Friday 29-01-2021 - 15:11

January 2021

Hi everyone

Over the last two years with previous officers and through my roles as Vice President and now Student President I was delighted to be asked to contribute to the development of the GCU Strategy 2030 on behalf of you, the students.

The Students’ Association has worked in partnership with the University, primarily through the Department of Strategy and Planning, to make sure that students were key in shaping the new Strategy 2030 and the University’s strategic direction.

We jointly hosted with the University two student events in Spring 2019. The events were held on campus to gather information and listen to the views of students on the emerging GCU Strategy 2030 framework and to identify students’ priorities.

Students were asked to identify their top priorities for the University to inform the objectives which would support delivery of the 2030 strategic goals.  Teaching was the highest priority, followed by work placement, careers and transferable skills and then University work-life balance as a key priority, which could reflect issues such as balancing employment and study, childcare, timetabling, and mental health support. The majority of ideas put forward related to learning environment issues such as more computers and study spaces, or ‘comfort’ issues such as better food, smoking spaces and gym provision.

The Students’ Association after the research stage continued to work with the Department of Strategy and Planning on developing the GCU Strategy 2030 which resulted in an additional objective about partnership working with the Students’ Association being explicitly included in the Strategy.

There are many examples to demonstrate the genuine partnership working between the Students’ Association and the University in recent years. Some recent examples include;

Student Partnership Agreement, Outcome Agreement, ELIR/Reflective Analysis, Preventing and Responding to Gender Based Violence, Student Mental Health Partnership Agreement, academic rep review, guide to student representation at GCU (internal audit) and Tackling Racism at GCU Working Group.

More recently the university have established working groups in partnership with the Students’ Association to promote the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDG’s, across the University as the SDG’s provide the guiding framework for delivery of Strategy 2030.

The partnership approach between the University and the Students’ Association in response to the Coronavirus pandemic has strengthened the relationship and its foundations for the future and this partnership working was recognised as an area of commendation in the recent Enhancement-led Institutional Review. 

I hope this outlines the collaborative approach with the Students’ Association and the students that the university adopted throughout the creation of the Strategy 2030.

To see more on the GCU Strategy 2030 click here.

Stay Safe, be well and Take Time for yourself!

Suzi Dee

Student President