With the student voice being so important to the educational experience, we wanted to regularly highlight some of the great work that is happening in SSLCs across the University. This is why we launched the Transforming Education Spotlight - a termly celebration of the people who are dedicated to the student voice at Warwick.

Congratulations to all the winners from the four categories are below:

University Staff Member

Jade Francis – WMG

“Jade Francis has been an influential member of staff who has supported the WMG PGT SSLC. Behind the scenes, they are the heart of the SSLC to make sure operations run smoothly. From supporting the Chair and Secretaries in their roles, to attending all SSLC meetings, and aiding the elected reps in organising events by securing funding and staff support (e.g. raising awareness to women in STEM with a movie night). 
During my first year as Academic Convenor, Jade was fundamental with providing personal support and guidance. Their experience with previous work as a student representative gave them unique insight that they have passed on to myself and the SSLC to ensure we are effective and productive. For example, identifying who best in management to help address a particular student concern. The SSLC agrees that Jade's input is significant and deserves recognition in appreciation for their hard work, commitment, and positive energy.”

Margaux Whiskin – Modern Languages & Cultures

“Margaux is doing an incredible job organising the SMLC SSLC, constantly supporting both reps and academic convenors, reminding us of deadlines in a very friendly way in these very stressful times. Her Student Voice newsletter, to which she encourages students to contribute either artistic content or whatever they feel passionate about and in which she keeps everybody informed about extracurricular events and also keeps us amused is just amazing and puts a smile on my face every time a new edition comes out.“

Georgia Stanley – WBS

“Georgia has been the SSLC Administrative Covenor for the WBS UG SSLC for a number of years now. She is the backbone to the Committee, helping the SSLC leadership team to become familiar with their roles and being supportive throughout the year. She's contactable and highly responsive, meaning that she very much aids an effective student-staff liaison committee.”

Gemma Barber – WBS

“For all her work within WBS to encourage students to have a voice in their own learning and student experience environment. This has lead to some really great innovations that have helped to raise the profile of student voice, including a weekly slide that is shared with all module leaders to show before the start of a lecture, that provides details of the important news, events and student voice issues each week.”

Arts Course Rep

Paula Strubel – Liberal Arts

“As chair in AY2019-20 and now reappointed in AY20-21, Paula has done an excellent job of helping to form the LA SSLC from a generally informal and not always impactful group into a well organized committee despite the substantial challenges posed by COVID-19. Liberal Arts is a new and small department, so we haven't inherited a culture that supports activities like the SSLC: we've had to build it from scratch. Many students have contributed to this, but Paula's commitment to the SSLC and student voice more generally has made a huge difference. Paula's particular efforts to gather weekly feedback from students on the issues around COVID has been of real importance (and took real effort). Beyond the SSLC itself, she has done an exemplary job representing students on various departmental committees. This has helped the department work on a range of strategic objectives, including those shared by the wider University around liberating the curriculum. I strongly support Paula for recognition.”

Science Engineering & Medicine Course Rep

Aggie Martin – Physics

“Last year, she was the chair of Physics SSLC and this year she is our secretary. She has always been supportive of student wishes, including those not in her year group. She always ensures the meetings are as concise and efficient as possible and is all around a great example of what an SSLC member should be. Always puts in 110% effort (e.g: never hesitates to contact staff members directly regarding a certain issue, sometimes even having a single conversation take hours) and that is transparent in the feedback we receive next meeting.
It is my belief that Physics SSLC would get less done if not for her influence. Furthermore, her engagement with the younger years ensures her example will be followed beyond her graduation.”

Charlotte Blackmore – WMS

“From the very beginning, Charlotte has ensured that as a year group we were prepared for every SSLC meeting. Whether this was collecting feedback at short notice, or arranging pre-meeting meetings with relevant staff - Charlotte ensured that we were best prepared to voice issues for our cohort. Her leadership became even more inspirational when as the SSLC we were flooded with student concerns. During this time, Charlotte was not only working in the NHS as a student assistant but was also leading MedSoc as Vice President. However, despite these other leadership commitments, she ensured that she performed her role as SSLC rep fully. Charlotte attended every meeting, organised extra meetings for issues specific to our cohort, carefully drafted emails, facebook posts and ensured that our cohort was kept informed and received carefully considered communication from both the SSLC and from the med school. Being an SSLC rep alongside Charlotte, I am well positioned to comment on just how challenging the role became during COVID. I was personally inspired by Charlotte's organisation, efficiency, but most of all her empathetic leadership - it is clear that she has our cohort's best interests at heart. “

Jonathan Loomes-Vrdoljak – WMS

“Jon has been the heart of the MBChB SSLC - carrying us through the whole year with excellent leadership as chair. He has ensured that meetings where scheduled, that they were fit for purpose and that he was prepared with the agenda. Through this he has also been supportive in enabling other reps to take on more responsibility or to organise action such as petitions. Jon has been an asset to the SSLC and as a committee we always had full confidence in him as our chair. I strongly believe his contribution should be recognised with the SSLC award.”

Social Sciences Course Rep

Ali Hussain – WBS

“Ali was present at 5/6 of the SSLC meetings that ran throughout the 2 year course.  He led with the majority of the feedback shared with the department.  He was always thorough, thoughtful and reflective in his feedback and was an approachable as a student representative within his cohort.  He was always clear in conveying the strength of view on behalf of the 168 students in his cohort. 
At each meeting he was careful to share a wide range of views on all the typical SSLC topics from teaching, timetabling, student support, student progress, careers support, technology, library services to name a few.  He always remembered to pass on positive as well as developmental feedback and took initiative to share feedback in between meetings to give the department an opportunity to respond and resolve some issues on the go.
Finally, at the end of his course, he made contact with the department to share his personal reflection and a sense of cohort view of the final months of our timetable. 
He completed the 2-year course while working full time and maintaining thoroughly professional SSLC representation throughout.”

Evelin Sanderson-Nichols - Philosophy

“Evelin has been really engaged and committed since she started the course in 2019. This is her second year on the SSLC, and she is attentive and professional, providing support to other students at the drop of a hat, and tabling great ideas to improve the student experience, such as broader rollout of WSPA skill training, and reformation of the personal tutor syatem. She's also on the equality and welfare committee for the philosophy department, where she volunteers to broaden accessibility and promote student wellbeing across the department. On top of this, she's this year's part time and mature student officer, where she's worked hard to build a platform for mature students to meet and support one another, and is organising targeted welfare and skill sessions for part-time and mature students, including 'how to deal with imposter syndrome', 'Organising yourself and your time' and 'reskilling.' She works incredibly hard and diligently, and it would be great to see her contributions recognised.”