City West Undergrad Report- January

Hello everyone! It’s a pleasure to be on board! (get it? I’ll see myself out…) 

Having joined the board after a resignation, I’m really excited to get started and looking forward to working to make this university a great place to study! 

I’m a second year planning student, and your new City West Undergraduate Representative! I come from a background of non-profit administration, also currently being the President of UN Youth SA, so I hope to bring a lot of administrative knowledge to this role, as well as adding the ever needed perspectives of all undergrad students at City West. 

Given that I was only told I had the position with 8 days of January to go, I didn’t really get the chance to do a lot in January. I’ve been learning the role, and planning what I want to achieve. There’s a lot to do so we’ll see how much gets done!

If you’ve got anything you’d like to raise with me, you can send me an email at feaek001@mymail.unisa.edu.au, or come chat to me at O’Week on Monday, Tuesday or Thursday at City West from 12:30- 1:45. I’ll also be around campus and easily accessible throughout the year so feel free to come have a chat!

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Magill Postgrad Rep Report – January

Highlights

Welcome, or welcome back, to the most photogenic UniSA campus! (🐨Fight me, Pridham Hall!🐨)

I hope you’ve all had a relaxing break, and are keen for an amazing year. Your Magill reps have some exiting plans for the campus this year, so look out for updates and expect to see us around with some tasty treats! 🍌🍬☕🍪🍧

If you have any ideas, questions or issues you want to chat about, feel free to contact me via the UniSA Magill Facebook page!

I’ve been pretty busy over the break, continuing with key priorities from last year, including addressing the critical issue of sexual assault at universities, and developing a strategy for USASA to support Aboriginal staff, students and communities. As a part of our preparation for this process, we were immensely priveleged to take part in a worshop facilitated by Haydyn Bromley, who helped us better understand Aboriginal staff and students’ experiences and perspectives. If you’d like a little taste of what we talked about, check out this performance by comedian Steven Oliver at the 2015 Naidoc Awards.

At the same time, I’ve been working on new priorities and exploring new possibilities. Our advocacy manager has helped me draft a submission to the federal government to ask them to work collaboratively with student representative groups when they address academic integrity issues in the Australian higher education system, to ensure that it is both effective and fair to students.

Perhaps most excitingly, I’ve been looking into the idea of  partnering with Foodbank to bring affordable meals to students who are struggling financially. This could take the form of food vouchers, parcels, or even cut lunches. We’re still working out the details, but our president Grace has offered her enthusiastic support, so I hope to see something happening in this space ASAP!

Activity Report

14/01/19 – Phone call with FUSA to discuss Foodbank Partnership

15/01/19 – Sexual Assault and Harassment Steering Group

22/01/19 – Student Board Leadership Retreat

23/01/19 – Student Board Leadership Retreat

31/01/19 – Meeting with Luis (Manager – Advocacy) to discuss government contract cheating response

07/02/19 – Formal Inquiry

– Meeting with events team to discuss Foodbank partnership and Magill activations

Upcoming Events

14/02/19 – EASS Academic Review Appeals Preliminary Meeting

14/02/19 – Student Appeals Committee

– Meeting with Luis re: contract cheating response

– Meeting with Daniel (CEO) and Grace (President) re: bystander campaign

– USASA Board Meeting

 

City East – January Activity Report – Julie Ma

Hello everyone!

My name is Julie and I’ve been elected to be your City East Representative for 2019. It’s my first time on the board so I’m excited to have this opportunity to be your voice and do my best to implement new initiatives around campus.

This month, I’ve been privileged to be able to spend the 22nd and 23rd of January at a Board Retreat with the other student reps as well as the USASA staff. This was an invaluable experience to learn about USASA’s operations, our roles and expectations. We also spent a lot of time team-building and challenged our critical thinking and values. These skills we developed were fundamental to create collaborative goals and outline our vision for what we wanted to achieve for the year. It consisted of lots of brainstorming on paper and I look forward to see the translation of these plans in action!

I’d also like to take this opportunity to emphasise the advocacy service here at USASA – a team of experts in academic policies and reviews. If at any time you are dealing with academic issues e.g. seeking to appeal against final grades, academic conduct, preclusion etc., the advocacy service is here to support you. You can find more information here: https://www.usasa.sa.edu.au/advocacy.

On a final note, I will be sharing my role as a City East representative with Sopor Tan. Sopor and I will be working closely to ensure that we can create a great year for the students at City East!  

So, if you see me around campus – feel free to say hello! I’d love to hear from you. Alternatively, I can be contacted on mayjy041@mymail.unisa.edu.au.

