07/04/2019
One topic that has come up more than in previous elections is the governance structure of UCU and the UCU Council (also referred to as College Council or abbreviated with UCUC) in particular. Understanding the governance structure of UCU sheds light on the role of ASC, as well as on the powers it has to achieve its goals. As the current Secretary of the UCUC, let me explain these things briefly from my point of view.
The governance structure of UCU can be simplified by splitting it up into just three groups: The executive, the representative, and the independent. ASC does not necessarily form its own group within these three but is rather interwoven in the structure.
The executive includes the Management Team (which includes the Student Accessor) and essentially all staff holding high posts - excluding those in the other two groups. These staffers include the Heads of Department, the Head of the Tutor Group, etc. The executive shapes and implements UCU's policies, and runs the college's day to day affairs.
The representative body at UCU is the UCU Council. The council is made up of student representatives (the three AAO's and the Chair of ASC), their four staff counterparts and the Secretary (currently me). The council has the right of consent (i.e. must have given approval before something can go ahead) over some key policies at UCU, including the budget and the ARR (Academic Rules and Regulations). This means that if ASC were to oppose, for instance, a change in the ARR, not only could this opposition be made clear by advice both from the SA and the Council, but it could actually use its weight in the UCUC (50%) to flat out reject the new ARR. Next to approving key policies and documents, the Council also frequently advise the executive on policies and documents in various stages and conducts the Course Evaluations.
The independent would be the Exam Board, etc.
Cooperation between bodies:
While some of the relations between bodies are somewhat confrontational by design (in normal politics, for instance, the parliament and the executive are also not meant to always be in agreement), there have been some unnecessary structural difficulties in communication and coordination between them in recent years. Two main causes can be identified for this problem.
First of all, the governance structure at UCU is quite complicated. It is not always clear who is responsible for what, which can lead to some overlaps as well as some gaps in responsibility. Due to these a situation arises where our "small college" becomes a "big college": even though our staff and student numbers are quite small and most offices are at a 2 minute walking distance, the vast amount of governing bodies and allocated responsibilities allocated can create confusion as to who to contact about something in the first place.
Second, a lot of staff at UCU, whether they be teachers or executives, find in their experience that they have too much to deal with in too little time. Frequently, packed schedules make it hard to plan meetings, which adds further to the disconnect between governing bodies themselves or between the bodies and teaching staff.
For these problems, there is no easy solution. However, in my experience, it really does help when student representatives take a more active stance within the UCU structure. They come in with a fresh look on the way things are and they have not yet had the time to forget what the end goal really is: delivering quality education to students.
