Monday 30-10-2023 - 13:06

One of the unexpected parts of being an SU Sabbatical Officer is how the role expands one’s vernacular. ‘Student voice’ is one of those terms that I had never heard prior to starting my tenure as your Undergraduate Academic Officer. Yet, since starting three months ago, improving it has become my raison d’etre. Student voice, in short, simply refers to how well an institution listens to its students’ feedback and opinions, and, regrettably, in Durham the consensus is that the University does not listen.

Although the term itself is perhaps yet to enter common parlance, the symptoms of Durham’s inadequate student voice measures are widely recognised by students. The annual National Student Survey (NSS) has placed Durham in the bottom two quartiles in all questions related to student voice for the last five years. In the most recent NSS results, Durham was a damning 9% below the sector-wide average on the question, “How clear is it that students' feedback on the course is acted on?” This sense of voicelessness is not limited to undergraduates. Durham has finished in the bottom half every year since 2018 on the question, “[Do you] have appropriate opportunities to give feedback on [your] experience” in the Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES). In the most recent survey, Durham was in the bottom quartile. The data is clear – Durham is not good at listening to its students.

The SU exists to give students a voice in the University decision-making process, so as an SU Officer, this is unacceptable. To their credit, many senior members of the University genuinely share my determination for reform. In my first meeting with Prof. Tony Fawcett, the Interim Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, we both raised the issue independently as a priority. This degree of consensus has enabled rapid progress, culminating in the creation of a Student Voice Task and Finish Group to develop material proposals for improving how students’ voices can be heard by University decision-makers. The Task and Finish Group is a sub-committee of the University’s influential Education Committee but contains a super-majority of elected SU representatives. It is not a powerless lapdog of those content with the current stasis, but a significant opportunity for radical improvement and reform.

The success of reform is dependent on students. Without students’ input in formulating the group’s proposals, they will not reflect what students want. Similarly, if students do not engage in the reform process, those who do not want students to be able to influence their university experience will feel emboldened to argue that, despite the above data, there is no student demand for improvement.

Therefore, I would like to end this column with a plea. The Task and Finish Group will be holding student consultation sessions and opportunities over the next few months. Please engage with these. Let us know your views on what needs to improve for students’ voices to be heard, otherwise we risk losing this crucial opportunity for change.