As part of the OneLSE Campaign, we've been lobbying the School for an online housing network. We've worked with LSE Residences to highlight issues important to our members, develop a landlords code of practice for a housing network and put together lots of housing advice and guidance.
The result....
LSE Accomodation Office are launching LSEStudentpad at the LSESU Housing Extravaganza today.
Go to www.lsestudentpad.co.uk to check it out!
To get the most of of this valuable new service:
- Register your preferences on the site
- Search for properties!
- Use the student-to-student messaging board to find flatmates
And also, if you know of a landlord who should use the service, email [email protected] and let them know!
I really hope this makes looking for housing in London so much easier.
Email your Head of Department about bigger class sizes!
UPDATE (22/01/14): Great work on contacting your Heads of Depts. Voting on class size proposal mysteriously moved to next month. We've closed contacting departments for the time being.
Original post is as follows...
The Pro Director’s Teaching Task Force 2 report suggests that larger classes is a viable trade-off for being taught by a full time academic. 2775 students have told LSESU otherwise, and last term you spoke out in clear opposition to this suggestion. This month, LSE Academics will vote on it.
If you don’t want Recommendation 13.1 of Teaching Task Force 2 to be voted through at Academic Board on the 29th January, tell your Head of Department to respect student views today! We've created a form to make it really easy for you to email your head of department. Simply put in your name, LSE email address and select your department and we’ll do the rest of the work for you.
A busy morning on Houghton Street, our Sabbatical Officers are campaigning against the proposed Immigration Bill. Make a difference and write to your MP, the Home Secretary and the Minister for Immigration in under 60 seconds via www.nus.org.uk/unwelcome.
If you need a little extracurricular distraction from your deadlines, here’s a quick campaigning update.
The SU had a great campaigning session last week with students working on campaigns ranging from a Free Nepal campaign to STAR society's Equal Access campaign to combating casual homophobia on campus. Based on the feedback we received, next Term the focus will be on more practical aspects to campaigning such as more on digital media, public speaking and lobbying. For the rest of this Term, the Student Engagement Coordinator will continue to meet with groups of students about specific campaigns so please get in touch if that’s of interest.
Current campaigns
The following are just a few of the fantastic campaigns that LSE students have been involved in this year: Student Action for Refugees (STAR) society have been continuing with the Equal Access campaign; other students have been involved in campaigning to protect Legal Aid in the UK as part of Postcards for Justice and a campaign to tackle European unpaid internships. In December, Sustainable Futures society will be launching their campaign for more sustainability on campus.
The SU representatives have also been busy with the following:
The launch of the Priority campaign ONE LSE
Challenging the government's Immigration Bill - find out how you can act here.
Collecting signatures for the petition against the privatisation of student loans.
Planning the Play Safe campaign which will be launched in January.
Please email the Student Engagement Coordinator if you have any questions or would like to get involved.
International Students make up 56% of LSE’s student population.
The proposed changes affect our community, they affect us all.
ONE LSE: One voice for International Students.
The Government is actively making life difficult for international students at LSE in trying to pass an immigration bill through parliament. The changes proposed in the bill will affect non-EEA students, who make up 75% of those subject to visa controls. Professor Craig Calhoun described the changes on Twitter described as “short sighted and foolish”.
If this bill is passed, it will mean:
1. More than half of LSE Students will be charged over £1000 through the course of their degree to use the NHS
The proposed introduction of healthcare charges of up to £200 per person per year of study is discriminatory, counter-intuitive and impractical. In particular, for postgraduate research students with families this could mean an additional visa fee of £3000 before even stepping foot into the UK.
2. All LSE Students will have to supply documentation, despite their citizenship status, proving they have the right to stay in the UK. Not doing so, could mean a £3000 fine for your landlord – which will inevitably be passed on to you
Private landlords/letting agents are not and must not become the UKs border patrol. A fine of £3000 for landlords who don’t ensure a tenant has the right to live in the UK will mean that the costs of background checks will fall on tenancy seekers and may result in racial profiling in order to mitigate risk upon accepting a tenant.
