Student Staff Consultative Committee (SSCC) Meeting
Wednesday 28th October 2010
Present
Olga Thomas (Chair), Gemma Burridge (LLB Programme Administrator), Hauwa Shehu (President of Law
Society), Yash Zaveri (Senior Student Representative), Pavlos Anastasi (First Year Representative),
Neda Angelova (LLM Student Representative).
Apologies
Florian Wagner von Papp, Laura Parrett, Ian Peel, Fiona Smith, Joan Small.
Welcome and Introductions
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Function of the SSCC and Terms of Reference are explained to members by Chair.
Students are asked permisson to continue the meeting in light of there being less than three
members of staff present. AGREED.
Matters Arising
i) Cluster Rooms
- OT - A full time IT support manager has now been employed and is in post. This person will be
able to provide support for the cluster rooms.
ii) Use of Library
- OT - the Faculty has made representations at every level regarding the issues of space and
resources but we have not received a response.
- National Student Survey and IQR have both identified library provision as a problem.
iii) Student Law Website
- HS – Website is now up and running. Need to get more information together and send to Ian Peel
and will hopefully be sorted within a week.
- OT – request to let staff know when law society website is finished and we can use it in
recruitment literature.
- NS – there are plans to update LLM societ website.
- OT – suggest that LLM reps contact Ian Peel to set this up.
iv) IQR
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OT – express thanks to students for their input to the IQR. The IQR committee were impressed
by the student involvement. The report has come back to the Faculty this week and issues will be
discussed at the next FTC.
v) Mid-Sessional Exam
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OT – in response to student requests, there will now be a mid-sessional exam in Property I in
January 2010.
vi) LLM issues
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a) Patchy use of Moodle
OT – There are minimum standards of use of Moodle by UCL. The baseline has been circulated.
Please could students look at it and report to OT/Graduate Office if minimum standards have not
been reached.
b) State of MLT
OT – MLT has been refurbished over the summer. It is hard to get funding to make any further
improvements.
HS – There are still missing chairs in the MLT – are these going to get replaced?
OT – need to speak to Keith Shore.
Chairperson’s Business
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i) Changes to undergraduate admission criteria
We have introduced preferred and non preferred A level subjects for entry to undergraduate
programmes. Details will be provided on the website.
The reasons for this change is that there are too many applicants that meet our entrance criteria
and so we need to either introduce the A* requirement or preferred subjects. It has been agreed
that the A* is too new to be used as an admissions requirement.
ii) Changes regarding Assessment
Late submission policy – both LLB and LLM have introduced a late submission of assessed work
policy which means that that a deduction of mark schedule will be implemented for up to seven
days after the deadline. This will avoid marks of 0 being issued for students who have submitted
late and so will reduce the number of resitting students.
Word Count penalties – Deduction of marks if essays are more than 10% over the word limit.
The above policies will take effect fromo Jan 2009. Faculty Tutor to send round an email to all
students.
iii) National Student Survey
Students were encouraged to complete the NSS. We achieved a response rate of 54%. The
summary of the results were presented at the FTC. The results show that things have improved.
Library resources were flagged up as a problem – this has been requested to be brought to the
attention of the Academic Committee.
OT expressed thanks to all students that responded.
(iv) Course Questionnaires
The results were reported at the FTC and the senior student rep was asked to distribute to the
students.
Course questionnaires were put online for the first time in 08/09 session – less students
responded but the quality of the feedback was better.
Results showed that the disparity of the the workload between year 1 and year 2 was becoming
closer.
Law Society Events
i) Careers
- Careers events now taking place on Monday evenings to avoid big clashes with popular LLM
lectures – open to all students.
- Events are advertised by email and are on the Laws website.
- NA – There are still clashes with some LLM lectures although not as many people affected as
when the events were held on Tuesdays.
- HS – The only time where there are no clashes at all is on Friday evenings. The society tried
moving events to Fridays but attendance was very poor.
- NA – can the society explore the option of moving the Careers evening to a different day each
month so it is not always the same students that miss out?
- HS suggested perhaps flagging up the events that are more relevant to LLM students.
- OT expressed thanks to Hauwa Shehu, Dimitrios Contraros and Sehar Ali-Noor for organising a
very impressive careers programme. This was flagged up by Dr Fiona Smith.
ii) Mooting
- HS – LLM students are not invited to internal Moot Competitions – this is because it is not fair for
second year LLB students to compete against graduate students. Last year, the LLM society
organised their own Moot competitions.
iii) Problems with emails
- HS commented that all student emails were not always sent out by staff.
- OT to investigate with Ian Peel if student representatives can be given authority to send out
undergrad and postgrad group emails.
iv) Upcoming Law Society events
- Halloween social event
- Christmas Ball – trying to secure sponsorship.
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Both Christmas Ball and Easter Ball are open to undergraduates and postgraduates.
Cumberland lodge – definitely going ahead this year. Theme not yet chosen. Is open to LLM
students. There are places for 44 students.
OT – we need transparency on how places are allocated.
HS – Lisa recommended using an online sign-up sheet.
Sports events – request for participation from LLM students.
v) Other
- HS – can Law Society have a notice board in the common room.
- OT – society will need to speak to Keith Shore.
Personal Tutoring
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OT – The Faculty has reviewd its personal tutoring system last year. We need to know whether it
is working.
First year students should be receiving at least 5 meetings over the year. Other years should be
receiveing at least 3 meetings.
We need to receive student feedback to see whether improvements have been made.
NA – has heard complaints from graduate students regarding them not ever meeting their
personal tutors.
OT has sent email out to students to request feedback. We need to know if tutors are not
complying with minimum standards. This needs to be brought to the attention of the Faculty Tutor
or Graduate Tutor.
Free Printing Policy
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OT - need to know views of students regariding abolishing free printing. ‘Green’ issues will need
to be taken into account.
Student Issues
i) First Year Representative
- PA - some students participating more in tutorials than others. Same people tend to dominate the
tuorials.
- OT – will bring to tutors attention that concerns have been raised.
ii) Senior Student Representative
- YZ - Complaints about the May 2009 Property II exam – last minute changes to stucture of exam.
- OT – Formal complaints were made. Examiners were made aware. Assessment change was
approved by the external examiner. This was also raised in the IQR.
- YZ – There is a disparity between the workload of different third year subjects.
- HS – Some Research Essay subjects not being covered by a member of staff. E.g. Islamic Law.
- OT – Research Essay subjects are limited by the availability of staff. E.g. if members of staff are
on sabbatical then some Research Essay topics cannot be supervised.
- HS – Can Undergraduates use the Graduate Common Room? Undergrad common room is next
to Moot Court and so students keep getting reprimanded by teachers for making too much noise.
- OT to find out whether undergrads can use postgrad common room and will remind tutors that the
area outside the Moot Court is the undergrad common room.
- HS – Can there be more publicity about student prizes.
- OT – Arrangements can be made for a list of prizewinners to be uploaded to the UCL Faculty of
Laws website.
- HS – Can students have a trophy case?
- OT will explore possibility with Keith Shore.
iii) LLM Student issues
- NA - Some Moodle courses are ‘unerrollable’.
- GB – This is linked to Portico. LLM students will need to ask the graduate office if their modules
have been approved yet. Once module is approved by the department, then the course should
become enrollable on Moodle.