International Rep Activities Report – Luke Le

Welcome to SP5 everyone! Hope you had an amazing holiday. This has been a busy month for me juggling between personal goals and my responsibilities at USASA.

What have I been up to this month?

1. Orientation Week and International Arrival Briefing

I met with Monamee on 4^th and the 14^th of July to discuss the script for our USASA presentation. On 17^th of July, we ran a USASA stall together in Student Lounge, City West to meet new international students at O’Week and answered their questions about university and USASA services and events. We also handed out freebies including USASA diaries, pens, survival guide and many other amazing stuff.

USASA Stall at O’week

On the same day, Monamee and I presented at the International Arrival Briefing about USASA and services that we offer to students. We managed to keep everyone engaged and two lucky students brought home our gifts – two movie tickets – after the presentation. How amazing!

That was my first time presenting in front of a crowd that large. Nerve-wrecking but exciting, I could feel the adrenaline pump running through my blood. I am looking forward to participating in another International Arrival Briefing session to welcome new international students in Business School on the 1^st of August.

2. Brekky Bar at Mawson Lakes

For much of this year Jordan, Jivan and I have been discussing our dream to make Brekky Bar free for students. Starting on the 26^th of July at Mawson Lakes, dreams came true.

At 6AM, under a thin and fragile boundary called my blanket, I found myself fighting between my selfish desire to stay warm, and the greater good of the students of Mawson Lakes. Waking up was a struggle, but we chose to do it. After shopping for fresh food at Woolies, we started setting up Brekky Bar at 7:45AM.

The Brekky Bar was meant to be open from 8:00 am to 10:30 am. The first hour was quiet. Fortunately, it started to get busy around 10 am and we could not close it until 11 am due to positively strong response from students. Jordan and I had a chance to talk to many students including international students on the day about their experience at university and what we can possibly do to further improve Brekky Bar and students’ experiences at university in general. What can I say? It was an excellent experience for me, Jordan and students of Mawson Lakes Campus.

Here are some of the photos that we took on the day.

3. Other activities
   • Beside those activities above, I also had a few meetings with some international students where we could share the stories about our life staying in Australia, issues that we have encountered and our resolutions for each problem. This has given me a great insight into other international students’ experience and ideas to improve their experience.
   • I attended HELP-PAL training session with Monamee to discuss international students and services available for them.
   • On the 26^th of July, I had a meeting with Vietnamese Student Society president to discuss issues that they are facing and their plans in the future. Fortunate enough, we shared some of our visions and goals and definitely are looking forward to collaborating together to deliver better university experience to not only Vietnamese students but all international students at UniSA.
4. Activities for next month

31/7: International Sub-committee meeting

1/8: Business school International Arrival Briefing

7/8: USASA Board Meeting

 

That’s it for this month. I will see you again next month with more updates. Bye for now!

President’s Report – July

Hi everyone!

During July my focus was on representing USASA at national conferences, and continuing to build on my work for the year. Any questions please email me on Kayla.Dickeson@unisa.edu.au.

July City West Activity Report

Welcome back everyone! I hope you’ve enjoyed your eight week break or have taken advantage of the new Winter School to speed up your degree, do an industry placement or attend some personal development workshops.

July Board Member Report

This month i attended/organised July Board Meeting, Clubs Committee Meeting, Finance Committee Meeting, Welfare Committee Meeting and SSAF survey walk around the campus.

At the Board Meeting, the major discussion point was filling of the Student Vacancies on several committees and academic board. Ryan Colsey was chosen by the Board members to represent USASA alongside other 4 Board members at the academic board. We also welcomed 2 new board members, i) Mawson Lakes Campus Rep and ii) International Rep.

Clubs Committee meeting revolved around various proposals the Staff had to encourage greater Clubs participation and greater rewards for Clubs who follow rules and guidelines to the letter. The Clubs Support officer will be reaching out to the Clubs executives regarding this.

Finance Committee meeting was all about discussing the previous month’s financials and nothing else of noting arose from that.

Welfare Committee meeting discussion dominated around the Brekky Bar. Majority of Board members ran on the promise to make Brekky Bar free. At the welfare committee we moved a step further in achieving that.

SSAF survey walk around the campus was a success. I managed to engage with a fair amount of students and encouraged them to fill out the SSAF survey. All participants received a free lolly!

Academic Board meeting was about report backs from various division heads and discussion on the external reviews of certain schools within UniSA.

That is it from me.
Thank you!

