We’re proud of how our staff and students have been finding creative ways to work together during the pandemic.
Our HR Management students have joined weekly virtual coffee chats with Programme Leaders since the start of Term 1. As well as providing useful updates from the university and about their course, the informal, social environment also provides a place to raise concerns, ask questions and still feel part of the course community.
A range of colleagues dropped in for a virtual coffee, with GSU Officers sharing information on wellbeing, the Academic Support team offering skills development services plus employability development activities from the Business School's Employability Office and the Employability and Careers Service.
We shared feelings, concerns and coping strategies during the global pandemic. Later on, we realised this was the “power of small”, and that a small conversation about mental health has the power to make a big difference.
Programme Leader, Dr Crystal Tsay explains the power of the sessions is multi-fold. They function as a one-stop shop where students and staff can attend and ask questions of any kind, which included how to report a Covid case and where to find the testing sites on campus. Overtime, the regular sessions had a symbolic meaning to both students and staff.
The sessions were so popular that the Year 3 programme team organised additional meetings to provide individual support. Dr Tsay added:
Because different students attended each week, the programme team had more opportunities to hear student voices. We learned about different realities of working students, student parents, and students who attended classes from abroad. It helped the programme team become more agile in anticipating student issues and better prepared for responding.
