UNM Student Staff Fora

The purposes of the Student Staff Forum (SSF) are to:

• To ensure that the feedback and concerns of students about their courses of study are represented to the academic staff throughout the academic year;
• To capture the views of students so that they are given proper weight in the processes of course and module review for co-creation and improvement of curriculum;
• To provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and information between the student body and the school, department or division in relation to student education, teaching and learning experience and development

General

• A Student Staff Forum (SSF) must meet at least three times per academic cycle, with at least one meeting each Autumn Semester. School and Chair can call for extra meetings on needs basis.
• Each school, department or division, and students’ association should follow the terms of reference and Student Staff Forum guidance document on the composition of its SSF. 
• Course or School representatives are responsible for effectively collecting feedback from their fellow students, representing their views at meetings, and disseminating feedback from the meetings. Schools, departments and divisions often via Senior Tutor must facilitate SSF by providing a mechanism for students to email or contact in some other way their fellow students.
• Course or School representative will chair the meeting, facilitated by School Senior Tutor.
• Course and/or School representative work with guidance from the Senior Tutor to prepare and finalise the meeting agenda.

SA Education Officer together with the SA Postgraduate Officer are responsible for the management of the training and development activities for course and student representatives aimed to prepare and provide guidance related to SSF purposes, structure and processes with support from the Campus Senior Tutor. 

• Key staff members from the relevant department, faculty, or school (where applicable) including SA Representatives (e.g. Education Officer) may be invited to join when necessary.
• The School, Department or Division must display minutes of SSF meetings, external examiner reports and school responses to those reports on an appropriate forum that is clear and readily available to students (such as Moodle)

Agendas, reports and action points

• The meeting agenda must be published and distributed before the meeting. 
• There should be a simple mechanism for both staff and students to have items placed on the agenda for discussion.
• All meetings must have an agenda that contains the key topics/issues for co-creation, as well as any other key information that needs to be distributed to School Senior Tutor and Director of Teaching and Learning through Course and/ or School Representatives.
• After every meeting, and at the end of each Semester, all SSF minutes must be made available and accessible to all staff and students at the UNM central SSF repository. SSF minutes must be taken into consideration in the school's annual monitoring processes and reporting.
• It is not expected that every action requested by Course and/ or School Representatives will be implemented, but it is expected that they should be given proper consideration and the grounds for non-implementation should be explained.

Glossary

Academic cycle refers to the commencement of the first semester to the last semester in a twelve-month period. Foundation academic cycle starts in April and ends in March the next year. Undergraduate and Postgraduate Taught Course academic cycles start in September and end in August the next year

For more information, please refer the following:

• Student Staff Forum Terms of Reference  
• Student Staff Forum Guidance Document  
• Student Staff Forum Agenda Template 
• Student Staff Forum Meeting Minutes Template