HUMANE
Heads of University Management & Administration
Network in Europe
Seminar
“Student Issues”
Universite de Haute Bretagne, Rennes II
22-23 September 2000
The
President of the University, Professor Jean Brihault, welcomed participants to
Rennes. He prefaced his comments on the
provision of student services by emphasising the long-standing centralisation
of the French education system. Despite
recent changes universities still remained in a centralised and in many ways a
reactive situation. Another long tradition was that of wide availability of HE
at low cost, with tuition fees of about 150 euros.
The
provision of student services such as accommodation and food was moreover not
the direct responsibility of the university, but of a central regional body
(the CROUS). Students with health
problems have to go to local doctors, not a university health service – and
with the increasingly varied social backgrounds of students this issue is
becoming more visible. The university
does have a careers service, and is also responsible for sport and culture, as
well as student mobility.
One
feature which provoked comment and discussion was that of student involvement
in the regular meetings of senior management.
Professor Brihault had found this to be an inspiring and fruitful
contribution – he had stressed to each new student vice-president the need for
responsibility and confidentiality, and this confidence had always been
respected. For some participants this
was a rather new concept while for other such as those from Spain the fact of
large student representation on university boards was totally normal. Professor Brihault outlined the ways in
which, during the 1990s, universities had been encouraged to enter into
partnerships with local or regional authorities [the success of this type of
activity in Rennes was highlighted by a formal reception and dinner at the Town
Hall later in the day], and with economic networks.
He considered that Rennes II was successful in terms of cultural and artistic activity, but less so in the field of sport. He was trying to develop this He agreed with the suggestion that universities could usefully enter into partnerships with local sporting clubs, for shared use of facilities. It was felt that despite possible conflicts of interest (and even local resistance such as had been experienced by one member) this was an overall benefit. The university had even introduced a scheme whereby outstanding sportspeople would receive special help to catch up with classes which been missed as a result of absence related to their sporting activity.
A visit to Rennes’ twinned city of Cork (IE) had illustrated the success of residences for international students, and he was trying to encourage the growth of a social centre which would allow students to see the university as a home rather than as a place to be visited for classes. He had seen and admired the “Student Union” concept of other countries. Rennes II had an active programme of making local people more familiar with the campus, especially since the local population included many families with no experience of university life.
In
response to questions about the links with national legislation the President
outlined the nature of the four-year “contract” which allowed the university to
put forward plans for Ministry approval.
This positive development was matched, however, by the negative feature
whereby all financial decisions had to be checked and approved by the agent
comptable in terms of formal Ministry rules. The difficulty of using old and rigid rules to deal with new and
evolving structures led to tensions.
This view was supported by the university’s agent comptable (and
seminar organiser) with an illustration of how difficult it was to use funds if
the case was not foreseen in the detailed rules of expenditure.
Other
questions related to the nature of student participation. Professor Brihault was trying to involve
students more in transport and security issues, and was developing a scheme
whereby students were associated with local schools, helping both pupils and
their own career prospects.
The Promotion of Graduate Employment: University
Careers Services
Anna-Riita Piilonen, University of Helsinki (FI)
Anna-Riita explained her position as head of the Careers
Service. Traditionally, Finnish universities (with the exception of the schools
of economics and universities of technology) had not paid much attention to
their contacts with working life, since the need had not been obvious. But at
the beginning of the 1990s, when the recession and growing unemployment were
having a dramatic effect on the employment prospects of graduates, the Finnish
Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour realised the urgent need for
measures promoting graduate employment. Universities were given labour
policy-related duties and this led to the development of career services. These
services are nowadays available for all students in every university in
Finland, and work as an active national network.
At
the University of Helsinki, the Career Services Centre was established in 1994
with government project funding. It has an important role to play in
connections between university and society, between education and working life,
not least in times of better employment trends (as it is in these days). The
tasks of the Centre are:
1.
Monitoring changes on
the borderline of education and the labour market.
2.
Strengthening the role
and quality of traineeship periods during studies.
3.
Making better use of
employer connections in teaching and in preparing master´s theses.
4.
Developing students’
orientation and knowledge of working life besides the academic facilities.
The
working environment of the universities in Finland had changed remarkably in
the 1990s with polytechnics appearing on the educational market. The
polytechnics now develop their teaching, but taking the needs of working life
as the starting point. This trend is accompanied by effective marketing and
close partnership contacts with the business world.
Anna-Piila
concluded by noting that despite these new circumstances the University of Helsinki
did not intend to give up the tradition of educating academic generalists,
whose best quality is the ability to acquire, analyse and implement knowledge
in changing duties and environments. However, it had to be recognised that the
multi-faceted labour market requires new qualities and readiness for marketing
the academic skills both on individual and university levels.
