Pols Pulls

At last, things are going somewhere. The POLS department, which has for many years been the subject of severe criticism from Students arid staff, is lowering its defenses. As a result of the wine and cheese held just before August, the POLS SCI Society has been reformed and a basic programme of activities suggested. The society, as the officially recognised' student rep body has 2 basic purposes.

1. Student Representation and voting rights at departmental meetings. The department is at present run on two levels full departmental meetings - where all decisions are supposedly ratified; and an executive committee - which seems to run the show.

Students have voting rights at departmental meetings, although their status and number of of allotted votes is unclear. The point has been made however, that if students are to be effectively involved in the departments affairs, there should be at least one, preferably two, student members on the executive committee.

As it stands, Dr Vasil (Chairman of Dept) has offered the services of the department to the society, so with proper access to the decision-making process students should be able to be kept well informed.

2. Course Assessment - in order to change course content, press for a better system of assessment, or press for new, more relevant courses, it becomes necessary to know exactly where the gripes are, and what possible solutions are available. What has been proposed is the organisation of a course assessment programme where all courses - individually and collectively are placed under scrutiny.

This type of exercise will hopefully create some interest from staff and serve as a valuable pointer for students next year. A course assessment program, to be effective, must be well organised and comprehensive, so to get the thing off the ground, a meeting/workshop will take place this Thursday, the 9th Sept. at 5pm in the smoking room.

The meeting will discuss the setting up of an organising committee, hopefully consisting of students from all stages, and what sort of structure should be used for the assessment program.

Obviously it is important that all courses are represented, so talk it over before lectures or tutorials. Bring up a beer from SASRAC on Thursday and help POLS SCI help itself.

— Neil Gray