STAFF-STUDENT LIAISON COMMITTEES/STUDENT REPRESENTATION
Undergraduate Staff-Student Liaison Committees
Each of the five constituent Departments of the School of Modern Languages will have an undergraduate Staff-Student Liaison Committee. The Undergraduate Programme Coordinator in each Department will take responsibility for ensuring that a Committee is formed and meets.
Departmental Committees
Student membership will normally be three members of each year group, between them representing Single Honours, Modern Languages and Joint Honours students. Where appropriate, the representatives will include students who are learning a language ab initio, as well as those who are learning Catalan, Czech and Portuguese. As far as possible, the gender balance of the Committee should reflect that of the student body.
Staff membership will normally include the Undergraduate Programme Coordinator, the Subject Lead, a Language Coordinator and one further member of the academic staff. Other staff or students may be invited to meetings to discuss particular items of business, as required.
The Undergraduate Programme Coordinator will oversee the process of nomination and election, with advice and/or help as appropriate from the relevant student society. If an election is necessary, the candidates with the highest number of votes from each year group separately, are elected. First-year elections can normally take place in a lecture, those for other years might necessitate a ballot for which help will be provided in the School Student Office. If the result of an election process means that a Committee overall does not provide a cross-section of the Department’s constituency as noted in paragraph 2, above, then further members may be co-opted as necessary.
Meetings: The Staff-Student Liaison Committee will normally meet once a term. It may meet at any time its members request a meeting.
At its first meeting the committee will elect its Chair and its Secretary, both of whom may be student representatives. The Secretary will convene meetings, with the assistance of the Undergraduate Programme Coordinator, and will inform the members in advance of any substantive items of business, so that relevant staff may be consulted or invited to a meeting where necessary. The secretary will be responsible for drafting minutes of the meeting; if the secretary is a student representative, the draft must be approved by the Undergraduate Programme Coordinator prior to distribution. Agreed minutes will be published on the School’s website (UoB-only access) with the help of the School’s Executive Administrator. They will also be displayed on a notice board within the Department. Minutes of these meetings will also be brought to the attention of the academic members of each Department, and forwarded to the Head of School, the two Deputy Heads of School, and the School Manager. Where appropriate, matters arising from these minutes may be raised at meetings of the School’s internal staff Committees (Planning and Resources Committee, Languages Forum, Year Abroad Committee, etc.).
The Staff-Student Liaison Committee will hear reports of the outcome of the student feedback questionnaire process from the Undergraduate Programme Coordinator. It will normally be consulted on significant planned changes to the curriculum or management of the Department/School, may be consulted on other matters of University policy formulation, and will be informed of significant policy issues or developments in the University.
Student representation
Students are invited to attend the School of Modern Languages Plenary meetings (held termly) and the Faculty of Arts Board (held five times a year). Each Staff-Student Liaison Committee will elect one of its members to attend each of these meetings. Student representatives will receive copies of the agenda and associated papers for all the unreserved items at each meeting.
School Liaison Committee
The School Liaison Committee will meet twice yearly. This Committee will consist of the Head of School, the Deputy Head of School for Teaching and Learning, the School Manager, Undergraduate Programme Coordinators, the chair of the Language Teaching Forum and three student representatives elected from each of the five Departmental Committees, to represent the different year groups and subject combinations. This Committee provides an opportunity to identify matters of common concern and interest across the School and to review matters raised in Departmental meetings. Its minutes will be published on the School website, and matters arising may be discussed at other School Committee meetings. They will also be reported to the Undergraduate Dean of the Faculty and will form an element of the School’s Annual Programme Review process. This Committee will be supported by the School’s Executive Administrator.
Postgraduate Liaison Committee
All postgraduate students of the School will be invited twice yearly, normally in the spring and summer terms, to a meeting of the School's Postgraduate Liaison Committee, which will be chaired by the Deputy Head with responsibility for Postgraduate Students (DHR). The meeting is a place where student issues can be raised and heard and will put forward a representative to attend Plenary Meetings of the School.
Attention is drawn to the advice and support provided by the University of Bristol Union to elected student representatives: see http://www.ubu.org.uk/support/