Continuing to improve the student experience
Continuing to improve the student experience and enhance what we offer our students is a vital part of the development of the University.
Prof Clare Mackie, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning)
Our new strategy, Making the Future 2013-18, sets out strong and clear commitments to students to make the Sussex experience and the opportunities we provide to students among the best in the UK.
The curriculum we now offer and the structure of the year have already seen significant improvements, and should already be enhancing students’ experience in key areas.
Last week, students finished their mid-year assessment period; providing the opportunity for prompt and effective feedback to our students from those assessments is critical to their making the best of the 12 weeks of teaching this term.
I know that all schools are seeking to ensure that this feedback is delivered in a timely and effective way. A key test of this will be in the 2014 National Student Survey (NSS), which starts next month for Sussex students.
We have seen that significant improvements can be delivered by well-targeted investment in improving services. Last year, our students responded very positively in the NSS to the sustained improvements we had made in Library and IT Services. I hope that the continued investment in Library and IT will be mirrored in the 2014 NSS.
Likewise, I am keen that the assessment and feedback scores for NSS 2014 should show similar significant improvements, meaning that we are getting this important element in the student experience right.
We should also see further improvements in future years through online submission and feedback, and we have a project in place now to take that forward for Sussex.
Another ambition in the strategy is to enhance how we deploy e-technology to our teaching and learning. It is positive therefore to welcome Dr David Walker, our new Head of Technology Enhanced Learning. David will provide support and guidance to academic schools across campus to promote innovation in the use of technology in teaching and learning and to enhance the student experience.
We are also committed to ensuring that all undergraduates have the opportunity to broaden their studies by engaging with some combination of study abroad, placement, a ‘pathway’ and volunteering.
We are promoting these under the identify of ‘Sussex Choice’, which will capture all of these elements and present them as an attractive and coherent set of opportunities for our students.
The new pathways build on the structured flexibility we have created in the new curriculum, so that, alongside a single-honours course, a student can take a coherent programme of study in another subject in their first and second years.
Schools have embraced this flexibility enthusiastically, and we are already able to set out 18 different pathways – such as criminology, heritage, psychology and international business, as well as the popular existing pathways in world languages.
We are also expanding the range of opportunities that we offer to students to undertake year-long placements, usually taken between the second and final years, to provide students with the opportunity to gain new perspectives, experience and skills that employers are looking for. The Careers and Employability Centre run dedicated placement-preparation programmes to support students on any course.
These new opportunities are being promoted to incoming students alongside the existing study abroad opportunities which Sussex offers and which are taken up by a significant number of our students.
And this new employability-focused support does not stop once students graduate. We have this winter provided additional internships and scholarships to more than 100 graduates from 2013, who can benefit from this additional help and support. Providing funding from Sussex to assist students after they graduate demonstrates our sustained commitment to Sussex students.
As we look towards graduation next week and we celebrate our student successes, we know that our graduates are the most important ambassadors and supporters for the University now and into the future, in the UK and across the world.