We hosted our ‘In Conversation With…’ event with the School of Strategy and Leadership, with a panel from the school answering your questions and speaking with students.

The panel consisted of:

• Dr Matthew Bennett – Associate Head of School – Global Engagement
• Dr Joan Lockyer – Head of School – SSL
• Dr Maktoba Omar – Associate Head of School – Student Experience

The event was chaired by Maryam Ali from CUSU. Here are three of the key questions answered during the event…

Is there any way to move graduation closer to the summer or provide an alternative date for students that are not able to come in November?

Unfortunately, the graduation dates are not set by the faculty. The dates are set by the University and around the University Calendar. There's a whole host of reasons why they're planned so far in advance and planned in the way that they are.

The processes and structures of the courses that we run mean that by the time everything has been completed, this is the first opportunity we get. Don't forget, we have three intakes a year. We're catering for September, January and May starters, so to get everybody through for a main graduation we have to do it later.

The University has introduced earlier graduations for certain courses and communities. We have one next month, in April time. There are other graduations during the course of the year, but the main graduation for the majority students is in November and I don't hold out much hope for that being shifted and it even if it were, it would certainly not be our decision.

The graduation period is planned for the whole University around the same time. The Cathedral needs to be booked and everything that goes with graduation.

A few of my peers have not yet received their CAS and they have a few email conversations with the registry team with delayed responses. I know they are busy, but as students, they are quite pressured about waiting for their replies.

Again, we don't issue CAS letter sadly. I will start with an apology. There have been some real delays in issuing CAS letters and that's for a range of reasons. And it really is very frustrating for all students. I really appreciate it and it's very frustrating for us.

In our previous meeting we were discussing that issue because late CAS issues means less enrolment and it has a ripple effect towards assessments, students needing deferrals and other delays. If we; and we have tried, believe me; could speed that process up to give you an easier enrolment process, we honestly would. It sits with our colleagues in CURA and the International Office, effectively under that one umbrella. There have been delays and there have been some complications and for that we apologize. But again, if we could wave that magic wand over it and make it go away, we really would. The best that we can do is to try and support you to make sure that no student is disadvantaged as a consequence of those late enrolments. We're doing the best that we can through and make sure.

How is the school carrying out MEQs?

We've changed how we do them. About 18 months ago we changed the process. The student groups used to come into campus, and you did it in a room. We then took some feedback to say students felt it was ‘a bit pressure selling’, so we moved online. We converted to online, and I don’t think there's a way around this. We have found that we don't get the feedback anymore in the volumes as previous. We don’t like students being quiet and not talking to us! We're conscious that we're putting more and more pressure on students to fill in MEQs, which is an odd position for us to being.

MEQs are how we improve our courses and delivery. I've personally had good MEQs and I've had other MEQs that say I’ve got to change things. We have to have that. I'm interested in any feedback students have got! We want to know how we can improve the level of engagement.

There's no simple trick to say how do we get everybody to submit MEQs, but what we’ve found is that the feedback is less in terms of volume than we used to get two years ago.

Our ‘In Conversation With…’ events are coming to an end shortly. If you would like to find out when your school’s event is or catch up with what was said, a full schedule is available here: In Conversation With...Semester Two | Coventry University Students' Union (cusu.org). A full transcript and video will be made available shortly.