FACULTY OF LAWS
STAFF STUDENT CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE (SSCC)
Staff Student Consultative Committee
Meeting held on
Wednesday 13 March 2013 at 10:00am
in the Keeton Room
MINUTES
1. Introductions and Apologies for Absence
The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting.
Present:
Ms Olga Thomas (Chair)
Mr Mark Blakely (MB) – Director of Taught Graduate Programmes
Ms Gemma Burridge (GB) - LLB Programme Administrator
Mr Peter Davies (PD) – Undergraduate Second Year StAR
Mr Stephen Gurman (SG) - Laws Careers Consultant & Employer Relations Manager
Ms Samantha Leung (SL) – Undergraduate First Year StAR
Ms Claire Lougarre (CL) – Research Student Representative
Mr Rishik Menon (RM) – Undergraduate Final Year StAR
Dr Prince Saprai (PS) - Taught Programmes Quality Assurance Co-ordinator
Mr Eugenio Velasco Ibarra Arguelles (EVIA)– Postgraduate Taught StAR
Ms Tiffany Georgallides (TG) – Student Law Society President (2013-14) (by invitation)
Ms Queenie Sit (QS) – Undergraduate Second Year StAR (2013-14) (by invitation)
In attendance:
Ms Anna Antipova (AA) (Secretary)
Apologies for absence were received from:
Prof Alison Diduck (AD) – Director of Research Studies
Mr Nick Grant (NG) – Student Law Society President
Myriam Hunter-Henin (MH) – Director, European Double Degrees
2. Minutes of the meeting of 19 November 2012
The minutes of the last meeting were confirmed.
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3. Matters arising from the Minutes [see also items 9 and 10 below]
3.1 UCL Volunteering Unit Report:
OT raised Item 5.1 (UCL Volunteering Unit Report) and invited SG to present a response from the
UCL Volunteering Unit about which volunteering areas attracted most interest from law students. SG
outlined that students were primarily involved in activities run through the Faculty Pro Bono work.
ACTION POINT: SG to forward a detailed spreadsheet with all volunteering activities to the
Committee members.
3.2 The Equal Opportunities Data:
OT raised Item 7 (UCL Equal Opportunities Data) of the previous SSCC Meeting and confirmed it will
be presented in Item 9 of the current agenda.
3.3 Personal and Professional Development System:
OT raised Item 9 of the previous SSCC minutes and confirmed that the personal tutors had been
informed about the PPD system.
3.4 Electing the LLM StARs with different legal interests and/or backgrounds:
OT raised Item 11 of the previous SSCC minutes. OT reported that following a discussion with MB it
was decided to elect 2 full-time and 1 part-time LLM representatives, however, it was agreed that it
would not be feasible to elect the LLM student representatives with different legal interests and/or
backgrounds.
3.5 Student Feedback and NSS results:
OT raised Item 12 of the previous SSCC Minutes. OT confirmed that some preliminary discussions in
relation to feedback had already taken place in the Faculty, however, OT would raise this issue
formally at the Faculty Teaching Committee following the end of the present SSCC meeting and the
presentation of student feedback survey by SL (Item 10 of the current agenda).
ACTION POINT: OT to raise the student feedback survey results at the FTC and pass on the main
discussion points to the Education Committee.
3.6 Print Allowance
OT reported that item 14.2 of the previous SSCC Minutes had been drawn to the attention of the
Faculty Manager. OT explained that the printing allowances were set centrally with no flexibility to
increase the same. However, the Faculty Manager is currently negotiating to create a special quota
for big competitions.
3.7 LLM Jurisprudence and Legal Theory teaching space
MB reported that the issue of teaching rooms for the above module raised in item 16.2 of the
previous SSCC meeting had been resolved.
3.8 Use of Lecture cast
OT explained that before formally discussing the use of lecture cast at the Faculty level, more
feedback from teachers and students would have to be obtained and a further review of lecture
attendance following introduction of lecture cast pilots for individual modules would be needed.
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3.9 Water coolers
OT reported that the possibility of introducing water coolers (item 16.3 of the previous SSCC minutes)
had been drawn to the attention of the Faculty Manager. OT explained that this initiative will not be
funded by the Teaching and Learning Equipment Fund since it does not form part of the usual criteria
of award. However, the Faculty Manager will try to explore the possibility of alternative funding
arrangements.
