College of Life and Environmental Sciences: Geography

Postgraduate Student-Staff LiaisonCommittee Meeting

Minutes of the meeting held on Tuesday 30 November2010, 2pm, A115Amory

Present:Chair: Mark Grosvenor (2nd year PGR student)

  • Student representative: Phil Johnstone (2nd year PGR student)
  • Staff representatives:
  • Director of Postgraduate Research/Director of Human Geography: John Wylie
  • Director of Physical Geography: Suraje Dessai

Apologies:none

Reporting:Postgraduate Research Administrator (CLES): Lindsey Beasley

Agenda Item / Comments / Action
10/1.0 /

Minutes of the previous meeting (23/06/10) and matters arising

09/31.It was unclear whether the request for colour printing had been taken forward.
09/34. Ascertain if there is a College hospitality budget that could cover the costs of a student-organised social event as part of the Welcome event for new PG students next year.
09/17. It was felt that attendance at upgrade presentations (Tremough to Exeter and vice versa) would encourage good links between PGR students cross-campus. It was agreed that this would be good practice and should be feasible to organise. SD agreed to liaise with Liam Reinhardt. LB to verify if any funding is available for exchange travel and feed back to SD. / HP via LB
HP via LB
SD/LB
10/2.0 / Report on discussion of SSLC business at College Research Committee (or equivalent)
JW gave verbal overview of Research infrastructure at College level.
JW confirmed that Geography Research Committee is the medium through which SSLC matters are to be discussed and that no specific SSLC matters had been discussed at the last meeting.
However, JW brought to the attention of this committee allocation of future funding within the College framework. It is apparent that each discipline will have to bid to the College for research budget to include internal scholarships and bursaries. The amount should be confirmed early in 2011. Also to be confirmed in early 2011 will be the success or otherwise of Exeter’s bid to be part of joint AHRC doctoral training centre which will provide 1 studentship per year.
10/3.0
10/3.1
10/3.2 / New and revised programme developments
The issue of whether supervisors should be in attendance at upgrade meetings was discussed. The feeling among students is that there should be a choice in this matter. SD suggested that the meetings could be modified in future to a 3-way structure consisting of:
  • Initial meeting between student and external committee member
  • Meeting with all in attendance
  • Follow-up discussion by the panel in the absence of the student
The onus would be on the student to inform the panel Chair if the initial confidential discussion is required.
AGREED.
SD/JW to instruct that the PGR Student Handbook be changed.
JW briefed the committee members on introduction of PhD by Creative Practice for Geographers. This requires a portfolio of work and a 40,000 word discussion of that work for submission. This programme is potentially eligible for AHRC funding. Webpages to be updated. JW to instruct. / SD/JW
JW/HP
10/4.0
10/4.1 / Teaching (including the dissemination of good practice and programme and module evaluation)
MG reported that the allocation of teaching and demonstrating hours for postgraduates is much improved on last year as is the allocation of marking commitments.
10/4.2
10/4.3
10/4.4
10/4.5
10/4.6
10/4.7 / MG reported that students wondered whether it would be possible to obtain feedback for tutorials which they lead. JW suggested they approach Sean Carter and Chris Fogwill to ascertain whether this would be possible.
It was felt that there is still an issue with workload model in respect of marking workload. MG to approach Sean Carter and Chris Fogwill
It was felt that a two-tier system has been created wherein research council-funded students do not have a teaching allocation and, therefore, miss out on teaching experience. JW felt that there should be no reason why such students could not volunteer to teach, but that this should be negotiated following discussion with the supervisor. JW/SD to liaise with Sean Carter and Chris Fogwill
It was felt that it would be useful to keep a database of teaching allocation. It was AGREED that this would be difficult to implement and keep accurate. JW to liaise with Sean Carter and Chris Fogwill
UG Team Building Day – cross-college it seems evident that some departments pay more to their postgraduates for helping with this than others. There also seemed to be discrepancy in whether this should be counted towards the postgraduate training requirement (this would add up to 16 hours of required training). MG informed the committee that the Student Guild are investigating this issue. JW to liaise with Sean Carter and Chris Fogwill
It was felt that latterly there seems to be less incentive for postgraduates to help on second year undergraduate field trips. This arises mostly as a result of allocation of teaching hours, but also because it is not currently clear what is required of postgraduates when they are asked to help. (Some require more teaching input than others in which the role is more organisational). JW to email convenors to ask them to provide specific requirements for each trip. / MG
MG
JW/SD
JW
JW
JW
10/5.0 /

