8.3 Student representation and engagement

At the University of Exeter we take student engagement very seriously. We encourage you to get involved in making a positive difference while you’re here, both in terms of your education experience and in your contribution to society more widely. Student engagement opportunities can also contribute towards the Exeter Award and your HEAR (Higher Education Achievement Report), so are also great ways to enhance your employability.

All students are encouraged to offer in-module and end-of-module feedback. We take the results of module feedback surveys very seriously, and use them to consider changes to module and assessment design that take students’ experiences fully into account. It’s your chance to influence how we deliver education in your Faculty.

For those of you who want to engage in more regular activity to ensure the student voice is heard, there are two main ways you can get involved in student representation in HASS: becoming an Academic Representative ('rep') or Department Officer, or working with other students and/or staff on a ‘Change Agents’ project.

Student Voice

Academic Representatives are recruited, trained and supported by the Students’ Guild. The role of an Academic Representative is to work closely with students and staff to bring about positive change, review student views and opinions to identify common themes, and build strong academic communities and relationships. Academic Representatives represent all students within their subject area. 

Within each Faculty there is a team of Department Officers, who are the most senior representatives for their academic departments, representing both undergraduate and postgraduate taught students, focusing on overall student experience and academic community building. The Department Officers work closely with the Guild’s Education Officer, a post held this year by Sebastian Racisz, to ensure your views are taken into account at every level of the University. 

All students are eligible to apply to be a ‘rep’ for their programme. If you're interested in becoming a rep, you can find out more on the Academic Representation website. 

If you want to be able to give feedback about your course but you don’t want to become an Academic Representative, then you can pass feedback onto your Academic Reps or email hass-studentexperience@exeter.ac.uk who will then feedback to staff on your behalf. 

Later on, you can find out who your student representative is via the Find Your Rep page of the Guild’s website.‘

Students as Change Agents

Students as Change Agents is the University’s philosophy and pathway for empowering students to actively improve the University experience for themselves and their peers. Every change suggested is explored and implemented through an individual project.

Students’ involvement varies in each project; they can either take a leading role in running a project, as a Change Agent, or they can work with staff to deliver a project, as a Partner. Students registered through the scheme receive support and training to effect each change, and are able to develop and demonstrate experience in leadership, teamwork and project management.

If you would like to get involved, you can find out more on the Students as Change Agents webpages.