HWSU amend Constitution

HERIOT-WATT’S Student Union (HWSU) saw changes made to the existing constitution following the recent AGM.

There had been calls for more clarity within the union’s structure following the departure of Michael Bottom as president last June. The main focus of the meeting was to pass the new constitution to further engage students with the union.

This led to the agreement that a structure change was needed to make the union more open and representative. It also agreed on a call for greater accountability and transparency in the work that HWSU is doing in order to improve the student experience.

Mike Ross, President of the union, said this “puts the students at the heart of what is being done”. He also described it as a new chapter in the union’s history which will see the lives of students being improved.

These amendments include; a review of the constitution every five years, any further amendments must not conflict with the union’s charitable status, amendments must be ratified by the University’s Court and in order for changes to be made it must have two thirds of the majority vote.

However, although the changes have been approved, they still need to be implemented. The new structures laid out are still to be put in place. Mr Ross also wanted to stress that he will be ensuring as little bureaucracy as possible under the new constitution. This is so students can see real change happening quickly within academic affairs, campaigns, activities and services. 

Mike Ross told The Journal: “In making changes to the constitution we will ensure clarity in our governance processes and cement in place our newly formed trustee board.”

“This will lead to us being more effective as an organisation and in turn lead us to being more effective at improving the lives of our students.”

The AGM also saw the launch of a strategic plan, the first in the history of the Union. This sets out seven key themes for the future of representation at Heriot-Watt. In order to achieve this ‘vision’, an operational plan is being developed in order to translate the bold statements in the strategic plan to tangible projects that will get worked on in order to ensure that the students of Heriot-Watt are listened to and get the most out of their Union.

Educational provision to fall at Napier?

Concerns have been raised about the quality of educational provision for students at Edinburgh Napier University due to the introduction of temporary library hours at the Craighouse campus.

The university have proposed to make cuts to staff and various courses within the School of Arts and Creative Industries faculty in a bid to save around £600,000, and this has been met with the formation of the Avoidance of Redundancy Committee (ARC). Yet, with these proposed cuts and the library at Craighouse unable to remain open all day due to “November staffing issues,” has the university left itself open for criticism.

The initial proposal on the 8th June 2010 outlined a deficit of around £1.3 million from within this faculty and the imbalance of staff costs to student income. This resulted in undergraduate courses being cut or plans to some being cut in the near future, including; Publishing, Culture, Media and Society, Interaction Design and Communication, Advertising and Public Relations. Courses such as Music and Journalism are to be kept and improved continually. The university also restricted recruitment, retraining, redeployment and job sharing in a bid to keep staffing costs as low as possible. Following this, documents released on the 9th September 2010 revealed the deficit had been reduced to £600,000 through natural attrition and buy-outs with limited backfill. The university stated that they were “committed to avoiding redundancies…but this cannot be ruled out at this stage.” Proposals for reduced working hours and unpaid sabbaticals have also been put forward. The minutes of each committee meeting and the dates of those which are coming up can be found here

A spokesman for the university released a statement saying:

“Despite expected reductions in public funding we remain absolutely committed to delivering high quality education for our students – including continuing to provide excellent library services at our campuses.

“The planned January 2011 opening of our redeveloped Sighthill campus and its new Learning Resource Centre, for example, will bring all of our health material under the one roof for the first time and give students access to over 300 computers and a variety of modern study spaces.”

A spokeswoman for the library also revealed that the temporary hours were due to “temporary annual leave of a member of staff and it was impossible to have the times covered.”

Only time will tell how the cuts will affect the university and to what extent there will infact be cuts.