Notes from PGR Rep Assembly Thursday 6th February 2014
The meeting was led by Priya Jhand, Students Union Vice-President for Education and notes were
taken by Jenny Hall, Representation Support Co-ordinator at the Students Union
11 PGR Course-Reps attended

Experiment rigs
PGR rep from Chemical Engineering wants to highlight the difficulties students face when more than
one person wants to use the same equipment. What should happen about this – should there be a
system?

Tuition Fees
Students would like greater transparency about where their money goes. For example, some
students have to pay to attend Conferences out of their bench fees.
This was mentioned at the last rep assembly as well – it would be really good to have a break-down
of where and how fee money is spent.

PGRs who teach
Students are concerned about their lack of a contract. Should this be provided via Uni-Temps? Other
Universities such as Bristol give employment contracts to their PGR students who help out with
teaching.

Lab demonstration – allocation of hours
The system seems to have been changed ie centralised within departments. It used to work well
because academic staff could choose which PG students they wanted to act as demonstrators. Now
an administrator allocates hours and less able demonstrators sometimes end up getting better slots
or more hours. For example, in Physics one student asked for 4 hours a week doing demonstrating
and last semester got a total of 2 hours.
This has a knock-on effect for Undergraduate learning because they are not getting the same quality
of demonstrating if the PG student has less experience or ability.
Another issue with this – some don’t know at the start of the semester what demonstration duties
they have. Some people really rely on this work.
Action – Priya will speak to Professor Gill Nicholls, University Vice-President and Registrar about this.

Disk space for PhD students
Currently PGR students get a maximum of 1GB but for some students e.g. those who have a lot of
computerized work to do this is nowhere near adequate. One rep pointed out that it is possible to
apply for more but the group felt that it would be better to have a larger minimum space e.g. 5GB or
perhaps have different limits depending on the type of subject or set by the department.
Action –Priya to speak to Professor Nicholls

Research Development Programme
Most courses have been very good but this was not true of the Confirmation Work-shop. It was very
general and the session leaders did not have the Faculty specific knowledge that would have been
helpful. Requirements for Confirmation Reports are different across Faculties so it would be much
better to either have staff from the academic department there or to have Faculty specific sessions.
Another suggestion – it would be better to have Time Management as the first session!
Action – Priya to speak to Professor Nicholls

Library
PGR students are charged for overdue books but the books are often very specialist and not in high
demand. The restrictions are the same for them as for students at other levels.
Other Universities have long term loans that can last until someone else requests the book.
When a book is requested by someone else the notification email should give more notice.
Action- Priya to speak to Professor Nicholls

Training on use of software
In Chemical Engineering they have lots of software. It could be very useful for research but 80% of
researchers do not know how to use this software. It would be useful to have courses on how to use
specific software.
A student from ATI suggested that they could ask a member of staff with the knowledge to run
sessions but Chemical Engineering rep reported that the trouble is that the staff who have the
knowledge do not have the time.
Action – something to pass on to Professor Nicholls?

Surrey Sports Centre
The free classes are run at times (e.g. 9am) when students can’t go.
Some students have told their reps that they feel students are being priced out in favour of business
clients.
The Sports Park seem to keep changing the variety of membership types available and this is
confusing. Also, if students are only going to be in Guildford for a short time it is not worth it – could
there be a system where incomplete memberships could be ‘sold on’?
Action – Priya to mention to James Lovell, Students Union Vice-President for Sports and Recreation
Priya thanked the reps for attending and said that these issues and those from the last meeting will
be raised with the University.