Student Leaders 24/25

The Big Plan

 

Using 13,000+ pieces of student feedback, your Student Leaders have created The Big Plan, which directs the SU's focus over the year. The Big Plan is at the heart of everything the SU does. The Big Plan has been formed to work on what matters to you right now. This page outlines our priorities and progress.

OUR PRIORITIES

WHAT WE WANT TO ACHIEVE

We want to work with students to create a more diverse, student-centred events programme. We will focus especially on events that are open to all, that create opportunities to meet and connect with new people, and that meet a consistent quality standard so students know that they can trust our events.

HOW WE'LL DO IT

  1. We’ll work closely with teams in the SU that have a similar aim, specifically Venues, Engagement, Societies and Marketing. Together we’ll draft and agree a series of events for term 1 and the students/student groups that we will work with in building each event.
  2. We’ll agree a quality standard that we want each event to meet, this may include events being open and accessible to all, free or affordable, providing opportunities to meet and connect with other students, and being delivered in a way that prioritises attendee satisfaction.
  3. We’ll build each event with students, making sure that the events deliver on their needs and also providing valuable experience.
  4. We’ll create a marketing plan to promote each event, making sure that all relevant students are aware and are given the opportunity to attend.
  5. We’ll monitor the success of the events, (see below) reporting to stakeholders including students, SU Council, SU staff and the University.

These are the people working to deliver these changes:

VP Student Experience

Ian Lau

VP Welfare

Nifemi Wilson-Adu

WHAT WE WANT TO ACHIEVE

We will work with the University to identify the specific types of experiences and the existing best practices, that students find particularly attractive and engaging from their teaching and learning. As we develop this broad base of research from the lived experience of Essex students, the desires of prospective students and experiences from other higher education institutions, we will be working with academic departments to monitor and trial the effects of a more responsive way of teaching and learning. Collating a specific picture of what this kind of teaching and learning looks like in practice, and how it might function differently in different disciplines, will inform the University’s strategy in delivering a transformative education. We will be laying the foundations for a rethink of how our curriculum and approach can be distinctly Essex and have structures to allow us to be more responsive to student feedback on teaching, learning and student experience. We will work towards more robust systems that can respond to live student experience and set student experience strategy in a joined-up approach.

HOW WE'LL DO IT

  1. Build a broad evidence base of what a distinctly Essex pedagogy that is responsive to student feedback looks like in practice across academic departments. This will include creating more tailored and topical student voice mechanisms to expand on our current feedback and becoming more embedded in Student Module Feedback to pinpoint best practices and the exact experiences that students are asking for.
  2. Work with Faculty Deans and Organisational Development to create workshops and training sessions that focus on creating teaching and learning activities that will excite academics, engage students and keep them coming back to teaching events. These sessions will feature Student Reps to ensure these are relevant and useful to academics, with facilitated discussions about what is attractive and beneficial for students at Essex.
  3. Work in partnership with academic departments to trial and monitor new approaches to pedagogy that align closely with student feedback, as well as extracting and monitoring existing best practices. From this, we will aspire to shift the conversation around teaching and learning from a position where we’re framing it as teaching quality, to a culture that looks at how we can create a teaching and learning environment that is attractive to students, keeps them coming back to teaching events, and generates a level of positive engagement that fulfils academics and sustains learning communities within departments.
  4. Construct a package that demonstrates to students and academics what a distinctly Essex pedagogy looks like in practice and the steps that need to be taken by both students and academics to get there. This communication package will seek to reframe the conversation around teaching and student engagement to focus on how we can collaboratively create a learning culture and community that is inspiring and attractive to students.
  5. Establish a group that will set and monitor a joined-up strategy for student experience, that can be agile and respond to live student needs that results in real action for our current student cohort. This will give strategic oversight of student experience that addresses live student experience for current students, to make the experience more attractive to students and more sustainable for the University. It will create and receive reports from Task and Finish Groups that will deal with live challenges to feed into the strategy.
  6. Present SU gathered feedback in reports to groups like Education Committee and Faculty Education Committee to spark discussions about how everyone to contribute to responding to student feedback on teaching and learning. Creating more actions that address student experience challenges and respond to feedback, allowing us to compete as an institution.

These are the people working to deliver these changes:

VP Education

Joe Holmes 

SU President

Lily-May Cameron

WHAT WE WANT TO ACHIEVE

We want to make it easy for students to connect with lots of others students by setting up a range of online communities covering academic departments, accommodation, interests and communities.

HOW WE'LL DO IT

  1. We’ll consider what will be needed to make successful online communities, including scope of the communities, welfare measures, GDPR requirements and ensuring only authentic University of Essex students can join.
  2. We’ll agree which online communities to prioritise, making sure we offer variety at the same time as ensuring they’re properly managed and used.
  3. We’ll identify the right platform(s) to be used (making sure they’re easily accessible to students with minimal barriers to entry) and will build the communities.
  4. We’ll create a marketing plan to launch and promote the communities to new and returning students so that the maximum number can meet each other and connect. We’ll also consider how, once established, the communities can provide opportunities for us to update students on support, opportunities and activities available through the SU.
  5. We’ll monitor use of the communities and measure their impact, reporting to stakeholders including students, SU Council, SU staff and the University.

These are the people working to deliver these changes:

VP Community & Engagement

Guilly Banari

SU President

Lily-May Cameron

WHAT WE WANT TO ACHIEVE

We want to start making changes to increase the employability culture amongst students by improving engagement with career services, providing more networking and student development opportunities. We want to make students feel more career ready when they leave university as well as Job ready now to get part time employment.

HOW WE'LL DO IT

  1. We will be working with the student development team to raise awareness about the support and opportunities available, ensuring students are well-informed from their very first year about the diverse range of support available. We will use student feedback to improve the user experience to view services and job opportunities.
  2. Dramatically increase the number of students using the online career hub service. We’ll use our experience of successfully engaging and communicating with students to maximise use of the career hub and consider how a long-term marketing and communications plan can be built between the University and Students’ Union.
  3. We will be providing opportunities to connect with peers who share their ambition and drive. We will be doing creating opportunities for students to work together on real-world projects and challenges and connecting students with Alumni in the industry and encourage mentorship.
  4. We will be working with various groups across the university to deliver practical development sessions. Whether it is Encouraging societies to organize skill-building sessions like debating society running public speaking sessions. Or working closely with Essex Start-ups to offer more entrepreneurial skills sessions.
  5. We will be curating an SU series is to transform students into confident leaders and innovators by equipping them with essential tools, knowledge, and opportunities to succeed—not just in the job market, but as impactful change-makers in their communities . This will focus on providing guidance and real-world applications to prepare students for leadership roles and drive positive change.

These are the people working to deliver these changes:

VP Welfare

Nifemi Wilson-Adu

SU President

Lily-May Cameron

VP Education

Joe Holmes 

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