The
next two sessions dealt with the organisation of student services for
international students. Both speakers
dealt essentially with ways in which needed to make their (small) town an
attractive place for potential students.
Housing Facilities for Exchange Students
Ger Weening, University
of Groningen (NL)
Ger Weening explained the international aspirations of Groningen in the context of situation where 75% of students came from the northern part of the Netherlands and the university needed to compete even more keenly with others for the remaining 25%. The University of Groningen considered good housing facilities for our exchange students to be a prerequisite for a successful stay. Such visits were considered successful if the exchange student had adequate accommodation that enables him/her to come into an intensive contact not only with Dutch culture and Dutch students but also with exchange students from other countries. It had therefore developed a rather unique concept of international student houses and an active, informative and integrated support of Dutch student-organisations.
The
presentation focused on
·
the University of
Groningen, its surroundings and co-operation with other HEIs
·
the pioneer phase in
housing exchange students
·
the professionalisation
and office systems used to deal with the housing
·
basis philosophies on
optimising social and inter-cultural contact
·
the exit interviews
which are carried out to see how well exchange students appreciate the
facilities on offer, and which give the opportunity to improve efforts, if
necessary.
Ger
noted that exchange students came to Groningen for between three and twelve
months, and – because of non-consecutive bookings and periods of study – this
could lead to logistical problems. It
was impossible to know exact numbers of rooms in advance, while housing that
was not occupied clearly costs money.
Here too there was joint activity in that the university and the local
Hochschule had been able to share resources in certain activities by (for
example) creating a single co-ordinator.
One
such feature was the use of a Dutch student as a warden in each international
residence – it had proved a popular way of creating a sense of identity in the
Netherlands, and at the small cost of a moderate fee had greatly increased
satisfaction rates. Another point which had emerged from comparative
evaluations was that foreign students much preferred single rooms to the shared
rooms which were more typical in the Netherlands. The internal debate at Groningen about the wisdom of having
residences totally reserved for foreign students (as opposed to a mix) was
continued in the seminar as participants debated the plus and minus points of
segregation. The clear consensus was
that one should avid a ghetto effect and also ensure that incoming students
benefited wherever possible from some contact with their host country. Participants were extremely interested in
the relative results of the surveys which had compared the various residences.
Johann Peter Schäfer,
University of Siegen (DE)
Johann Peter outlined the official welcome is organised
with senior staff, and various tours of the campus, the university library and
the city, and a welcome party and visits to other cities. A full sporting
programme is available, as is a Student Counselling Service. In addition to
introductory seminars to simplify the entry into university (for example, notes
on study technique) a special tutor helps international students to adjust to
the German system of making notes in lectures, writing papers, participating in
seminar discussions etc. Finally he was
also pleased with new measures to keep contact after university are also in
place, such as information exchanges and an alumni magazine – especially as
this was rather a new development in Germany.
In discussion of this presentation and that of Ger Weening
there was discussion of the merits and demerits of charging deposits for
accommodation and the imposition of penalties for cancellation. The general view was that it was wasteful to
spend too much time chasing such payment – at Siegen foreign students were
treated exactly the same as German students, with a deposit (returnable depending on the state of the room) and a
possible refund of any early payment depending on the reason for cancellation.
Two
presentations from Sweden and Spain then considered aspects of market
competition when developing services.
A Re-formulation of Accommodation & Transport
Policies
José Manuel Muñoz Muñoz, University Of Córdoba (ES)
José Manuel introduced the city of Córdoba, located in the north of Andalusia, some 150 km from Seville, with 310,000 inhabitants, and the capital of a province with over 450,000 inhabitants. The region of Andalusia had nine universities, and students may apply to any of these nine universities. The University of Córdoba has 17,000 fte students in official courses, 940 postgraduates and 872 members of academic staff in 50 Departments. Geographically, the University buildings were mainly concentrated in the west of the town, but some spread out through the centre and beyond. Two Halls of Residence (“Colegios Mayores”) housed 500 students, plus some other private halls of residence and flats to rent.
Against this background he described how the opportunity for modernisation had come with a government offer of a new campus 6 km. to the east of the town. This would allow buildings to correspond to the departmental structure, and would encourage the modernisation and growth of infrastructures such as laboratories and libraries. However, various groups - academic staff, students, and in the city itself – objected, for example, that there was no suitable public transport available to the new campus, and that accommodation (both, public & private) was too far away. The university’s decision to go ahead with the new campus therefore meant having to have a new accommodation policy, with a new transport policy.