4. Chairperson’s business
4.1 Student Law Society Committee:
OT reported that a new Student Law Society Committee had just been elected into post. She took the
opportunity to thank the outgoing committee members for their excellent work and the exceptional
number and breadth of events and student activities organised during 2012-13. She also expressed
gratitude for their engagement in a healthy dialogue with the Faculty and hope that an equally
collaborative relationship can be developed with the new committee. OT also congratulated all
students involved in the Election Campaign and Hastings that was very well organised with a
minimum distraction to the Faculty activities.
4.2 International Student Barometer Survey results:
OT reported that the results were circulated 10 days ago and the report will be presented at the next
SSCC meeting.
ACTION POINT: OT to extract the ISBS data relating to the Faculty of Laws and present a report at
the Faculty meetings.
5. National Student Survey 2013
OT urged the student representatives to promote and take part in the NSS. It was noted that this year
a prize of £250 had been introduced for the Faculty with the highest response rate. The prize would
be donated to the Easter Ball fund.
6. Penalties for Over-Length Coursework
OT informed the Committee that the regulations in relation to the penalties where coursework exceed
the word count had been changed at the end of the last academic year. However, this information did
not reach the departments until the start of Term 1, which was after most of the Student Handbooks
were published. The law students were not affected since there were no formal assessments in Term
1. OT confirmed that the e-mail had been sent to all students at the start of Term 1 and the
regulations had been published on the Student Intranet.
7. Student Brand Managers
OT invited SG to propose a general written guidance in relation to the Student Brand Managers on
campus for different law firms and other recruiters. SG explained that more employers are now
recruiting student brand managers or ambassadors to increase the brand presence at universities.
The Committee discussed the following concerns in relation to the brand promotion in the Faculty:
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It was noted that promoting commercial interests of individual law firms would fall outside the
employability agenda and that the Faculty should draw a clear line between encouraging
branding activities and supporting student career development initiatives.
It was reported that student brand managers found themselves in a difficult position due to a
lack of clear guidance when asked by law firms to arrange lecture shout-outs, put leaflets in
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the lecture halls or book the Faculty rooms for the events outside the official student law
society careers programme. It was agreed that these activities amount to advertising
individual law firms and they are not appropriate in the context of the university environment. It
was therefore noted that there should be a clear written policy as to the extent of permissible
activities of the Student Brand Managers in order to manage the firms’ expectations
effectively. OT strongly encouraged the Committee to forward any feedback on further
instances of tensions and/or conflicts with the firms in relation to the above.
It was noted that the sponsorship contracts with the individual law firms should reflect the
Faculty policies in relation to the Student Brand Managers.
It was agreed that the Student Law Society should be involved all Student Brand Managers’
activities in order to ensure that there are no clashes with the official Student Law Society
Careers Programme.
ACTION POINT: OT and SG to put together a Code of Conduct for the Student Brand Managers
over the summer.
8. LLB student questionnaires
PS summarised the key changes in the new LLB questionnaire and invited additional comments from
the Committee.
Firstly, the questions were organised in terms of different themes. Secondly, following the discussion
with the central college, some questions relating to the syllabus and the academic content were
removed. Thirdly, PS noted that the college considered the general rather than subject specific
questions to be the best practice.
It was agreed that the questionnaire should be shortened in order to encourage better response rate
from students. At the same time, caution should be taken with regards to introducing too generic
questions in order to avoid repeating the same information from other questionnaires, such as NSS
and SBISB.
It was agreed that questions relating to the Student Law Society and its impact on student experience
should be included in the Finalist questionnaires.
PS invited students and members of staff to send further feedback on questionnaires by Friday 15th
March.
ACTION POINT: PS to amend the questionnaires to reflect the discussions at the SSCC Meeting and
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further feedback received from staff and students by Friday 15 March.
9. Access Agreement Equalities Data
OT explained that all universities that are charging over £9000 fees are required by the government
to meet the target intake of students from state schools, lower socio-economic backgrounds and
BME students.
OT summarised the data to the committee.
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The proportion of intake from state schools is currently at 60.4% which is below the Access
Agreement target of 67.4%. However, the data shows a significant increase from the last
year, which was at 54%.
The proportion of intake from low socio-economic groups at 9.1% are below the Access
Agreement target of 18.5%
At the same time, there was an impressive increase in the proportion of intake from the low
participation neighbourhood at 9.4%, which is above the Access Agreement target of 4.8%.
This is particularly impressive considering that the last year’s data was 0%. OT noted a
positive impact made by students involved in the Pro Bono activities.
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Overall the results were very positive, even though the Faculty did not meet the requirements of the
agreement. OT noted that meeting the government targets was particularly difficult for the Faculty of
Laws since the students were recruited at a top-end of academic qualifications.