P/S: We’ve got some exciting planned activities coming up next month:

• February 7th: Aboriginal Cultural Awareness Day
• February 25th – 29th: Orientation week

Mawson Lakes Undergraduate Student Representative Report – Thanusshan Packiyarajah

Hello Everyone, I am Thanusshan Packiyarajah and I am your Mawson Lakes Undergraduate Student Representative this year. I am studying my final year of Bachelor of Civil and Structural Engineering. Last year I was represent myself as an individual candidate and I didn’t expect that you all will support me in this student election. First of all I need to thank all of you for your love and support.

Summary of activity for January

Boarders Retreat – 22^nd and 23^rd of January

Venue – The Haus, Harndoff

Time – 9am – 4.30pm each day

This is Boarders Retreat was the get-together and the training for all the student representatives from each and every campus. In this retreat we learnt a lot about our roles, why we are here? What we are going to do? Our future club plans ….etc.

In our first day we introduced our selves in front of every one and try to familiar with new environment and the tasks. In this day we have discussed about

1. The retreat objectives
2. Individual strengths, styles and personalities, and how this impacts team
3. Board and committee operations
4. Finance for board directors
5. Guiding Principles and Board Paper Writing and Responding.

In Our Second day we have discussed about the

1. Student Leadership
2. Students Advocacy
3. The Year Ahead

And finally we met the USASA Staffs and the Team. These two days we had the delicious food and stayed in the high-class accommodation as well. Thank you so much USASA to organize this wonderful boarder retreat.

I was discussed some of the issues that I faced last year at university. The reason why I discussed these issues in the board was I need the clarifications if my limitations then only I could have preceded further more. Those things are International student’s course fees, Part time jobs, Placements, International Students future Career, Elections Statements …….etc. Daniel, Bridgett and Grace gave me some explanations too about this issues.

Planned activities of February

February 7 – Aboriginal Training Workshop Reading and Video link shared

February 19 – Orientation and Campus Fair Briefing and USASA Board Meeting

February 26 and 27 – Orientation Program

If you have any further clarifications or some other ideas which you have i am here to listen and convey your voice to USASA and find the possibilities to help you.

Regards,

Thanusshan Packiyarajah

Pacty002@mymail.unisa.edu.au

January 2019 – Whyalla Rep Report

Hi Everyone,

I hope everyone is enjoying and making the most of the summer break and slowly starting to prepare for the 2019 academic year!

As this is my first post, I am pleased to introduce myself as the 2019 USASA Student Representative for the Whyalla Campus. Although, Whyalla is one of those towns/small cities where it can sometimes feel like everyone knows everyone, for those that don’t know, I am 23 years of age and currently studying Social Work on campus.

One of my main reasons for running for student representative is to increase engagement between the students and the campus in addition to creating and providing fun incentives and necessary services around campus that encourage engagement from students of all backgrounds and cohorts.

As part of my 2019 term of USASA Student Representative, I am hoping to achieve:

• Increased engagement in social activities throughout the Whyalla Campus
• Increased wellness activations/activities
• Greater sense of belonging for students as individuals
• increased engagement between students from different cohorts

My Activity for the Month:

2019 USASA Board Retreat:

I was fortunate enough to spend a few days in Adelaide and Handorf getting to know all the other USASA Board Members and staff (all of which are awesome by the way!), as well as getting to know my role! It is easy to say, I came back to Whyalla with lots of ideas for us regional students.

Exploring the viability of a 2019 Whyalla Pac-Crawl:

In amongst introducing myself on our social media platforms (which if you haven’t got access to and would like to, please don’t hesitate to contact me), I also began exploring the idea of re-introducing the Pac-crawl to Whyalla. As this event has previous ran but has incurred low attendances, we need the students to speak up if this is something that they would like to see ran again!

At the moment I am exploring the idea of starting the Pac-crawl with a family friendly quiz night before a big night of bar hopping with cheap drinks specials at all and free entry to DJ entertainment.

If this is something that would interest you or you have any suggestions, please do not hesitate to flick me an email with your suggestions or interest or jump onto the Unisa Whyalla Student Page and complete my Poll!

Upcoming Events for Whyalla Campus:

WHEN	WHAT	WHERE
February 14th (Thu) 1:30pm – 4pm	Leadership Workshop – “How to be a great coach” (enquiries to Simone Purdie)	MB2-59
February 28th (Thu) 9am	SP2 Orientation Day	MB1-36/ MB1-37
March 12th-15th 8:30am -10:30am	Coffee and Chat with Simone	Mint Cafe
March 19th  (Tue) 4pm – 6:30pm	Whyalla Fiesta	TBA

Finally, make sure you make the most of the last of the warmer weather and summer break and feel free to contact me whenever with any suggestions/concerns/complaints you may have and I’ll be more than happy to address them the best I can.