In addition to existing practices of not accepting non-UK guarantors and demanding larger tenancy deposits or 6 months of rent upfront, landlords and letting agents are making the UK a very unattractive place to study. The Immigration Bill will amplify an already acute problem.
3. LSE Students will lose the right to appeal if they apply for a visa or visa extension whilst in the UK.
Government statistics show that 50% of in-country appeals were upheld last year and that 70% of these were due to errors in the application process. LSESU does not support removing the right to appeal a Home Office decision when the system remains so flawed.
What we want you to do about it:
- write to your MP, Theresa May, the Home Secretary and Mark Harper, Minister for Immigration in 60 seconds via www.nus.org.uk/unwelcome.
-get a postcard on Houghton street and write your message in support of LSEs International students, put this up as profile pictures and SHARE! (#OneLSE)
-sign the following NUS petition: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/uk-government-prevent-the-introduction-of-unfair-nhs-charges
If you have any questions/concerns, please e-mail me at [email protected].
We need one LSE we can all be proud of. The University are planning major changes that will affect your LSE education. Proposed changes range from the introduction of a reading week to increased class sizes, so it's vitally important that your voice is heard.
There's a survey online, make sure you fill it in. Your voice needs to be heard by the people highest up in the school so changes aren't made that you don't like.
Click here to make sure your voice is heard.
What are the proposed changes?
There is a push to enhance departmental discretion. At the moment there are a range of central controls on all courses offered at the LSE, including a formal cap to class sizes (although course coordinators can apply for a temporary or permanent exception to this rule with good reason), and guidelines such as heavy reliance on examination for assessment, approximately 8 hours of contact time per week, and the tendency (especially at Undergraduate level) to be lectured by academics but taught by Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs).
With increased discretion, changes could occur to sizes of classes taught by permanent academic staff, examination making type, assessment type, and the structure of academic terms.
Department Teaching Committees and Staff Student Liaison Committees would be responsible for establishing a clear statement of and rationale for Department practices.
The perceived benefit of the changes is departments will be best placed to make decisions relating to their specific programmes, allowing them to innovate and improve teaching provisions, away from the constraints of, sometimes inappropriate, school wide norms. There is also the increased likelihood that your contact time with high-profile academics will increase as large changes to class sizes will put your lecturer at the front of your class/seminar.
The perceived disadvantage of the changes is the future inability of you as students to: hold your departments to account, expect the same level of provision across various subjects studied, and the potential to see your department's offerings as more unfair compared to your friend's next door.
You may think the changes are brilliant
You may think they're atrocious.
But it is vitally important that your Union understands your opinion so they can take your voice to the school-level discussions and push so you get changes to an education you can be proud of, you travelled across the globe for and you invested thousands of pounds for.
We need to know your opinion on:
Optimum class sizes and who's teaching it
Structure of academic terms
Assessment type
Marking anonymity
Departmental discretion vs central controls
Who's proposing them?
These changes have been compiled by a working group called the Teaching Task Force, headed by Paul Kelly (the pro-director for Teaching and Learning), and involving various members of the academic community from across departments, the 2012-13 Education Officer (Duncan McKenna) and an additional student representative.
The group met throughout 2012-13, and the draft report highlighting the proposed changes was compiled over the summer 2013.
The pro-director also met with Heads of Department throughout the summer to gauge school-wide academic opinions on the planned proposals.
How long have we got?
It's now our turn
Originally the report was to be presented at Academic Board on the 16th October. The Union succeeded in pushing the discussions back to later this term, to give us time to ask YOU what you think.
The next Academic Board meeting is on the 4th December, so its important that you tell us NOW what you think because we have
What can you do?
Fill in the survey
Share with your friends on facebook/twitter/tumblr/youtube
Come and visit your Sabbs on Houghton Street on the 11th and 12th November to find out more.
Learn more about our ONE LSE campaign here:
What is your Education Officer (that's me!) doing?
Running around in purple for the next two days gathering your opinions, online and offline.
Taking your collective voice back to the Teaching Task Force committee, Academic Board and Department Heads to push them to only implement changes to your education that you want.
Be engaged at departmental implementation level, both with academics and Student Staff Liaison Committees, to make sure we have a strong collective voice pushing for ONE quality of education for all LSE students.