OT reported that the Faculty is planning to introduce the annual summer-school for students from
disadvantaged backgrounds, including students from outside London. This would be a 1-week
residential course involving academic work, seminars and debating competitions. OT explained that
the project is now at the final stages of obtaining funding. The project would involve recruitment of
student mentors with a possibility of offering paid employment.
10. Student Coursework Feedback Survey Results
OT took the opportunity to thank SL for taking the time to design the Student Feedback Survey and
to prepare a detailed report on the key findings and recommendations.
The following were highlighted:
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SL explained that the survey attracted 112 responses – 50% second year students, 33% first
year students and 16% final year students.
Only 4% of the students were “very satisfied” with the essay feedback, 25% were
“disappointed” and 13% said that it “depends on the tutor”.
Just over half of student responses indicated that the essay feedback was given on time at
least most of the time.
There was also the generally poor response to the quality of feedback with only 3% being very
satisfied with the same.
Some students have indicated that they don’t receive a percentage mark but a vague 2:1.
OT explained that the survey results were very disappointing, particularly bearing in mind that the
Faculty of Laws was topping the university league tables in the NSS and SBISB questions concerning
feedback. OT proposed to re-enforce a framework of monitoring of the feedback system in respect of
both tutors and students. OT asked students to ensure that the coversheets are submitted with each
essays to encourage tutors to provide feedback.
The survey revealed that students particularly welcomed oral feedback given during a tutorial or
individually (one-to-one appointments). OT reported that a very positive feedback had been received
on arranging one-to-one oral feedback sessions for EU and Human Rights essays. It was also noted
that surgery hours should be used for giving oral essay feedback. However, oral feedback presents
particular difficulties for part-time teaching fellows since they are not paid to provide additional
feedback hours. It was therefore suggested that the feedback could be given by the course
convenors instead.
OT explained that it would not be possible to shorten the current 2 weeks timeframe given for
feedback since UCL regulations require 4-weeks timeframe. It was also noted that delays in giving
feedback were generally accepted by students providing that the tutors give notification and provide
reasons for the same.
OT also noted that the student recommendation to encourage tutors to give clear instructions as to
which structure they want from students would not be considered for paedogogical reasons. Students
should be encouraged to explore different essay structures as part of the learning process.
ACTION POINT: OT to report the findings of the Student Survey Report and comments made at the
SSCC meeting to the FTC and the Faculty Board meetings. OT to strengthen the monitoring of
providing the student feedback.
11. Student Feedback
11.1
Research Students Satisfaction Survey Results
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CL presented the findings of the recent Research Students Satisfaction Survey Results. OT took the
opportunity to thank CL for preparing the survey and reporting the results to the SSCC.
The survey attracted a good response rate of 21 across all years of the PhD programme. Overall the
survey reflected a positive picture of student satisfaction, particularly in the context of a drastic
expansion of the research student body in the recent years.
A significant majority of those responded rated the programme above 6 out of 10 points. Also, the
possibility to network with the PhD community received high scores (majority of 8 points). This was
attributed to the creation of Research Students Facebook page advertising the social events.
There was a mixed response in terms of the opportunities offered by the Faculty. In particular,
research students commented on the lack of scholarships and teaching fellowship positions. It was
however noted that the Faculty has a policy of advertising the teaching fellowship posts among
research students first before recruiting the external candidates.
Another area of concern was the research facilities, including old computers and a general lack of
space in the research students’ room. OT commented that the Faculty is currently trying to address
an issue of space by considering a new campus development plan. MB also reported that the Faculty
had made a decision not to increase the number of PhD students.
ACTION POINT: CL to discuss the survey results with the Director of Research Studies.
12. AOB
12.1
Update on recruitment expectations in the legal sector
SG presented the findings of the two surveys conducted by the High Fliers Research and the
Association of the Graduate Recruiters. The results differed slightly with the High Fliers Research
showing a 1.3% increase and the AGR showing a 2.7% decrease in the legal jobs sector. However,
the overall picture reflected a flat state of the market.
12.2
Academic Legal Writing
EVIA reported that the LLM students were very happy with the LLM Academic Legal Writing course
which involved not only helping with the writing, but also a comprehensive guidance on the academic
process, markings and expectations.
ACTION POINT: MB to report student feedback in relation to the LLM Academic Legal Writing course
to the Dean’s Team.
13. Date of Next Meeting
The date of the next meeting to coincide with the official handover meeting for the new Student Law
Society.
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