Minutes of the SSCC meeting on February 19th 1997

Natalie May/Graham Knight

Attendance List

T.B.D.

1. Apologies for absence

Jason Rainbird, Matt Williams, Nick Holmes

2. Minutes of meeting held on November 13th 1996

The minutes were approved with one amendment (Hawkins -> Dawkins)

3. Matters Arising

The new arrangements for handing in coursework were approved.

The SLIP service was still available but there was still no scaleable solution

4. Student common room and work areas - report on progress.

A sub-committee organised by JS had met and had drawn up a report. There seemed to be no possibility of moving the Common Room to a new location so the aim was to improve the current location. New furniture would be purchased and the lighting and ventilation would be improved. New ceiling tiling would be installed.

The problem with providing refreshments remained. There was no possibility of installing a water supply or drainage in the current location. Previous experiments with a cold-drinks machine had not established that there was a demand for this.

The Slade school had been approached with a view to installing a cold drinks machine in the Slade foyer or in the Slade entrance hall. Unfortunately the Slade school were not interested in either of these ideas.

NA pointed out that the existing location was very inaccessible for disabled students.

It was pointed out that the combination was currently incorrect. The plan was eventually to remove the combination lock.

5. Consideration of academic year (induction week, reading week etc.)

The DCNDS students indicated that they would prefer to have one induction week plus a reading week. This would happen starting from 1997.

N.H reported by email that he had found the induction week useful but that there were no strong feelings on the subject amongst first year students.

There was some discussion as to whether an induction week would be useful for 2nd and 3rd year undergraduates but no conclusion was reached. It was agreed that it would be useful if students were encouraged to make preliminary choices of options in Term 3.

Reading week was generally well-liked.

NH reported by email that students did not like having c/w deadlines at the end of the week as this prevented them from doing and reading. There was general support for this from student reps.

The main benefit of reading week was seen to be to allow students to catch-up with the course material.

SSCC should recommend that lecturers do not set deadlines at the end of reading week although the first Monday after reading week might be OK

There was some discussion on revision classes. Although there were criticism of the present arrangements (too early, students had not begun revision etc.) there was majority agreement that it was a good idea to have the week so that all students could be guaranteed a revision class.

6. Any other business

It was announced that exam timetables would be available during the last week of term.

7. Date of next meeting:

To be announced.