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Biography

I have worked at Bucks for 5 years, first as President of the Students' Union and more recently as the Union's Representation and Development Manager. I am responsible for student volunteering, campaigns, charitable fundraising and representation. I am also an auditor for the Quality Assurance Agency. I have a Bsc Hons Degree in Police Studies.

What motivated you to engage the public with your work?

I feel passionately that our institution is not maximising its potential when it comes to engaging the public. I believe that the Union and the University can work together more effectively to involve the public with research, to engage them in open lectures and to make both sides feel part of a wider community.

Describe the public engagement work you have done

We are currently drafting a research proposal - a partnership between the Union and University. We will interview and survey the public in three areas with a high student residential population to ascertain how they think students fit within the local community. We will then target areas with voluntary activity and repeat the research to see if there has been a positive impact on public perception. It is hoped this will inform a wider civic duty/civic partnership agenda within our institution.

The Students' Union also works with the Council for Christian Muslim Relations – High Wycombe. This group seeks to bring together Christians, Muslims, University staff and students as well as secularists to develop our understanding of current issues and seek new ways of working together and extending community partnerships.

We also support adults on probation in the local community by mentoring them in literacy and numeracy skills.

We provide volunteers and expertise to local community groups.

The Union is currently looking to pull together an institutional working group on 'Giving Something Back' that will, amongst other things, examine how we can work together to develop our local communities. We see the public engagement manifesto as key to supporting that approach. Although we are working on public engagement in a number of different ways we are striving to reach a point at which that approach is firmly embedded across the institution, and in a systematic fashion.