UCSU awarded SUEI Silver Award
The University of Cumbria Student’s Union (UCSU) are delighted to announce their Silver Award accreditation in the Students’ Union Evaluation Initiative (SUEI) – a UK Government-backed NUS quality assurance model designed to measure engagement and performance, whilst helping unions to deliver improved outcomes for their members.
UCSU is one of just a small handful of unions throughout the UK to have been awarded the Silver level; an immense improvement on our Bronze award 4 years ago, which in itself was a huge achievement, given the geographical challenges faced. Those challenges remain, but despite these, UCSU has been committed to furthering the impact of our work, the achievement of positive outcomes for all our members, and the capacity of UCSU staff and resources to find new ways of representing and supporting our members – whether they’re a full time undergraduate studying at one of our larger campuses, or a distance learning mature student. Our aim is to represent and support students to achieve their ambitions, regardless of location or mode of study.
The Silver Award comes at a time when UCSU is in the process of finalising our new Strategic Plan – to take UCSU from 2014 to 2018. The stakeholder consultation period for this new Strategic Plan, combined with hundreds of hours of research, analysis and refinement, has resulted in our draft proposal being met with overwhelming approval at our recent General Meeting, in which the new Sabbatical Officers for 2014-15 were also announced. It’s an exciting time for UCSU, we’re extremely proud of the dedication and hard work of all our staff, trustees and officers in their commitment to make UCSU the best students’ union we can be. To be placed among the best in the country is testament to this hard work, and we’re looking forward to continuing this, and enhancing the student experience for the next generation of students at the University of Cumbria.
Volunteering is just one area where high levels of engagement, a commitment to working with the local communities in which we serve, and enhancing the employability of our members, has led to extremely positive outcomes, recognised by SUEI. As an institution of circa 10,000 students, we have over 1,000 registered volunteers – more than 10% of our members, which is an overwhelming figure, and one envied by other unions across the country. Likewise, UCSU’s Information & Advocacy Service provides free, independent and impartial support to members facing any kind of problem – be it academic, personal, financial or otherwise. The hard work and dedication of the Support staff has resulted in countless dozens of positive outcomes in all sorts of different cases for our members, and the value of the Service is felt throughout the student community. Hosting regular events such as the recent Success Awards cements further our relationship with the University of Cumbria, as well as the weekly student nights, annual Welcome Festival and Refreshers Weeks so valued and enjoyed by students and staff alike. These are just a few examples of our ongoing improvement, and we are delighted that these have been recognised formally by SUEI.
UCSU Chief Executive Daryl Ormerod has this to say of the new Silver Award, “We are proud of our progress and performance and this accreditation shows that despite our size and geographical challenges we are up there with the best in the country and our members can take assurance from that and trust that they are getting high quality support and representation from UCSU. We will continue to challenge ourselves to improve and look forward to achieving even more for our members in the future.”
