Your Students' Association is here to empower, advocate, and support you, our students, to ensure your student journey is positive, transformative and impactful. We are running the Student Voice project so that we know how we can best achieve our mission to empower and support. 

What is the Your Student Voice project all about?

Ultimately, the project is about you, our students. It is about how you want to be represented, what opportunities of empowerment do you want, and how can we ensure that the collective voice of students is at the heart of the decisions made by the University, your Students' Association, and your Student Leaders.

The project is looking at four key pillars of your student voice that the project will be looking at: 

• Pillar One: Your Academic Interests

This pillar is all about how you want to be empowered, supported, and represented in the University. What opportunities you have to have a say on what the University does, improving your course, and the services you need. How do we get the voice of students in the discussion and as part of the decisions made. 

Through this pillar we want to establish your new Academic Representation Framework so you know the opportunities available to make a difference and that it is design with you in mind.

• Pillar Two: Your Democratic Voice

Your Students' Association is a democratic organisation but we have never had a way you for to engage in this. This pillar is all about finding out how you want to identify what matters to students, investigate the solutions, decide on the actions, and review the impact you and your Students' Association can have on the Arden student experience. 

Through this pillar we will establish the first ever student democractic function at Arden. This will provide you with opportunities to identify and decide the topics that matter to students and the actions you want your Student Leaders and your Students' Association to take.

• Pillar Three: Your Student Leaders

Your Students' Association is currently led by your elected Student President. This role represents all students on all matters that relate to their experience. This is a big job for just one person so this pillar is exploring the interest in what your officers do, decide and discuss and how many you ultimately need to represent you as the recognised representative body of all Arden students.

Through this pillar we will establish your new Student Leadership Team. Working with you we will identify the roles that you will have the opportunity to stand for and elect who will be your next student leadership team. 

• Pillar Four: Your Voice Toolbox

This pillar is all about the tools available for students to make a change. Whether this is student research, petitions, consultations, campaigns and more, we want to provide you with the tools you need.

Through this pillar we will identify other opportunities for you to engage and champion the changes you want to see. We want to equip you with the tools to lead your own change and drive for positive impacts for your student community. 

Through these pillars, your involvement, and initiatives we will establish how your Student Voice will be harness, empowered, and advocated for in the future.

Why are we running the project?

The core purpose of your Students' Association is to:

• promote the interests and welfare of students at Arden University during your course of student and representing, supporting and advising you.
• be the recognised representative channel between students and Arden University and any other external bodies.
• provide forums for discussions and debate for the personal development of you.

Your Students' Association has only been operating around two years and we are still building the foundations of the association so we can deliver our purpose for you, our students. We also believe that:

• Students being led by students: we believe it is important that you are lead by the Student Leaders that you elect to work on the things that matter to you. They will be the ones to lobby on your behalf, champion your voice, and advocate for the solutions that you want to see. 
• Students care about more than their studies: we know that you are not just interested in the programme you study but you are doing things outside your programme. We want to give students the opportunities to share and debate the things that should matter to students that is more than their studies.
• Students being active citizens: you when you join Arden you are not just starting a programme but joining a wider community formed of students and staff. You are also members of your local and regional communicaties and we feel you should have a say on the things that impact you as students in your communities.
• Students are passionate about their academic experience: you are here utlimately to get a qualification and you have an essential role in ensuring the university is constantly working to improve and enhance the academic experience. The Association also have a vital role to play in representing your academic interests, the things you want to see improved, and empower you to do the same.

These are all the reasons why we want to find out from you how you want to engage with all these opportunities so we can build your association around you ensuring your collective voice is at the heart of decisions.

Get involved!

We want to provide as many opportunities for you to tell us your views on how you want to be represented, engaged, and lead the projects, initiatives, and changes to build a strong student community at Arden.

Below we have listed the main ways in which you can get involved but you can always email us if you have any thoughts.

Complete our Unitu Survey

Focus groups (see below) are great but we know that not all students would have the time to attend a session, or that we would have enough spaces for all 38,000 students we represent. Therefore, we have set up a short survey through the Unitu system. This will ask you about your views on how students can input into the work of the University, Association, and what your Student Leaders (that you elect) do.

Join a focus group

We are running focus groups in person and online over January and February. These are a great opportunity to have your say with a group of your peers.

There are two types of focus groups you can sign up to, which are:

• Democracy and Student Leaders: in this session we will be discussing how you want to have a say on what your Students' Association prioritises, what matters to students, and what your student leaders should be working on and deciding.
• Your Academic Interests: in this session we will be discussing how you want to have a say on what the University is doing to improve and enhance the academic experience and the things that matter to you on your course. This will ensure that any changes and decisions are made with your academic interests at the heart.

Click on the events below to sign up.

Need support to engage: we want to ensure that these groups are inclusive and accessible. If you want to engage with this opportunity but may require reasonable adjustments then please email the team. 

Join our Student Panel

We are also putting together a small student panel. This panel will work with your President Jay and the association team to:

• Look at what other Students' Associations do (sector analysis)
• Review what our students have said
• Discuss potential ways we can do this in the future

The student panel will be made up of 15-20 students. These students will be randomly selected, to ensure the panel broadly represents the demographics of our students, from those who had expressed interest.

Stay updated

As we have said this project is all about you, our students. 

Therefore, we will be providing regular updates as the project progresses and you will be able to find all of those below.

If you have any questions you can always email the team.