The
starting point was seen to be inadequate accommodation. Schemes were adopted,
including flats for rent. Since the
university has no money to build new halls of residence on-campus the
Government offered to provide 70 new flats under social protection rules, with
very low prices and at “no cost” to the university. Agreement was reached
between the Andalusian Government, a bank and the University to fund, finance
and promote two buildings each providing room for over 250 students in or near
the new campus - a public company would construct the buildings, to be owned by
the University. The flats were finished in June 2000, but additional costs to
the university have occurred, notably because of differences of criteria about
quality standards - for example no
air-conditioning was planned although Córdoba has temperatures of over 350
C five months a year, no furniture was supplied, and extra security
facilities were required.
José Manuel described the difficulties of bringing in new rules and regulations of occupancy in such an arrangement, where University expectations and the demands of low-cost “social accommodation” are different. These disparities were probably a large factor in the low demand for the accommodation, and the university was urgently adapting facilities and working to change the rules for social accommodation.
The
presentation also dealt with the transport policy, aimed at providing suitable
transport to the campus (6 km. from the
town) for over 9,000 people Here the starting point was an extremely poor bus
service, an absence of local support, and a railway line at the edge of the
campus for long distance services only. The agreement (Andalusian Government,
national railways and the University) was that the University would promote the
construction of a station at the campus, the Government would provide the
funding for it, and RENFE (Spanish railways) would establish the service in
accordance with the time-table and prices set out by the University, and help
to subsidise the deficit of the service.
The implementation was successful in that the station was ready in time (Oct 1996), with the number of trains increasing from then on. Now the train timetable determines to some extent that of the classes. The deficit (originally around 8.200 euro a month) is now negligible. It remains for us to increase the frequency and size of trains, and to promote further links with the possible result of bringing students from the south of the province to the University daily, instead of going to other universities.
The
Role of Student Services in a Research-led
Environment
David
Owens, University of Cardiff (UK)
David Owens illustrated one facet of such investment by describing the re-development of buildings in order to provide stimulating accommodation for postgraduate students. He also developed the idea of the one-stop shop and joining up various services to supplement the academic activities of students. Such services were all the more important in the UK in the light of increasingly large financial contributions (and debt) incurred by students. He described in particular the Cardiff Graduate Centre, which had been created to improve the academic and social environment of postgraduate students.
His talk addressed the role of Student Services in a research-led university whose mission is "to pursue research of international excellence and research-led learning and teaching of the highest quality", so both research and students are vital to its purpose. Indeed the latter still underpin its funding and attracting and retaining students through a worthwhile student experience are essential activities.
The student experience is increasingly characterised by financial concerns. Many undergraduate students must now help pay their tuition fees and take out loans to fund their living expenses. Debt is therefore a problem for many and the Student Services Division (SSD spends a good deal of time and effort distributing government Access Hardship grants as efficiently, compassionately and justly as possible. These challenges are increased by the government encouraged thrusts to ‘widen participation’ and ‘increase access’ which may well result in a more heterogeneous student body, but one also with more issues that student services departments must help resolve.
Postgraduate
students are part of the life blood of a research-led University. Yet, financial concerns also figure largely
in the lives of postgraduate students who also face high intellectual and
related academic demands, as well as the need for self-discipline and
independent study. Too often this can
lead to real and perceived isolation, demotivation leading to lower quality
work or even the abandoning of their studies.
To offset this Cardiff University has recently established a Graduate
Centre. The Centre provides
information, advice, support, information technology equipment, a bar and
coffee lounge and a thriving social environment. Although it has only been open a year, it is highly valued by
students and staff, and may well have direct academic benefits as well as
helping the postgraduate student experience become more fulfilling and
rewarding generally.
This kind of initiative is a major contribution to student services in a research led university, and its success is due in no small measure to an effective interplay between the relevant academic and administrative parts of the University, the Students Union, and the users themselves. These features are essential for all Student Services, of course, and not just restricted to postgraduates. As at least one other speaker had commented, the provision of students services is a joint effort and activities need to be integrated. Further, student services are as vital to research-led universities as those concerned predominantly with teaching. For students underpin the definition of a University, and meeting their academic and related needs an essential priority, and a constant challenge, for institutions of higher education.
In discussion it became clear that the rigid distinction between undergraduate and postgraduate students in Britain was something which intrigued non-UK participants. It was pointed out and agreed that joined-up services required both time and money. The speakers also agreed that the interface with academic colleagues was vital – at Cardiff the induction programme for new staff included an introduction to Student Services.
Following the closure of the seminar participants were able to benefit from exceptionally warm temperatures and clear skies to pay a visit to the Mont Saint-Michel. The magnificent medieval monastery (a spiritual one-stop shop for pilgrims) had been constructed without input from a Quality Assurance Agency, and – suitably uplifted – members were able to benefit from the support services offered by a gastronomic restaurant on the return journey to Rennes.