MEETING OF THE ENGLISH LITERATURE UG SSLC HELD ON 16 th MARCH 2016

IN ROOM 3.39, 50 GS, 3.15PM

1. Present: Jarryd Wood (4th), Chiara Morfeo (4th), Bethany Turvey (4th), Luke Bryant (3rd) Natalia Baizan (3rd), Ewin Teo (3rd) Huzan Bharucha (3rd), Rosie Wilson (2nd), Cleo O’Callaghan Yeaman (2nd), Pratyusha Prakash (2nd)

2. In Attendance: Dr Dermot Cavanagh (co-ordinator), Dr Simon Malpas (chair) and June Haigh (minutes)

3. Shower and Accessible Areas: We confirmed that the showers in 50 GS are available for student use. The staff kitchen area is only for staff use but students are welcome to use the water from the tap for refreshments. Students also asked about having a microwave to use in the Resources Room: it was felt that the reason why it was not installed was that the noise would disturb students. SM felt this was a School wide matter and the question should be directed at the School SSLC when they next meet. It was also stressed that 50 George Square is a working environment and should not become a `café` style environment.

4. EL2 Issues: Students commended the lectures for the course in the highest terms. They asked why the term essays were structured as they are – i.e. students are asked to compare texts within a specific period rather than across periods, although they are asked to undertake the latter task in the exam. We agreed to report this to the CO. SM explained we have to do it this way to structure the degree evenly; it needs to be ordered and coherent but after second year there will not be the same restrictive choosing of authors. Overall though students in EL2 are generally happy with the structure of the course. The course choices for third-year and the accompanying course were felt to be clear and helpful. ,

5 Third Year Students taking the Romanticism core course queried the way ALGs were organised for one of the seminars. They raised the issue of disparity between their experience and other ALGs. In this case, only one ALG was being asked to undertake an activity each week so that they were only ‘active’ every two or three weeks and the questions were quite broad– the students felt this resulted in a lack of direction and, consequently, engagement with the process. SM explained ALGs are very class specific and it was up the course organiser to oversee how they are working. There are a variety of practices with ALGs and this does vary between Tutors. SM explained we encourage variations and different styles of preparation, we don’t want to be too prescriptive about what happens in ALGs. SM said if students felt unsure of their role they should speak to their course organiser for more direction. We agreed to report this to the CO as well.

Students also asked for clearer direction about ALGs in their induction week.

Students queried why their exam were scheduled early in the diet. DC explained the pressures on the marking of exams and the demands of the process: this is why we need to time student exams carefully. SM explained how crucial it is that staff have time to doublemark exams in a reasonable timescale to ensure fairness and rigour

1 6. 4th Year Course Choices: Student enquired as to why there didn’t seem a good choice of drama courses on offer for 4th years, especially when they have just completed CP Performance. DC pointed out that there are more drama themed courses in 3rd year. SM admitted this was an issue and owing to staff absence the provision of drama has suffered. The Department is very conscious of this but we’ve done our best with the resources we have.

7. Dissertation: Student enquired as to why Dissertation work is undertaken in 4th year and not 3rd. DC explained this was because many joint and single Honours students go abroad in their third year so we are very careful to ensure it remains a 4th year activity so as not to disadvantage these students. The Dissertation Handbook has comprehensive information for students and is available on our website but as an activity it works better in 4th year so there is no formal preparation work undertaken in 3rd year.

The Dissertation co-ordinator, Professor Randall Stevenson will send out an email over the summer to tell students to start thinking about their dissertation ideas. SM advised students that staff/PTs are available in their office hour to discuss student plans. Another student asked if the Research Methods course for postgrads would be helpful to 4th year students, SM felt a lot of students don’t always enjoy this course but we will pass on this enquiry to the Dissertation co-ordinator for their thoughts on the matter. Students had benefited greatly from attending a Workshop on bibliography searches run by our Anouk Lang and students would love the opportunity to attend such an event again as they found it invaluable. SM said if we can we will definitely offer more of this type of workshop.

8. New Class Participation Mark: Students asked for clarity on how this mark is derived and SM explained the whole process in detail. It was stressed that this intended to enable the students to have some involvement in peer assessment. This is a new system and we will continue to assess it and ensure it has a positive impact on everyone.

9. Lit Pals and Room Bookings: Student said LitPALS had been affected by poor accommodation -- not everyone could find them in the room in the DHT basement and this was frustrating for the organisers. Unfortunately we seem to have little influence over acquiring rooms but timetabling were aware of various issues we have encountered with unsatisfactory teaching rooms so this is an ongoing issue. SM pointed out the fact that this year we were unable to accommodate any students wishing to take EL1 as an outside subject due to there not being big enough Lecture halls to accommodate everyone. This is something we are looking into currently and the University know about this situation and we hope things will be sorted for the foreseeable.

10. AOB: Student wanted it noted that a lot of students had left positive feedback about June Haigh on their Facebook page and were very grateful to her support. As there was no other business to discuss the meeting was closed.

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