Activity Report- July 2017, CW Rep

 

The month of July has been quiet in the beginning as only few students were on campus for the winter school courses but in mid-July the campus again has become vibrant with all the new and old faces. The student representatives participated in different activities throughout the month to provide support to all of you. I have spent the month mostly doing different activities for the SP5 O-week assisting the UniSA and USASA staffs.

July 04, 2017

Attended 02 formal enquiries in business school

July 10, 2017

Women’s committee meeting, Governance committee meeting, Board meeting-July

July 13, 2017

Attended the Student Pal training session with the International rep and had a chat with them about the international student cohort

July 14, 2017

Had a meeting with Luke, international rep to prepare for the presentation in the Arrival briefing

July 17, 2017

Attended the SP5 O-week International day and welcomed the new international students during the Expo and arrival briefing

July 27, 2017

Attended 01 formal enquiry in the business school

July 28, 2017

The City West SSAF Survey interaction was postponed from 24^th July to this date and Kayla (USASA president) and I talked to students and let them know about the SSAF survey. If you haven’t done already, fill up the survey till 5^th August and take the opportunity to contribute to this important decision.

Attended the academic board meeting for the month of July along with other reps.

Planned activities for upcoming days:

The upcoming schedule looks like the following as of now,

August 01, 2017: BUE International day expo and arrival briefing

August 02, 2017: 01 formal enquiry to attend in the Business School

August 07, 2017: Women’s committee meeting, Governance committee meeting, Board meeting-August

Welcome to all the new students who have just started their program and all the best to all of you for the new semester. See you around the campus and do not hesitate to contact me via this email: ishmy004@mymail.unisa.edu.au.

Thank you,

Monamee

July Board Report

Hi everyone!

I hope you’ve all had a relaxing break and ready to start another semester of uni!

This past month we’ve had a number of meetings including the finance committee meeting and welfare committee meeting.

For the welfare committee meeting, we discussed our proposed plans for Brekky Bar and are currently in the process of contacting Community Connect to discuss the new student-run model. We will report back soon, but in the mean time if you’d like to voice your opinions, feel free to fill out the short survey here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/N9YYDR9

On the 8th August, students across the country will be protesting to fight for free education. Please come along to support-at Parliament House at 1pm. Hope to see a lot of you there!

Next up:

July Board meeting – 7/8/17

Welfare committee meeting – 31/8/17

Finance committee meeting – 31/8/17

That’s all for now, feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns 🙂

~Han Nguyen

nguht043@mymail.unisa.edu.au

July Postgraduate Report

Hi Postgrads!

This month I was lucky enough to visit the beautiful Whyalla campus and talk to new students. TO THE PHD STUDENT I MET IN THE OFFICE: If you see this, I am so sorry, I lost the piece of paper with your email address! Please email me at louise.kyriaki@mymail.unisa.edu.au

I really enjoyed visiting the Whyalla campus and getting a feel for what it’s like to study at Whyalla, and I even managed to try out the lovely campus rental bikes! Here’s a happy snap of me riding a bike for the first time in 10 years (literally)…

I also met with the president of CAPA (council of postgraduate associations – a.k.a. the national group for postgraduate associations/unions). Bridget (the student representative support officer) came with me. Before the meeting, we prepared the topics and questions that we wanted to discuss, and I’m really happy with how the meeting went. We discussed so many things including finances, lobbying, policy, and more! I will soon be presenting a paper to the USASA board with a report of my meeting and some recommendations.

Just a reminder that Universities Australia’s report on sexual harassment and rape on university campuses will be released on August 1^st. USASA will put out a media release once the survey is released. If you feel affected by the report or want to talk about it, I’ve included some support phone numbers and website information at the end of my report.  Here’s the rest that I’ve been up to this month:

July 2017 – Mawson Lakes Rep

Hi everyone,

I hope you’ve all had a great break and are keen to jump right back in to the second-half of the study year. For those of you just beginning university, welcome. It was great to meet so many of you at the O-Week events and let you all know the importance of USASA. If there’s anything I can do for you please don’t hesitate to get in contact.

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Now onto what I’ve been up to this month:

NUS Education Conference – 

From the 3rd to the 7th of July, I attended the 2017 Education Conference, hosted at the University of Queensland. The conference featured workshops, panels of guest speakers, presentations, as well as plenty of opportunity to discuss student issues with other elected student representatives from across Australia.

I hosted a workshop titled ‘Protecting the Rights of Students in the Workplace’, alongside the NUS Welfare Officer – Jill Molloy. We discussed issues students are facing in the workplace, such as the exploitation of international students, the PaTH program, wage theft, and the impact of the cuts to penalty rates. It was a productive workshop, and was a great opportunity for students to canvas their ideas on what can be done to address these issues.

