Fiona Mundie

Project Officer - Regional Campusese

Fiona will visit four universities in the UK and attend the European First Year Experience Conference Optimising aiming to explore the creation of a best practice, whole-of-institution student association.

“The benefits of seeing how other institutions deal with (or eliminate) the same (or similar) issues that we experience is immensely beneficial. And establishing an international network in your field is a tremendous resource to be able to call on.”

Since late-2018, Fiona has been working on the Student Representation Structure Project which is due to go live this year. The aim of the project is to create a best-practice structure for a whole-of-institution student representative organisation.

As an International Development Scholarship recipient Fiona attended the European First Year Experience Conference at the Cork Institute of Technology. The conference focused on the critical window for student engagement and the role student associations and unions can play in supporting their parent institutions in extra-curricular activities that assist in retention of students.

Fiona also visited four institutions in the UK - Newcastle University, the University of Leeds, University of Sheffield and Loughborough University - that consistently demonstrate best practice in student engagement, experience and satisfaction through the activities of their student associations/unions.

“I absolutely achieved my goal which was to identify not only how the representative structures operate and are managed but also dig into how the relationship between the student association/union and the university proper was developed, how it currently functions, the mutual benefits and how it continues to be supported and develop,” Fiona said.

“My greatest takeaway was how fundamentally integrated student participation and representation are to decision making in UK institutions. The contacts I made, the level of access they gave me to their facilities and their generosity in terms of sharing information and time to go into detail about their structures and associate operational issues, the range of people from each host organisation (including so many students) was inspiring.”

The University of Newcastle acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands within our footprint areas: Awabakal, Darkinjung, Biripai, Worimi, Wonnarua, and Eora Nations. We also pay respect to the wisdom of our Elders past and present.