Kind Regards,

Wenona Reddaway-Worth

Redws001@mymail.unisa.edu.au

January 2019 – International Students’ Representative Report – Rana

Hello all,

I am Harsh Rana and I feel extremely proud to introduce myself as your new international students’ representative for the year 2019. I am very optimistic about the USASA board for the current year and I am looking forward to doing the best as I can.

Last year was a bit of roller coaster especially for international students though overall lot was achieved last year. However, I am super excited to share that much-anticipated feedback from students of the University of South Australia from last year to organise much bigger and vibrant events, will finally be a reality, thanks to the increased club funding for this year.

After my role started, I am appreciating the responsibilities and settling into the role to deliver the best to the students of the University of South Australia.

There was a board retreat on the 22^nd and 23^rd of January which was very useful. I was able to understand my role and all about USASA. I also gained deep knowledge and understanding of all six committees and the functions. On the first day, there were various sessions about roles and responsibilities of the team and as of individual representative. Also, we discussed various ideas for this year around the strategic plan. On the second day of a board retreat, we discussed advocacy services and the duties board members have related to it. Apart from this we also met the whole USASA team and then president Jordan Mumford. He with present president Grace Dixon discussed the achievements of last year and shared the goal and ideas for this year. Thus, in a nutshell, I feel very fortunate to meet such an enthusiastic and optimistic board of 2019. In general, the board retreat was very useful and well-informed.

In the year ahead there are lots of good stuff happening. This starts with amazing orientation from 25^th to 28^th of February and I will be around the metro campuses on 27^th and 28^th. I am looking forward and will meet you all to discuss and share the ideas, feedbacks, concerns and queries. Finally, I hope to work with all the students for solving their concerns and queries. If you want to contact me then feel free to reach me, my E-Mail ID is: ranhy006@mymail.unisa.edu.au

Magill Rep report

Hi everyone

Arunika Dutta here your 2019 Magill representative. First of all, I am sorry that I couldn’t attend the first board retreat as I was away from Adelaide. I am doing my bachelors of arts in sociology. This is my first ever blog writing. I promise it will be better next time.

I am pretty much involved on the campus, have done volunteering in 0-week Open-day. I am also involved in ASR(Academic student Representative), OXFAM on-campus.

My aim as this years Representative is to make it Magill best year-to have a vibrant, active campus and have students engaging with us with a lot of more events and games and many more. I am super thrilled to be working with a board that shares the same ideology of student care and forming connections with them.

I will be on campus pretty much every day feel free to say hi! I’m keen to hear what you want me to do for you this year as your representative.

My email is dutay003@mymail.unisa.edu.au.

January 2019 – Mawson Lakes Rep Report

G’day! How’s it going!

My name is Noah Beckmann and I’m excited to introduce myself as your USASA Mawson Lakes Campus Representative for 2019!

Mawson Lakes has had an excellent track record for being an active and engaged campus over the recent history of USASA and I’m keen to keep this legacy going!

A bit of background on me; I’m in my final year of a Bachelor of Aviation (Pilot) and a Graduate Diploma of Aviation and as most people who know me would be aware, flying is all I talk about… In 2018 I was heavily involved with the Aviation Student Organisation as the Vice President, which gave me an insight into the positive effects that clubs can have on campus.

Some things that I’m excited to do this year are continue the excellent activations run by my predecessors on Mawson Campus such as the Brekky Bar and Hungry Hump Day, because who doesn’t want free food? Another thing I’m really excited to get involved in is student advocacy. It’s my personal belief that if there are decisions being made that effect students, there needs to be student representation when and where they are made. The last thing that I’m keen to do is empower clubs to help make the campus and university experience more vibrant and enjoyable. You get as much out of this experience as you put into it, and by getting involved in clubs, you will immensely improve your time here at this university.

As far as activity this month, I’ve been busy getting familiar with my new role. I attended the USASA Board Retreat and learnt the basics of the role, and also got to meet the stellar team that will be working for you this year.

Next month is set to be jam packed with preparations for O’Week, Clubs Fest & Campus Fair. I encourage all of you, even students who have been before, to get down to some of these events in March and have a look at all of the cool stuff that the University and USASA has on offer.

