Hello, I’m Gillian Salmon and I want to introduce myself to you as your School Rep for Philosophical Studies. As it is the first time that Philosophical Studies has had a School Rep I thought I should let you know what I do.

As a School Rep I get to attend some

of the HASS (Humanities and Social Sciences) Faculty Learning, Teaching and Student Experience Committee (FLTSEC) meetings. Usually 2 to 4 HASS School Reps attend these meetings and we usually have a School Reps meeting beforehand so that any issues we have can be taken to the meeting by those attending. The kind of issues that students bring to these meetings are those that are not just course related but affect students throughout the faculty.

An example of an issues raised at FLTSEC are use of Recap – this is about to change from “opt in” to “opt out”. At the last School Reps meeting we decided that we should wait to see how much difference this change makes before we raise this again.

An issue that was raised was access to some buildings for Under Graduates after 5:00 or 6:00 pm. There are some students who have clinics is KGVI that run until 6:00 pm but if they leave the building after 5:00 pm they can’t get back in. This is also a problem for Business School under graduates as they can’t get access after 6:00 pm and as they are off campus it is less convenient for them to use the 24 hour clusters available on campus. The FLTSEC agreed to investigate this – as we are all over 18 they agreed that there is little reason for the inconsistency of access between PG and UG students.

I also attend Education Executive meetings chaired by Matthew Price, our sabbatical Education Officer. These meeting give him a chance to inform us of what he is working on and any changes that could affect students. It is also a chance for us to raise issues with him where he may be able to help us. At the last meeting the “Fit to sit” policy was discussed. This is a proposed change to the procedure for exams which would mean that any student who sits an exam is deemed to have been fit to sit it, so students would not be able to submit a PEC (Personal Extenuating Circumstances) form after sitting an exam. The Students Union is opposing this as they feel it would particularly disadvantage students suffering from anxiety or mental health issues. Such vulnerable students may not realise that they are not in a fit state to sit an exam until they get into the exam or when they leave the exam.

I intend to use this string on the blog to let you know about anything that happens in the meetings I attend that affects Philosophical Studies students.

If you have any issues that you would like me to raise for you then please feel free to post on this blog or you can e-mail me at g.salmon1@newcastle.ac.uk. Any issues that are only affect Philosophical Studies students should be raised with your Course Reps – there is a suggestion box in the Common Room and a poster with the e-mail addresses of your Course Reps (I am also a stage 1 Course Rep).