Department of German Studies, University of Warwick
Staff Student Liaison Committee
19 February 2014
1.00-2.00pm, H2.03
Members present
Staff: Sean Allan (Minutes & Chair), Annika May, Adelheid Heuwieser
1st year: David Brown (Fr/Ger), Joseph Chard (Ger), Dan Anstiss (Ger/Bus, Desmond Huthwaite (Ger)
2nd year: James Ward, Daria Klima, Anna Liddell (Ger), Becci Ayling Ger)
4th year: Gemma Wilson (Fr/Ger), Beckie Palfreyman (Fr/Ger), Lousie Northcott (Ger), Olivia Hill
(Fr/Ger), Andrew Jones (Ger), Hannah MacCarthy (Fr/Ger), Helen Kinloch (Ger), Lyndsay Colquhoun
Ger/Bus), Tamsin Coleman (Ger).
1) Apologies for absence
Grit Brendecke, Ian Roberts, Richard Perkins, Fiona Kent, Neli Staneva (Ger/Bus), Kathryn
Harrop (Fr/Ger)
2) Minutes of last meeting
The minutes of the last meeting were approved.
3) Matters arising
There were no matters arising
4) Chair’s Business
SA apologised for not having recruited a PG representative for this meeting – but had
managed to recruit both Katharina Forster had offered to act as a representative (as had
Maria Roca Lizarazu and Hanna Schumacher) and they would be invited to future meetings.
SA thanked all those who had played a major role in what had been an extremely successful
alumni evening on 6 Feb 2014.
5) Year 1 Matters
There were no first-year matters
6) Year 2 Matters
(a) new 15-CAT Modules
Students were presented with a list of the new 15-CAT second-year modules, some of which
would be running for the first time in 2014/15.
German Expressionism: literature, art and
music
Bertolt Brecht – Theatre as Revolution
Film in the Weimar Republic and under National
Socialism
Unstable Worlds: Ambiguous Narrators in
Modern German Prose
Reading Weimar; Prose fiction 1919-1933
Modernity and its Discontents: Nietzsche,
Simmel and Freud
The Strange World of Franz Kafka’s Short Stories
Fictions of Femininity: Concepts of Gender in
Germany (1775-1848)
AF, JJ, HS
HS
SA, IR, JJ
JH
JJ
CA
AF
BR
These will replace the existing (30 CAT) module GE207 which, because of changes to staffing,
could no longer be run in its current form. However, while the intention is to refresh and
expand the second-year curriculum, a considerable amount of the material currently covered
in GE 207 will also be covered by some of the new 15-CAT modules. There will be a ballot for
Year 2 modules in the summer term.
Broadly speaking, the new modules were welcomed. Some students also commented that
while they welcomed the increased choice in the second year, they also enjoyed 30 CAT
modules as these gave them the opportunity to pursue certain interests in more depth and
sometimes had a more expansive structure. It was also noted that making some modules
core for certain degree programmes meant that students had studied a module which,
although they might not have chosen of their own accord, had nevertheless enjoyed and
found very interesting.
(b) Moderation of assessments
SA introduced a paper (attached) outlining the university’s new policy, viz. moving from a
system of universal second-marking to a more selective process of ‘moderation’. This was
approved by the meeting.
6) Final-year matters
(a) Oral exams.
LN raised the issue of whether oral exams might be taken at the start of the final year when
students tend to feel more confident about speaking.
SA and AM responded that, although students often feel more confident as far as casual
conversations were concerned, this not always translate into advanced competence in
discussing complex issues at a high register. These are the skills that the final-year oral
classes seek to develop in particular. It was also noted that an inevitable consequence of
holding the oral exams at the start of the year would be that attendance at final year oral
classes is likely to drop off – and that would not be in a student’s best interest.
(b) Library classification
Some students found that the current system of classification in the library made it hard to
find particular volumes (especially secondary works with a ‘Z5’ classification).
SA responded that he had just received a memo from the librarian to the effect that the
library was moving to the Library of Congress system of classification and that the books on
floor 3 were due to be reclassified during the Summer Vacation.
7) AOB
There was no further business
The meeting closed at 13.45