Assessment and feedback

No issues
10/6.0 /

Academic support

No issues
10/7.0 /

Organisation and management

MG reported an improvement in the number of undergraduates allocated to research laboratories with things feeling calmer and less crowded.
As consumers, students felt that better communication about the administrative changes would have been helpful. A request was put forward for a contact list to be drawn up to inform students about what services are available and from where (for example, room bookings, expenses, general finance). / LB/HP
10/7.1
10/7.2
10/7.3
10/7.4
10/7.5
10/7.6
10/7.7 / Organisational issues (email lists)

Problems of cross-posting are evident. Request that review of email lists is undertaken.

Organisational issues (IT)
It was stressed that the CDO for Geography is in urgent need of support. A new IT strategy for Geography is required. JW to raise with Dave Salway.
As a result of difficulties with setting up adequate IT resource and allocation of desk space at the beginning of term, the new first year postgraduate students feel they have experienced a 6-week delay in starting their studies proper. It was questioned whether they should be entitled to receive compensation for this at the end of their studies. JW indicated that this would have implications for fees when students should be transferring to continuation status, but that he would be willing to ask the question of postgraduate administration. JW confirmed that, if necessary, he would consider cases on an individual basis with both the student and supervisor putting the case.
First year Welcome Event – it was felt that this was not as well organised as in previous years and that the allocation of postgraduate student mentors was something important that had been missed this year. It was suggested that postgraduate reps could take on this responsibility in order to re-implement this for next year.
JW confirmed that allocation of academic mentors will take place this year.
MG reported that the request had been raised of allocating PGR mentors for PGT students. It was felt that this would encourage communication between Masters and PhD students.
Contracts – MG reported that not many PGR students seem to have contracts detailing allocation of teaching hours and funding. Request that this is formalised especially for university-funded students.
Funding – it was requested that clearer advice be made available about sources of funding and what is available. JW to liaise with Helen Pisarska.
Health & Safety Training – there is currently no compulsory training for geography PGRs and it is felt that this should be a requirement. SD to raise with Chris Fogwill and PGR Admin Team to raise with Dave Salway to find out if geography students could receive similar training to students in other college disciplines on use of chemicals in laboratories. / HP/LB
JW
JW
MG/PJ
JW/PG admin team
MG/PJ
JW/HP
JW/HP
SD
PG Admin Team
10/8.0 / Learning resources (including Library, IT and other teaching/learning resources)
10/8.1 / IT requirements – c/f item 10.7.3 above. Additional laptops and computers are now starting to be be installed, but extra hardware equipment may be required. Also, some existing students who were initially asked to ‘hot desk’ were left without facilities for a while. It seems that rooms 364 and 385 have excess furniture and that some new offices are awaiting re-assessment of furniture requirements. JW to raise with CDO / JW
10/8.2 / Colour printing
No response has been received about item 09/31.0 from the minutes of the last meeting. HP to report back about availability and cost.
It is rumoured that all printing will be done via new all-in-one photocopy machines. CDO to confirm. There is concern about data protection with everyone printing to the same output. LB explained how these photocopiers work by allowing a ‘locked print’ option whereby a PIN number is allocated to each individual to retrieve their own printing items. / HP
10/8.3
10/8.4 / Inter-library loans
Clarification needed on procedure. See PGR Handbook.
Voice Recorders
Shortages have been experienced. Clarification required on how these are allocated. / HP/LB
10/9.0 /

Employment, Employability and Personal Development

No issues to report.
10/10.0 / Reports and responses to internal and external systems of accountability
No issues to report.
10/11.0 /

Any other business

It was noted that notice boards should be used more effectively for display of photos. MG to liaise with Ed Creed to enable e-profiles for PGR students.
Noted that more could be done to improve recycling within the department and to tackle energy usage. It was suggested that IT strategy should be improved to ensure that lights and computers are turned off automatically following a period of disuse. / MG
MG/CDO

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SSLC 25/11/10