Manifesto Analysis: Charlotte Peters, Director of Education
Ms Peters offers a passionate but brief manifesto that harnesses progressive initiatives for the university and for a wider global reach. She places environmentalism in academic and administrative levels as her priority which presents a confusing policy direction at first glance, but also explores the need for interlinking important issues. The main point of concern is whether this focus detracts from the main objectives stated in the description of the role of DoEd.
Postgraduate Experience:
Ms Peters is a master’s student and so,notes her familiarity with the experience of a postgraduate student. She aims to increase attention on post-graduate, JSA, and W&M academic transition and feedback by creating comprehensible information to sign-post what to expect from St Andrews. Although this information can be found on the university website, it appears that Ms Peters aims to improve on this and make it more accessible and visible.
Careers and Employability:
Improving the opportunities avail-able to international students is one of Ms Peter’s most promising ideas.She aims to address the 2020/21 new visa measures by working with the Career’s Centre to streamline information about Tier 4 visa changes. She also would like to improve this communication for employment opportunities after graduation. Ms Peters has clearly outlined what she would like to improve on but lacks detail into how she will directly implement this idea. Ms Peters is also driven to include more interdisciplinary career events into the academic calendar.This would benefit some students greatly, whereby many students take joint degrees and have transferable skill sets and career opportunities.Ms Peters obviously understands this dynamic and looks to enhance awareness about networking and collaboration through the role of the DoEd.
Resources:
Ms Peters has clearly noted her passion for improving environmental habits through the role of DoEd. She asserts her belief in reducing paper use by implementing an“opt out” system whereby class hand-outs are digitalised. Whilst this is an admirable policy, there is concern that her manifesto considers environmental aspects more so than the sections addressed to academics and employ-ability, which is where her role would have the most impact in.
This analysis does not reflect the opinion of The Saint, but rather that of the author. All information was accurate at the time of writing.
