SU21 - Our Questions to Education Candidates
Questions to Education candidates, Emma Murphy and Michael Upham from The Scoop.
What’s your number one priority?
Emma: My number one priority is improving blended learning. Every student can agree that online learning has not been up to standard— by working on issues raised by students, this can be improved next year. Continuing online lectures and implementing a safety net for students will better our academic experience immediately.
Michael: Ending bunched deadlines by changing assessment. The University currently sacrifices student wellbeing with poor planning of assessment that places students under extreme stress. We can’t accept this any longer. If I’m elected, I’ll make it a priority to change assessment including by introducing permanent Safety Nets for students.
Significantly reforming deadlines and assessments has been promised by numerous Education Officers with limited success. How will your approach be different?
Emma: What I am asking for is both achievable and long overdue. Giving students timely and detailed feedback should be the bare minimum for our educational improvement and yet Queen’s has failed to deliver repeatedly. Students need critical feedback on their assignments before they can be expected to produce their next one. Bunched deadlines of multiple assessments due on the same day is detrimental to mental health. By working with staff on these issues, change is possible, which I have already achieved as a School Rep. We need these changes implemented now, and I could achieve it as Educational Officer.
Michael: Previous Education Officers have focused on the structure of the academic year and the timings of deadlines, whereas I want to focus on the actual format of the assessments. By changing assessment so that no assessment is worth more than 40% and no deadlines are after holidays, we can significantly reduce student stress. In the short-term, I'll create stress heat maps for Schools to identify times of increased stress, so they can plan assessments better. It’s time for the University to finally put student wellbeing ahead of profits.
What reforms do you want to see to tuition fees and what active steps will you take to achieve these changes?
Emma: I know that especially this year, students have felt that their education has not been worth the fees that they are paying. Whether through loans or by paying themselves, students have not had the experience that they have been promised. More than ever, students want to feel partners in their education rather than consumers. I don’t want to promise that within a year that all universities will become governmentally funded, but by lobbying politicians throughout my term this will reinforce the fact that students deserve better. Especially for postgraduate students, financial issues should not be a barrier to education
Michael: I want to campaign to scrap tuition fees, starting with refunding everyone from this year and wiping their tuition fee debt. Education is a right for everyone in society, not a privilege for those who can afford it. I'd continue the SU's involvement in national campaigns like Students United Against Fees working with our national Unions like NUS-USI. I'd organize students to lobby MLAs and MPs to put pressure on the government to hear the case for free education. I'm a current member of the Students Deserve Better campaign calling for free education and I'd continue that campaign next year.
Are your proposed changes to academic feedback unfairly onerous on university staff, some of whom already feel overworked? How will you get their support?
Emma: The changes I want to implement would not impact staff to a radical degree. I want to push for schools to publish provisional marks instead of waiting for a final grade, which leaves students waiting for over two months in many cases. The lecturers have already marked the work, and there is no additional work being created by releasing provisional marks they have already created. In cases of little written feedback, this may increase their marking time but will have an exponentially big impact on students and how they can better prepare for their next assessment.
Michael: It needs to be a standard that University feedback comes back in time, that it's detailed, personalized and specific and that it gives students an insight into both the good areas of their work and areas to improve. To give that feedback, staff need to know what good feedback looks like. That's why I would work with both students and staff to co-create a Feedback Framework. This would give staff the tools and confidence to give the best feedback. So I actually think that my changes will help both students and staff and I'd work with them on that.
How have your personal experiences shaped your manifesto?
Emma: Throughout all three years of my degree, I have volunteered to help fellow students. I have experience in diverse roles, and my manifesto reflects that diversity as it tackles a range of issues that affect students’ education. Through my role as School Representative, I have worked on bettering employability services and raising student feedback to staff. Through being Lead Peer Mentor I have seen how community is needed to better students’ educational experience, and how mental health services are in desperate need of reform. Through working part time during a pandemic, I understand how student workers need more support from their university to help them achieve academically. At the heart of it, I care deeply about students and the issues that matter to them. It is through my experiences that I have a unique perspective on student issues and the desire to create tangible change in the immediate future.
Michael: I've had first-hand experience of the problems in education. I've been that student pulling several all-nighters with deadlines piling on top of one another, hyped up on coffee. I've had to put my wellbeing second to education and I don't want any other student to have to do this. I've been that student who has waited weeks for feedback, or times when it hasn't come back at all. I've been that student without a laptop, balancing part-time jobs and uni work with no suitable place to study. And as Course, School and Faculty Rep I've witnessed students on the verge of a mental health crisis because their workload and deadlines are unsustainable. Ultimately, this manifesto isn't about me. It's about what students need. But I know I have the experience both as a student and a student rep to change education so it actually works for us.
And finally… What is your most embarrassing experience?
Emma: On a school trip to Florida my friends and our hosts took us to their local zoo. We were having a great time and went into the bird enclosure because you could feed the exotic birds. While feeding one, it ungratefully pooed on my face and I had to run all the way back to the entrance where the toilets were. (My friends did take pictures and it did get in my eyes.)
Michael: In first year, I joined a music band and after many late nights practicing, I fell asleep in a lecture and started belting out a tune in my sleep. A mate managed to wake me up but it was too late to save me from that level of embarrassment.