Winter Warmer and the nominations for our 22/23 team were the big projects of February. We also had a major win as SRUC committed to taking part in the EmilyTest GBV Charter. This will make sure that SRUC continues to work to remove gender-based violence from their campus and communities. This was part of a yearlong project led by Cara. Cara’s hard work is a great example of how SRUCSA can make change happen at SRUC.

Using our time for you

We have been very mindful recently how little time the elected officers get to spend with students. Largely, because they are taking part in so many committees and meeting with SRUC. These committees and meetings are a critical way for the officers to make the student voice heard. We are evaluating them all, aiming to reduce how many we take part in.

Working with you

Hopefully by now you’ve heard that SRUC is working on getting authorisation to issue its own degrees. Currently, SRUC design, implement and deliver the degrees, but it is Glasgow and Edinburgh Uni that certify the degrees. Alongside other students, we have been taking part in meeting with the Taught Degree Awarding Powers (tDAP) Scrutiny Committee. A group of people who have come to check if SRUC is ready. Recently, We brought in Kyrsten Black, the SRUC Registrar, to our Class rep meetings to explain tDAP to our reps. The process will be continuing, and we are pleased to hear from our members that they support it. Read more on Moodle.

Talking to you

Roz, Cara and Douglas are taking part in a course to learn British Sign Language. The course is being delivered as part of SRUC’s commitment to supporting students who use BSL. SRUCSA is excited to learn and use BSL to be able to speak to these students in a helpful way.

It’s not the journey, it’s the destination

Roz has had a great response to her request to SRUC alumni and staff. She asked them to make videos about their career journeys that they took to get to where they are. The videos will show that there are different ways to get a job that makes you happy, how you get there is not so important. Look out for the videos being circulated in April.

You choose your leaders

We have had a huge response to our election nominations. With nine students running for our three full time positions and three students running for our volunteer positions. Voting is starting next week. This is your opportunity to choose who will lead SRUCSA and speak on your behalf to SRUC and externally. With the contested positions and a new platform for voting. We are hoping for a big turnout of students taking part.

Support in difficult times

Sadly, this blog post would not be complete if we did not mention the invasion of Ukraine by Russian Forces. We know that SRUC students may be affected in many ways. We have students who live in Ukraine or Russian or have family ties and this will be very upsetting for them. Lots of students will also just feel anxious and unhappy because of the disruption. We are working with SRUC to promote the support services internally and externally to support our students throughout.