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One of the SU’s major focus-points this year was the development and enhancement of provisions for the Postgraduate community on campus. In addition to our first-ever Postgraduate Officer taking office, we established the PGA (Postgraduate Association), which held three events throughout the year and addressed different academic/non-academic postgraduate issues. We also created a Postgraduate Community Group on Facebook and held a Postgraduate Drinks Reception in Week 0 of Term 1, followed by our PG Welcome Event the following week. The latter packed out The Terrace Bar with 200 students, and provided a great opportunity to establish the Students’ Union as a hub for PG social activity.
New regular events were introduced into the SU’s Entertainments programme for postgraduates such as the fortnightly Saturday Sessions and ReXFest, while regular SU drop-in sessions were held at the PG Hub. We also helped to establish a mentoring scheme in the University between PGT and PGR students, and lobbied the University for fairer on-campus accommodation allocation for PG students (particularly international masters students) while working with SARO on improving the pre-arrival information for these students.
As well as contributing to the national debate on postgraduate funding by writing various newspaper articles, Postgraduate Officer Anna Chowcat promoted the national NUS survey on working conditions for postgraduates who teach, and we received the highest number of responses nationally for this. She then began to work with the University to address the issues and concerns raised from the survey, with the University now looking to create a formal policy giving clear departmental standards with regard to training, pay and support. We also worked with the Library to increase PG usage of the Teaching Grid and to increase their support for postgraduates who teach.
In addition to our annual STARS of Warwick awards (voted for and judged by students), the University’s WATEPGR Awards was a scheme where students and staff could nominate PhD students for a teaching award. Over 100 nominations were received, demonstrating a wealth of teaching talent at Warwick. The WATEPGR panel, which included Warwick SU’s Postgraduate Officer, selected 5 winners who received prize money of £500, plus 5 commendees who each received £200 to spend on research or teaching.
We ran a Medical School Freshers Fair for the first time this year, helping to engage and reach a significant group of students whose courses start a month earlier than most. In the interest of supporting Student Parents, we also introduced a series of Coffee Mornings in Curiositea, regular welfare drop-in sessions and a Students With Dependents mailing list, while our Children’s Menu was relaunched in Curiositea.
Our iFreshers programme this year was hugely successful and included a Roadshow, Speed Networking, Karaoke, Quiz, Jam Session, Ceilidh & Sports provisions. We also introduced new regular events in the Entertainments programme which were designed to broaden our provision for both international and home students: events included Global, LeDice Presents, Viva La Fiesta, Oktoberfest Bierkeller, One World Week and a screening of the Eurovision Song Contest. As a result of this activity, international attendance in Union venues increased by 51.65% for the year.
As with Postgraduates, we established the ISA (International Students Association), a democratic body that feeds into Student Council. Through this, we helped to overturn an existing policy on integration through consulting with the ISA to make sure we were doing the right thing for international students.
Ultimately, our increased engagement with international students - together with the creation of a new Go Global portal - helped to vastly improve our results in the International Student Barometer survey. We also established a ‘Christmas On Campus’ webpage and Facebook community group for students based at Warwick University over Christmas, and improved communication with returning Erasmus students in January with regard to joining societies. In addition, we funded two internationalisation projects: the Warwick World Music Group and the newly-created Warwick Portuguese Speaking Society.
Warwick SU had considerable success at this year’s NUS UKCISA Awards, which recognise the outstanding contributions of international students and those who support them, rewarding best practice within Universities and Unions while acknowledging some of the hard work that Unions and officers put into supporting international students. The judging panel wrote:
"Warwick provide exceptional support services for international students and they have fully demonstrated to the panel the positive impact these services have on the student experience. For example, they recently found workable solutions to the problems their international students were experiencing with banking and police registration, have improved their orientation programme, and have facilitated integration and participation in university life by running a great number of cultural trips."
Furthermore, Meena from our Student Advice Centre team was one of four nominees singled out for individual recognition of her outstanding work supporting international students.
In addition to carrying on the previous year’s Hall Societies and Facebook Groups for incoming students (cemented during Freshers Fortnight with our sold-out competitive Hall Wars event), SU Sports Officer Natasha Cabral worked with Warwick Sport to support their development of a series of casual and intramural sporting leagues.
As always, we continued to expand our entertainments provision and support student-led activity to provide a wider range of event for students across all nationalities and interests, this year including the following:
Our clubs and societies work hard to ensure that the Warwick experience is enlightening, accessible, fun and memorable for students. Activity is diverse and offers opportunities to engage in everything from cultural societies to campaigning, media to music, and art to academic societies. We have over 230 societies and 70 sports clubs catering to all tastes and interests.