment. We're going to be talking about something quite practical, what student representatives look like at Flinders with a particular focus on a level of student representation that I think is quite unique to Flinders. I'm the student representation and development officer. I work within the Student Association. Lee-Wen is my colleague. She works in a support role at FUSA, the Student Association, but also was a topic rep, a student rep originally and has sort of moved into this role, support role as well because we as you see that's part of our model is we like to continue to kind of build the capacity of our reps to kind of invite them into the workplace and then you know we get the benefit of working alongside former student reps as well as colleagues. So I just want to acknowledge country. We begin today by acknowledging the Ghana people and the land in which we're presenting is the Ghana land. We respect their spiritual relationship with country and acknowledge Ghana people as the traditional custodians of the Adelaide region and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still as important to the living Ghana people today. We extend respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here and to Elders past and present. So a bit of a snapshot of student representation at Flinders. So we undertook a review of student representation back in 2017. So quite a few years ago now and as you would imagine if you did a review at some of your institutions we did find a fair lack of engagement and support for student reps. The kind of general thought was that students were maybe a bit apathetic and not great contributors on boards and committees that maybe students had roles. There was a student rep but they didn't really turn up or they didn't really speak very much. I mean of course there were always exceptions to this but that was sort of generally what was in place. There were positions for students on boards and committees and not really that much else going on. So from that review we produced a series of recommendations looking at the structure, looking at support and training, looking at recognition opportunities and things like that because it was really clear that there was just the kind of very basics in place but not much else. So we really needed to look at how we were going to improve, how we did things at Flinders and luckily there was like real enthusiasm for that work. Good news is since that review was conducted and the recommendations were presented there has been quite a lot of change and significant progress within our institution. So some of the highlights are that we now have a comprehensive network of more than 360 student representatives. It differs each year but up to 400 student reps in place across colleges and I should say and no no language is different in every university. We use the language of colleges. We have six colleges so that might be what you would call a faculty. I don't know if anyone else uses colleges but say it's a faculty. We don't have schools so after that review that we did we actually changed from faculties and schools just to six colleges so that's what we're talking about now. So that network of reps that doesn't include the elected student representative council so you could add another 20 students to that number of reps. So as you can see we kind of went from a handful of reps maybe like that'd be under 100 to over 360 and they're in place to directly impact the quality of teaching and learning and the student experience. So every university and college committee has at least two student representatives. That was also something that came out of the review that there shouldn't only ever be just one student. There often would be that lonely student that's sitting on a board and a committee but we found that it's best if there's at least two students to support each other but also to just to share the workload and also why not have two students as often like lots and lots of academics sitting around a table. So there's it's sort of understood now if you're going to have student involvement in a committee or board or a workshop that you have at least two and that's the very minimum I think and that often is more. Also following that review all reps receive training and support so a lot of the reason why we you know you look at why were the reps not so involved the why they were a little bit disengaged. A lot of the time they just didn't really understand what their role was. They weren't empowered to they didn't feel empowered to kind of speak up or understand that their perspective was really valued and that they they were equals around the table. So training really helps with that. So we have training targeted training in place for the different different types of reps across the university which we run out of the Student Association and we also make sure that reps are rewarded through our extracurricular recognition program called Horizon. All students get a certificate of recognition signed by the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Students but we're also moving towards official recognition on transcripts, academic transcripts and things that have more currency to students as well. As a whole like student reps across the university are not paid positions as you can understand more than 360 that's a lot. Student Council do have some payment attached with some sort of rec honorarium. It's not an hourly pay or anything like that. But yeah we also sort of talk to reps about how the experience that they're getting from being a representative is valuable in itself as well. So those relationships that they build particularly have some currency but yeah reward and recognition is really really important. So I think there has been a general culture change around listening and responding to students at the unit within the university and it's sort of routine for students now to be involved in reviews, planning, decision making, all that type of thing as well. There's always room for improvement though. So that's sort of a snapshot of where we're at at the university. This is quite an ugly chart but I'm sorry I couldn't go to our four overworked media team at the