► TAKE A LOOK INSIDE
► Login
► HELP ON UNIVERSITY OF CUMBRIA SU
► SEARCH UNIVERSITY OF CUMBRIA SU
► UNIVERSITY OF CUMBRIA SU POLL
Advertise
University of Cumbria Students Union has various student marketing and student advertising tools that can promote your services direct to our students.
For all our student
marketing & advertising opportunities click the media pack button.
► Independent Chairs
Independent Chairs
In researching how and why students may feel that the Union is not responsive to their needs one area of concern was the lack of transparent student oversight over the higher committees and elected officials, most notably the Sabbatical officers. Under the current system the Sabbaticals form the majority of the Executive, Trustee Board and have the power to decide where are when Union Council is called, concentrating a great deal of the power of the Union into the hands of five elected officers. Whilst there is nothing inherently wrong with this system it does lack oversight and scrutiny which the Union Structure Review panel felt needed attention.
As such the recommendation is to create three globally elected part time officials called Independent Chairs, whose role is to convene and run the most senior student-lead meetings and also be a route of scrutiny for students to take to call all Union officials to account.
The Independent Chairs would sit above and aside from the rest of the elected positions and are responsible for monitoring the correct procedure of meetings and appropriate conduct of the elected members. They provide a route of scrutiny and oversight for ordinary students, and have the authority to make decisions and rulings on items under discussion, and have responsibility for running impartial complaints procedures and overseeing disciplinary matters concerning elected officials if the need arises.
To minimise the risk of the post holder having conflicts of interest the proposal is that the Independent Chairs are banned from holding any other official position within the Students’ Union. By official position we mean any other elected Students’ Union role and also being chair of a Student Group or on the executive of an affiliated activity group, however we also include being a paid member of Union student staff. The reason why the Independent Chairs’ cannot hold any other office is so that as far as possible we can try to ensure that the holders of these positions are neutral and exercise their powers beyond any clear conflict of interest.
Influential and potentially culture-setting, the unpaid Independent Chairs are a central manifestation of the Unions’ belief that the organisation should be lead by students and that these leadership roles should be open to all students from across the entire student community.
Bookmark with:
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
reddit
StumbleUpon
|