Tuesday 12-01-2021 - 15:04

️RENT REBATES

Many students have been in touch with us about rent rebates and we feel that students shouldn’t be charged for accommodation that they have not or cannot use as a direct result from the COVID restrictions and guidance coming from Universities and government. As an SU we continue to pursue this, on a local level and on a national level working with NUS on this matter, we also plan to meet with Sian Gwenllian MS, the local Member for the Senedd to see how we can work together on this matter.

We’re aware of a campaign circulating calling for a rent strike. We are in communication with the organisers and hope to work together on some shared goals. The SU were successful prior to Christmas in securing a 10% discount for all students in University owned accommodation. You may be wondering, ‘why 10%?’, well at the time of negotiation, the total amount of time that students were instructed to vacate university accommodation by government guidance was equivalent to roughly 1 months’ rent(40+ week contract). 10% to all , instead of only offering rebates to students that actually left was also preferable to us as this refund did not discriminate against those that couldn’t leave, even if they wanted to, such as international students and those with vulnerable family members. We understand that following the recent developments, that 10% may not go far enough, but it is worth mentioning that we were the first University in Wales to offer rebates. This is something Undeb is incredibly proud of, and we are continuing this discussion for even better outcomes for students. We have also contacted all private hall providers in Bangor, to see if we can enjoy some success for our students in the private accommodation sector.

NO DETRIMENT/SAFETY NET

For those of you that don’t know, this is a policy that mitigates against the impact of a set of unforeseen circumstances that ensure no student is disadvantaged academically. In March, following the move to online learning, this was something we worked on with the University to put in place to ensure every student achieved at least as good as they had on record prior to COVID. This is something we are pushing for again and we hope to be able to provide options to put forward to the University to improve the situation. All students continue to be affected by the pandemic and mitigating policies are still necessary. No student should be disadvantaged by the impacts of Covid-19 and all students should, as much as possible, have a level playing field to demonstrate their academic achievement.

UNIVERSITY RESTRUCTURE

We realise that many students are concerned with the staff changes following a university restructuring exercise. As an SU we fed back to the university with a collated a response on behalf of all students that outlined the Undeb and the student response to the proposed changes, which can be found on our website https://www.undebbangor.com/report . This was no easy task, as the restructures impacted all departments across the university, but we are pleased that several changes as a result of students input have been made to the restructuring plans, and we are imploring the university to communicate all relevant changes to students ASAP, and we have met with Directors of Services and Deans and Heads of Schools to discuss plans on how they will implement the changes and crucially how they will communicate this to students.

️STUDENT MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLBEING

The coronavirus pandemic has had a massive impact on our mental health. Every single day has been challenging, and full of so much uncertainty for each and every one of us. The effects of social distancing, lockdown and anxiety from the media is having an adverse impact on student mental health, and wellbeing. We have been working hard to ensure that all students are aware of the available mental health support and our wellbeing and peer to peer support projects and activities, and. Some of these activities include our weekly Connect@Bangor drop-ins with university mental health advisor’s and our volunteers, and weekly yoga sessions. We’re working closely with the university’s student support services, and have held discussions with the university about how they’re spending additional funding received from Welsh Government to support student mental health services, which included financial hardship funds, services for self-isolating students and support for vulnerable students. We have also received some funding towards support for students from the Welsh Government and this has supported activities such as our Emotional Resilience Training, and Winter Care packages for student that remained in Bangor over the winter break. If you have ideas on what more, we could be doing please get in touch.

We are doing our utmost to bring positive change, and we are and will continue to be here to support you.