moment and asked them to make it look prettier. So this is what it is but it might it's something I can speak to at least. So there are multiple channels and opportunities that exist for students to engage in governance and decision making within the university and this is one particular way. So this is thinking about where those boards and committees exist and how students can be involved. So it's a very traditional model of student representation I understand but I think there's still a place for it in our universities. So we have student representation at both topic level and course level. We don't have topic reps across the university. One unique feature of our university is just how unique and each of the colleges are in the way that they want to do things. I think we will be moving towards more of a consistent model but the way things have been set up here is that each college does things slightly differently to kind of meet their own needs and to fit in with sort of what works best for them that particular college. So at some within one college there's topic representatives across the entire college. When I say topic again it's a language issue. I mean class or unit or it's like that subject level. So the very subject so students might be studying say four subjects per semester. I'm talking about every single topic. So it's the lowest level of sort of structure within the university. That's quite unique. I understand it's not in places like New Zealand where class level representation is fairly standard and that's sort of where we picked up the idea from. So we have reps at topic level but then there's also course reps in some colleges. They meet with course coordinators. Topic reps meet with topic coordinators. They then report up to or they participate in a student advisory committee which hopefully then sends a report up to the college education committee which is sort of highest level learning and teaching and teaching board in a college which then moves up to university level committees, education quality, academic centre and university council where there's student representation as well. There are other ways as well for students to participate in decision making and governance at the university but this is what we're focusing on particularly today. So I'm going to talk specifically about topic reps because I think that's quite unique and something that I think you might all be interested in. The main role of a topic representative is to provide an opportunity for staff to work closely with students who are experiencing their topic in real time and it's an opportunity to be responsive to small changes that can be made to improve the student experience and also hopefully the experience of academics too and also inspire maybe some future changes, some bigger changes further down the track. So it's quite a low level kind of small issue discussion but it's in the place where students I think find a lot of meaning or it really impacts them. So if their assessments are confusing or there's something to do with the pace in which the information is being provided to them in lectures or anything to do or any skill that they haven't developed or any question that they have about a topic, the topic rep is there to have that conversation with topic coordinators about you know what the students are thinking. So it gives voice I guess in that way to that quiet student body. Topic reps are also encouraged to be reflective of their own experience as a learner but it's also really clear that we make it also really clear in training that they're not there just to represent their own views they're there to canvas the views of the wider student body as well. So I see it as a very kind of grassroots level of student voice enabling students to have an impact on direct on their direct learning experience. We do see students as experts in their own learning and providing a really invaluable experience. So the idea is that the student views in dialogue with staff will improve the learning experience. I'm going to move on so Lee Nguyen can have a chat one second and I'm just going to share this quote from an academic staff member about just gives you a bit of a reflection on what academics what academics might think of the being part of topic rep program at Flinders. So this academic is talking about it being a good opportunity for staff and students to have a dialogue and I think having that formal role for a topic rep to have that conversation and to discuss issues that maybe other that the student body is raising is really important because often they might be that kind of quiet rumbling or it could just be radio silence for that academic but there are actually issues having this connection point to a rep to have that conversation I think formalizes it and and really helps to have that conversation because I think it really it goes some way to equalizing some of that power dynamic as well because the rep has an official role to play and they and students have indicated that that has made a big difference. So yeah it's all it's all about giving staff a better understanding of the student perspective and what isn't isn't working. So I'm going to hand over to Lee Nguyen to talk about a day in the life of a topic rep. Hello I'm Lee Nguyen. Let me share my personal experience of being a topic representative here at Flinders and Kate has full control of this slide. Yes thanks Kate. So I became a topic representative here at Flinders for a second year biology topic in 2020 that's when the topic coordinator sent our email asking if there's anyone waiting to pull their hand up to be the topic representative for the topic. I did and I was successful and I thought it was a great it's going to be a great opportunity for me to to build a good relationship just for some personal growth as well and it was a really big cohort. We had about over 250 students in that topic and we had four topic representatives for the cohort. In general as Kate mentioned we normally recommend have two representatives for each topic but for a topic that's that size larger than over 100 students will have extra topic representatives for the topic. So we believe that student