If you see me around campus, come and say hi! I’m keen to hear what you want me to do for you this year as your representative. My email is becny003@mymail.unisa.edu.au if you have any ideas or just want to have a bit of banter.

See ya round!

-Noah

January 2019- Post Graduate Rep Report

Hi everyone!

My name is Nida Baig and I’m thrilled to announce that I’d be your Post Graduate Representative for 2019. This year is going to be exciting as we have increase in club support and funding. Starting with O-week we would hopefully be having bigger and more engaging events. Looking forward to meeting many of you to discuss, share ideas and concerns.

This year is going to be engrossing with Enterprise 25 going ahead, two of our metro campuses, Magill and City East will be closed by 2025. This gives us the opportunity to work together with students to ensure their needs are being met.

Activity Report:

I spent the first month trying to understand my roles and responsibility as a student representative to make this year productive and engaging.

January 22, 23: Board retreat

The two-day retreat at Hahndorf Haus was incredible, I got to meet and interact with the rest of the board and I can proudly say that we are an amazing bunch of enthusiastic student leaders. We also had the opportunity to meet members of USASA staff, advocacy team and had informative sessions explaining their role in the organisation.

Looking forward to closely working with the Board to focus on ‘Empowering you’ 😉

Upcoming month

February 7- Aboriginal Training Workshop

February 7- Student Council Induction Meeting

February 13- BUE Academic Review Appeals Preliminary Meeting

February 14- UniSA Council Meet

February 19- Orientation & Campus Fair Briefing

February 19- USASA Board Meeting

February 27- BUE Academic Review Appeals Interview Meeting

Addition to this, I’d be visiting metro campuses during O-week 25^th-28^th Feb and I’m hoping to meet most of you.

Feel free to contact me through my email: bainy011@mymail.unisa.edu.au

January 2019 – President’s Report

Hey everyone!

What an exciting year ahead. I would like to wish all returning and new students a successful and as stress-free as possible 2019. I am extremely honoured to be your USASA President for 2019 and look forward to working with the rest of the amazing board representatives and USASA staff to provide the best services and support that we can for all UniSA students.

2019 is going to be a very important year with Enterprise 25 going ahead, which will see two of our metro campuses, Magill and City East, closing down by 2025. This means it is essential that USASA is apart of the planning processes and structural changes to ensure the voice for students is front and centre of the conversation starting now to ensure students needs and wellbeing aren’t being overlooked whilst these substantial changes go forward.

All serious stuff aside, there are also exciting things ahead for UniSa students from USASA with an increase for club support and funding for 2019, hopefully you will all see bigger and more engaging events across all campuses so make sure to get involved! There is also great support for all students with our academic advocacy services, as well as an emergency financial grant pilot rolling out this year to help ease the burden of extreme financial stress affecting your ability to study.

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What I’ve been up to this month: 

Much of this month has been spent getting settled into my new role, as well as meeting with members of USASA and UniSA staff to discuss how we can work together to make 2019 a success.

On the 22nd and 23rd of January we had our annual Board Retreat. Our two day Board Retreat was held at the Hahndorf Haus and was incredibly productive. It was fantastic to meet such a passionate group of student leaders, and I look forward to working with all of them in throughout 2019 to help them achieve their goals. The retreat was a chance for incoming representatives to learn about all things USASA, from board operations, finance training, as well as canvassing ideas around our Strategic Plan. The board also got to meet members of USASA staff, who ran several informative sessions explaining their roles within the organisation. On the second day, the advocacy team ran a great hands-on session, detailing the importance of attending Preclusions and Formal Inquiries, and the role that the representatives play in this process. The feedback from the retreat was overwhelmingly positive, and incoming campus representatives left the retreat incredibly well-equipped to fulfil their roles this year.

Following retreat I got the joy of filming this years orientation and introduction to USASA video with our amazing marketing officer, Jackson. I then finished up the month with my monthly meeting with USASA GM Daniel to discuss what the year ahead has in store for us.

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Next month:

February is already jam packed with lots of exciting things. On the 4th – 6th i’ll be at Deakin University in Melbourne for NUS President’s Summit. Followed by Aboriginal Cultural Awareness Workshop on the 7th.

During O-week 25th – 28th Feb you will find me floating around City West and City East on the Monday and Tuesday, and then I will be visiting our regional Whyalla campus for the first time on Wednesday and Thursday.

I look forward to a productive and exciting year ahead and looking forward to meeting many of you to further share ideas and concerns.

In the meantime feel free to contact me at anytime at: dixgl001@mymail.unisa.edu.au