Looking back and looking ahead

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Research Students' Society!

It has been quite an eventful year for the RSS in many ways. We have seen positive change and progress in some areas, and red-taped frustration in others! On the whole I believe it has been a good year. Some highlights from 2009:

• Worked with IRO to conduct a large-scale survey of  research students' financial situations.
  
• Regained our affiliation with the UWS Students' Association.
• Gained representation on various committees, including URKTB and SRC.
• Confirmed "equal pay for work of equal value" rights for all research students employed at UWS.
• Worked with IRO to improve the research students' common room.

Our main hope for the year ahead is probably to see the results from the financial survey disseminated and acted-upon. We are also keen to ensure that the payment rights for research student employed by UWS are upheld.

Finally, we will be seeing a complete change of leadership in 2010 as our new Office Bearers take over. Lisa Garnham was elected to be our new President, and Grzegorz Majewski was elected to be our new Secretary. Best of luck to them both!

RSS elections coming soon

The Research Students' Society is organised by two 'Office Bearers': a President and a Secretary. Each year in December the society elects individuals to serve in these posts for the following year. Any research student at the University is eligible (although it usually helps to be based on the Paisley campus).

The elections for the 2010 Office Bearers will be taking place shortly, and research students are invited to nominate themselves. A vote will be taken at the quarterly RSS meeting on 18th December 2009. Anybody unable to attend the meeting is welcome to inform us of their vote via email in advance of the meeting.

Responsibilities of the positions generally include attending a few University meetings, organising social events, and liaising with staff and research students. Some of the major issues we have fought for in the past include studentship stipend level, and payment for research students who teach. We also have the great opportunity to help new research students as they adjust to PhD-life.

If this is something you would like to do, then please get in touch by Friday 11th December. Let us know who you are, and which position you would like to volunteer for. (You are welcome to volunteer for both, although you can only be elected to one of them.) You can email the current President here:

Peter.Bloomfield@uws.ac.uk

Details of the self-nominated individuals will be emailed out to the society on Monday 14th December, so that members can consider their voting options.

What about other postgrads?

Are you a Postgraduate Taught (PgT) student here at UWS? If you are looking for a group which represents you during your time doing a Masters (or similar) qualification, then please contact the President of the Students' Association:

president@sauws.org.uk

Virtual Tour: Paisley Campus

A Virtual Tour of Paisley campus was presented at the Research Students Induction today. As promised, here is the link to view it online:

http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhd4fjpw_7cx2dbggn

If you are unable to view it, then please let me know (add a comment to this post) and I will make it available in an alternative format.

Access other libraries using SCONUL Access

Research students sometimes find that the resources in their UWS campus library are not sufficient. For example, they may not have the book you need, or the journal archive may not date back far enough. Facilities such as Inter-Library Loans are often useful, but sometimes not enough.

An alternative solution is SCONUL Access:

http://www.access.sconul.ac.uk/

Welcoming new Research Students

Enrolment is coming up soon for new Research Students at UWS, so we would like to welcome you and invite you to be involved with the Research Students' Society.

You don't need to do anything to be represented by us. In fact, you can ignore us completely if you want to! But you are always welcome to get in touch with us if you have any problems or questions at all, or if you would just like to socialise a little.

Click "Read more" to find out more about us...