work better together with their peers and I certainly feel that way. All of us work really close together with the topic coordinator. We work as a breach between the silent student body and the topic coordinator. We're there to enhance the voice in the silent student body and here are my duties and responsibilities and the first of all of course I need to make myself known to the class. I just stood in front of class and introduced myself to everyone. Here I'm the channel. I'm someone you can talk to if you think there's any issues in the class and my major duty and responsibility of this role is to gather student opinions of their views of their learning experience in the classroom. So by doing that we generally just have a general chat have a casual conversation. We believe that's a great start to gather student views. We will have a general chat just before or after class and see how they're going. Just before the mid semester break we did a mid semester checkpoint and we did as a post note survey. So in person we did have that privilege to do such thing in person in that year. So we send out postie notes in the classroom and ask them is there anything you are really happy with the class? Is there anything you think we need to improve on and what are your expectations for us as a topic representative? And then we collect notes with teachers through them and we organize the meeting with the teaching staff or go through those student opinions and we figure out we'll pick up the issues and then try to implement some solutions and we figure out some strategies to go through those issues. Apart from that meeting we also organize regular meetings with teaching staff as well. For us it was a 30 minutes meeting every four nightly just to reflect on what's going on in the classroom, what is working, what is not. So they have a good idea of what's going on in the classroom. As Kate mentioned before we are the experts in our learning experience. We know what's going on in the classroom a lot better. So being this topic representative here at Flinders, obviously it's a highlight of my life at Flinders. At the end of the semester we got told the student satisfaction rate went up to 73% from previous year. So that was a big jump. Big improvement of student satisfaction rate. We were so proud that we were part of that and what we did to actually improve that student learning experience and it showed in hard data. For me personally I've gained so much skills, leadership skills, communication skills and negotiation skills as well and I've built some really beautiful relationships with teaching staff as well as my cohort. I talk to so many students that some of them are not in my normal social group and built some beautiful friendship just by doing this role. And obviously it's not just all rainbows and unicorns there and there are always challenges that are coming with this role. One of the challenges we're facing are the communication challenges and at some time the student will bring up the issue that is way beyond the teaching staff's control so that there are times we couldn't fix the problem. And between all of us of this topic representatives we don't always agree on the same thing but that's okay. Challenges is where collaborations and the growth happen. We always work through our challenges and find improvement through the program. And this is definitely, I had a really great experience being the topic representatives and are you great to see that I'm not the only one that enjoyed being a topic representative and there is a reflection from a different topic rep. Here's my little unicorn there. I was waiting for my unicorn to show up. Okay. Yeah so here is a reflection from another topic representative and obviously it's a reflected that was extremely rewarding experience for this topic rep as well. And something I want to mention here as well and it mentioned student being able to work together to provide my cohort affair. You're calling a student-oriented experience has changed the way I view the hierarchy we have at a university. That's how I felt as well. I really felt that being a topic representative in the classroom empowered the student really give that ownership to the student. So we own the topic as well and not just the teaching staff. We work together. We as a teaching staff really empowered us as a student and we know that we can make changes for the future cohort as well. As I keep emphasizing there was a really great experience for me to be a topic representative here at Flinders and luckily for me my involvement in this program didn't end there when the topic finished. FISA was recruiting new topic representative trainer and I was successful. So I got offered to join in this training the trainer program. It was a great opportunity for a previous topic rep to become a trainer and I was offered this really great training program to get to learn how this program developed why we were on the training sessions in a certain way and I was really always well supported in my role as well. Once I finished the train the trainer program and they sat with me watch me to run the training session before I can I feel ready to spread the wings and then to do this on my own. I always mentioned that to the student in the club in the training during the training session that I am a current student and as a previous topic reps I'm here to share my experiences and challenges and I'm here to help you develop some strategies and hopefully it'll be helpful for you to use in your topic environment as well and I feel through that I'm really connected with new topic representatives just by sharing my previous experiences and I will be able to support them throughout the semester and it's and this is also a paid position I get paid to join the train the trainer program I get paid to prepare the training session of course to run the training session as well which is really awesome because I don't have to choose what to do with my spare time between doing something I'm so passionate about or some other paid works so overall is overwhelmingly positive experience being involved in this topic representation program here at Flinders and I'm still enjoying