OU Students and Association staff are working together to ensure the Association offers a supportive and welcoming culture and community. Find out what we are doing about this...
In 2018 the Students Association asked Pecan Partnerships to come and review our organisation’s culture. They spoke to lots of volunteers, elected leaders, trustees and staff.
We have been implementing many of the recommendations over the years and in 2021 we reconvened the working group after ‘world events’ meant this group had taken a backseat.
With new membership and fresh ideas, the group set forth to ensure that all of the recommendations from this review were actioned, ensuring that they remain relevant in our new ways of working both online and face to face.
The four areas of work we are focused on are:
- Building consistent collaboration
- Living our values
- Increasing visibility and access
- Developing wider representation
In order to achieve these, the current projects we are working on are; a campaign to ensure all volunteers and students know and recognise our values and development of accessibility standards to make sure we are open, welcoming and inclusive.
Across the working group and project teams, 13 students are involved ranging from CEC members and Trustees, to Group committee members and other student volunteers. We are working together to make improvements for students to ensure more students can get involved in a safe space and find a sense of belonging at the Association.
We will be sharing monthly updates on the ongoing work, but if you want to share any ideas or feedback about how we can make improvements, we would love to hear from you: OUstudents-support@open.ac.uk