School of Geography

Postgraduate Research Student (Exeter)-Staff LiaisonCommittee Meeting

Minutes of the meeting held on Wednesday 5 May 2010, 10am, 253, Amory Building

Present:Paul Cloke (Director of Graduate School & Director of Human Geography Postgraduate Research),Suraje Dessai (Director of Physical Geography Postgraduate Research), Rachel Powell (1st year Human Geography) (Acting Chair)

Apologies:Tom Roland (2nd year Physical Geography)

Reporting:Helen Pisarska

Agenda Item / Comments / Action
09/13.0 / Minutes and matters arising (Enclosure A)
Noted:
  • Minutes of the meeting 25 November 2009 were confirmed.
  • 09/6.0 The Physical Geography conference was scheduled for 14 May.
  • 09/10.0 Staff had provided an update on the careers previous PhD students were now following. Helen had not issued a reminder to 2nd year students, about the compulsory training programme, however the course was no longer running for this academic year (the details had been included in the handbook however “2nd years will also be required to attend “Making Progress in Your PhD for 2nd Years””).
  • 09/12.0 Paul had held an open meeting.

09/14.0 / Report on discussion of SSLC business at School Meeting (or equivalent)
Noted:
  • Minutes of the SSLC meetings had been reported at the School Research Committee and been sent to the Dean of Graduate Research.

09/15.0 / New and revised programme developments
Noted:
  • The School was looking at developing the PhD in Practice. No progress had been made on this since the last meeting, but would be underway soon.
/ Helen
09/16.0 / Teaching (including the dissemination of good practice and programme and module evaluation)
Noted:
  • Rachel reported that students who had teaching as part of their award had experienced some confusion about the teaching hours they had been given. Some students were doing more marking whilst others had more hours for fieldtrips and were not sure how many hours they had left.
Agreed:
  • Helen should keep a record of the hours each student had and how many hours they had been allocated during the year. Helen would feed this back to Chris Fogwill, Sean Carter (the UG programme directors) and Nicola Thomas (Director of Education).
/ Helen
09/17.0 / Assessment and feedback
Noted:
  • Tom would speak to Suraje with any feedback on the presentation days.
/ Tom
09/18.0 / Academic support
  • No issues were raised.

09/19.0 / Organisation and management
Noted:
  • Some requests for shelving and filing cabinets in room 364 had been made.
  • Tom would keep the PG noticeboard in the 3rd floor corridor updated.
Agreed:
  • Helen agreed to meet with the students in room 364 to discuss their ideas.
/ Helen
09/20.0 / Learning resources (including Library, IT and other teaching/learning resources)
Noted:
  • Students would like their profile on the School webpage to link to their e-profile (students can maintain e-profiles themselves).
Agreed:
  • Helen would check that this was ok with Ed Creed, the Geography web manager. Paul strongly recommended that students should each have their own e-profile.
/ Helen
09/21.0 / Employment, Employability and Personal Development
Noted:
  • PGU and Employability Services were hoping to hold a session on non-academic career destinations in term 3. Rachel was the Phd rep for PGU.
/ Helen
09/22.0 / Reports and responses to internal and external systems of accountability
Noted:
  • There was negative feeling across the student population regarding the introduction of the continuation fee, particularly as it had been introduced part-way through the academic year.

09/12.0 / Any other business
Noted:
  • The University was restructuring the academic units (currently Schools). The School of Geography was joining the Schools of Psychology, Biosciences and Sport and Health Sciences to form the College of Life and Environmental Sciences from 1 August 2010. The administrative structures for the College would change.
  • Helen had been copied into an email regarding SSLCs for next year. Although Schools had been asked to hold elections for the student SSLC reps in terms 2 or 3, the Committee did not feel this was appropriate, and would hold these in October 2010 once the new students had started. As Chair of the SSLC Tom should have received an annual report form to complete, however, his email address had been incorrectly entered on the database, and so he had not received this. Helen would ensure this was corrected.
/ Helen

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SSLC 05/05/10