this every day and now I'm going to pass them to Kate and talk about our challenges and opportunities in the program. Thanks Leigh Ann it's a privilege to be working with you I note that we don't have too much time and there were also some questions in the chat or some conversation in the chat so I'm going to run through these challenges and maybe we can quickly respond to some of those questions that have come up so you know of course scaling up training and support is a big challenge when you're talking about topic level representation I don't have the sense that this is going to roll out across a university but I think that might be a chance to reflect quite soon there's been changes in leadership and this program's been running for a while I think there might be a chance to reflect on maybe focusing topic level representation at first year potentially and then embedding it with course level representation as well because they are different roles. Assisting reps to communicate and connect with their cohort I know that there was a question there about how do we you know do reps report what they're sharing with topic coordinators they should be we we ask them to do that in the training that they should be closing that feedback loop and reporting on what they've discussed so they should be through the learning platform a report back to say this is the sorts of things we discussed and this is what the response was from the topic coordinator so we do ask them to do that but there's more work we can definitely do there I think it I think when we're talking about student reps in general it's always a challenge to to help them assist in how to how to really connect in with their cohort and really hear the the views of students promoting and recognizing the works that reps do so that students know that they have reps and that they can become a rep and that you know this is the impact of having reps that's all very important work that we continuously need to improve but also build something important as well as building the capacity of academic staff to work collaboratively with reps if an academic is pushed for time or disinterested or unsure about what their role is they'll pretty quickly disengage and it's very hard for the student rep to have much impact there so we do need to do more work around communicating with academics as well around the value of working with reps and and what the benefit is for them I should also just want to add as well like student representation sort of student voice work in Australia has traditionally been tied to board concepts of governance measured in terms of student satisfaction and quality outcomes the limitations with this approach is that it's too focused on the endpoint of the student experience as opposed to building formative communities that seek to develop students as stakeholders leaders and citizens so the shift in conversation which is beginning to happen reflects a broader and deeper understanding of student representation that offers genuine and meaningful engagement for due for the duration of students time at our institution so we are definitely looking at students from that perspective as well the student voice from that perspective as well which ties in really nicely to a lot of the conversations that we've been having during these last couple of days as well there's a few questions in the chat I'm going to go back to the start um did you read them out to UK yeah you can help me yeah so the very first question was are issues raised by topic reps reported up to ensure transparency yeah so like I said we do um expect that reps are reporting back on conversations and they will and the good ones will do that with this many student reps in place in topics we can't always guarantee that they're going to do the most fantastic job on the whole I think we do have a really positive experience but we allow for that sort of for reps sometimes not being as good as you might want them to be because next semester is another semester and hopefully there'll be a new group coming through and I think there's an understanding that there will be that variability at times but um it is yeah we do expect that a rep would be reporting back to their cohort thank you for that um the next question is is there any feedback mechanism or loop for students who have provided the insights or feedback to the topic rep I think that's what we just talked about yeah um so we ask student reps to communicate using their online learning platform so it's good for them there's learning online here so there's functions to have chats and to report back and to ask questions through that mechanism oh okay well I said was thinking transparency so you can see if issues adequately just yeah yeah there's definitely topic coordinators who are less than enthusiastic but we push on regardless and that's the nature of this work I think and the last question in the chat is would you say that student voice is becoming embedded through the topic rep scheme as the way things are done or is it still reliant on champions um I see it it says a long term Lee when what do you think do you think it lessen your insights engineering in the college what do you think that that is it's how we do things or you think there's still some challenges there um I think uh with the most of the teaching stuff I work with and the very supportive of this program they think this is the way it's supposed to be done but obviously not for everyone they yeah um that's still challenges for everyone to recognise this programmable we're just thinking that's still which still just I see you say they rely on champions yeah I love champions I'm happy to rely on champions I think this is long term messy work um that um we put these structures in place we give things ago and we I think we just need to be open to reassessing reevaluating and saying okay let's try something new um but I think as long as that student voice and we're getting is there and we're getting the message out that what you have to contribute is important um and that you do you can impact um at your during your time at university um I think that's the main thing so it is continuously a work in progress here