I also attended a panel titled ‘The Future of Education Funding and Legislation’, which featured former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and former Treasurer of Australia – Wayne Swan, as well as NSW Senator – Lee Rhiannon, and the then Senator for Queensland – Larissa Waters. I had the chance to ask the panel what their parties would be doing to reform Australia’s Industrial Relations laws to ensure student workers are protected from the rampant wage theft which has seen many students being paid less than the minimum wage.

For the remainder of the week I attended a number of great workshops, where student representatives from across the country discussed how we can improve student advocacy services, how to better engage with international students, how we can improve on-campus mental health services, and how the introduction of HECS has led to a fairer, more accessible higher education sector.

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Brekky Bar – 

Last October during USASA Board elections, I spoke to many students that had been promised free Brekky Bar, and were disappointed that the only change to the price of Brekky Bar had been an increase in cost. I made the commitment that during my board term, I would push for Brekky Bar to be a free service for students.

I’m excited that this month I was able to finally bring a free Brekky Bar to the students of Mawson Lakes, and I will be volunteering to provide this service for the remainder of the year. It was great to see so many of you on the morning of Wednesday 26th of July, where I was joined by International Representative Luke Le. The Welfare Committee is currently exploring how we can improve Brekky Bar in 2018, and if you’d like your voice heard you can fill out our survey here.

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Other things I’ve been up to:

• Mawson Lakes Master Plan Meeting – 30/06/17
• USASA Board Meeting – 10/07/17
• Clubs Committee Meeting – 11/07/17
• Welfare Committee Meeting – 13/07/17 (Apology due to sickness)
• Brekky Bar Planning with Kayla Dickeson – 14/07/17
• USASA O-Week & Campus Tours – Mawson Lakes – 18/07/17
• Mawson Lakes SSAF Event – 27/07/17

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What I’ve got planned for next month:

• Clubs Committee Meeting – 01/08/17
• Brekkie Bar – 02/08/17
• USASA Board Meeting – 07/08/17
• Brekkie Bar – 09/08/17
• School of Commerce Formal Enquiry – 09/08/17
• Brekkie Bar – 16/08/17
• Brekkie Bar – 23/08/17
• Brekkie Bar – 30/08/17
• Welfare Committee Meeting – TBA
• Student Catch-ups with Jivan Jothi – TBA
• Meeting with Zoe Zweck and Delene Webber – TBA

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That’s all for now, if you see me on campus then come and say hey! In the meantime if you have any issues or concerns feel free to send me an email on mumjp001@mymail.unisa.edu

July Student News – Whyalla

It has been a sad farewell to our mid-year break and chilly welcome to SP5. The break ended with a high with a group of Uni students and their families attending Errappa conquering several high rope challenges. Well done to everybody who attended.

Few things to keep in mind whilst hitting the books;

Competition: Head to usasa.sa.edu.au/studyspace for your chance to win $100 Visa Gift card by voting for best room designs completed by UniSA Interior Design Students.

Free Tax Return Appointments: It is tax time and UniSA are offering eligible students free appointments to get their tax affairs in order. There a limited number of appointments available, so students will need to make appointments quickly, please go to; usasa.sa.edu.au/TaxHelp

Nominations for the 2018 USASA Student Board: Nominations will be open from September 11 to September 22. The USASA Student Board is a great opportunity to:

• Give a voice to students
• Make a positive change on campus
• Earn a $3,000 honorarium p.a. (higher for president)

All nominating students will need to submit a nomination form and attend an information workshop. Website: usasa.sa.edu.au/Election Direct your questions to: Bridget Laffy (Student Representative Support Officer) Bridget.Laffy@unisa.edu.au

Open Day: On Sunday 27^th August from 11.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. spread the word and get more people studying at our great campus. http://www.unisa.edu.au/Calendar/Whyalla-Campus-Open-Day/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIj-HN1p-c1QIVjBiPCh3BkglNEAAYASAAEgJWzvD_BwE

 

USASA Student rep – Mt Gambier Julie Baum

June has been a quiet month in Mt Gambier, students attended their last lectures and tutorials earlier in the month, then worked toward completing their final assignments and exams.

Our silent study space is proving to be very beneficial for the students who are utilizing it, I have had feedback about the room which includes; “it’s great for doing my assignments, no noise or distraction” and “I can concentrate in there, the piazza was always too noisy”, I’m glad that not only students are using the area but that it is meeting the needs of the students.