Umar Shahid

Alisha Jamil

Mohamed Abdelsamad

Adnan Alkasih

Bhavishya Shakya

Calvin Thomas

Jena Charles

Tsz Law

Deeksha Venkatesh

Jivisha Aggarwal

Chung Sze

Richard Githuba

In attendance: Jason, Bhavishya, Deeksha and Jena.

Group Projects:

MLANG: Groups are not assigned for these projects which means that often people are left without a group for their project. Lecturers seem unbothered at complaints about this while students are left feeling unwelcomed. (case from Chinese Department)

Accommodation:

Talybont Court: Heating is insufficient. Only on for very reduced hours in the day and for a reduced temperature. International students, already struggling with the weather, feel unable to cope (considering no additional personal heaters are allowed in the accommodation). They also expressed issues with the water and fire alarms.

Fire alarms: On top of them going on for way too long, students feel like maintenance staff don’t address them quickly enough (allegedly it took them 1h to even get to the alarm once, students were made to wait outside in the early hours of the morning.

Guarantor Scheme: I made the committee aware of the guarantor scheme (which they didn’t know existed).

Extenuating circumstances:

Students mentioned how they were struggling to cope with their assignments, so I reminded them of Extenuating circumstances. Made them aware of how to apply to them and assured them they had no negative effect on their visa status or overall grade.

Graduations:

Bhavishya raised some complaints about the dates of graduation for master’s students. They take place in the summer of the year after they finish their degree. The issue is their visa ends in December/January. If they wanted to come to their graduation, they’d have to pay for yet another visa of pay for an extension.

I said I would enquire about this as I believed there must have been a reason for this.

e-Visas:

We agreed to hold another e-Visa workshop session in January, specifically focusing on how to share their code with the university to update their register. Date to be confirmed.

Global Campus campaign – Lunar New Year:

We brainstormed ideas for Lunar New Year celebrations in late January/early February. We settled for extending celebrations over a period of 3 weeks, hosting one event a week (Potluck dinner party, Calligraphy workshop and a New Year Market)

We also talked about collaborating with societies and the modern languages department (needs to be though out properly as political tensions between different east Asian communities might create potential controversy). Potentially the residence life team.

I’ve emailed Asian societies, but they haven’t gotten back to me, so I will DM them on Instagram hopefully getting better responses. Alternative, email Presidents of the society directly.

Contact the Modern Languages department and hone a better relationship with them to collaborate in future cultural events.

- Members discussed the current Speak Week Campaign, and provided feedback on their university experience

- The committee discussed upcoming events and how the executive committee can help

The meeting began with a discussion of what members wanted to get out of the executive commmittee. This included:

- Cultural community/celebrations

- Providing input on issues

- Bringing a larger presence for international students

- Providing a friendly face for international students to come to

- More collaborations with clubs and socieites to celebrate culture

- Tackling homesickness

The VP International then provided an update on their manifesto:

- Working on family discount - Have emailed other universities who have this in place. Trying to get data from them to present to the university

- Planning cultural events - Working on a Global Campus campaign to celebrate diversity on campus

- Organising an international students forum

The committee then asked questions, fed back and provided suggestions:

- Could run polls to collect feedback on what international students want

- Would like to see Culture Cwtch run again this year

- Discussion of bank accounts/visas