Modern European Studies
Staff/Student Consultative Meeting
Monday 2nd December at 3.00 pm, Room 111 Foster Court.
MINUTES
MES Staff Present: PM, MH, PS, TR, DG.
MES Students Present: Soriya Jiwani, David Maguire (1st year Student Reps).
Talia Carman (2nd Year Rep).
Bertrand Landel, Naomi Lay (4th year Reps).
Chair: Naomi Lay
Minutes: Bertrand Landel
1. Apologies
VMD, SG
2. Minutes of the last meeting 28/2/2002
The minutes were approved.
3. Matters Arising
TC said it might be useful for students specialising in politics to be made aware of the
politics courses offered at the LSE which were open to MES students. DG noted that
he planned to add these courses to the ‘pathways’ course selection guide given to first
years in March.
NL and MH, in response to 1st year concerns over the limited social scope of
programme, said that they favoured the nomination of social reps for each year. NL
and BL said it might be possible to make it mandatory for 4th and 2nd year students to
contact their 1st year mentees to promote social integration amongst students of the
degree. It was agreed that with the cooperation of DG, more could be done to arrange
and publicise social events for MES students.
4. Points raised by 4th Year Students
NL and BL voiced their concern of inconsistent supervision for course projects. PM
pointed out that the MES department sends out guidelines to all supervisors at the
beginning of the year and that little else can be done. MH added that it was very
difficult for MES members of staff to have leverage over their colleagues in other
departments. PS and PM added that there were very few cases of anyone getting too
much supervision, and that no discrepancies had been visible in the final marks of
projects in the past.
BL stated that he had been informed that because final year choices for history were
often 2 course units, MES students had a limited number of options available to them.
It was suggested that some MES students might like to take English history classes,
which they are not currently allowed to do. PS believed that this would go against the
spirit of MES, and that the structure of history courses was unlikely to change in the
near future. He pointed out that he had put a new course on offer this year, and that
students could look to language departments such as the German or Hebrew and
Jewish studies department for alternatives options.
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NL asked for all MES students to be informed of the existence of the Jstor journal
archive (www.uk.jstor.org) because it was a very useful resource both for the course
project and for most other courses. DG agreed to put a link to Jstor on the MES
website.
5. Points raised by 2nd Year Students
TC believed that the purpose of the Year Abroad workshop was not clear. She added
that people did not find it very useful, and that perhaps dividing the class into smaller
groups might allow 2nd years to get their questions answered, particularly with regards
to the course project. PM asked what kind of problems were not being addressed, and
stressed that at this point it was fairly normal for 2nd years to be unsure of the direction
they planned to take. He added that the purpose of the workshop was not to resolve
individual students’ problems with their research, but rather to teach basic research
methods. He then added that it might be possible for there to be 1 or 2 sessions with a
smaller number of students, but that it would be complicated to have only small groups
because of the time commitment this represented for lecturers.
NL suggested that 2nd years might like talking to the 4th years about specific difficulties
encountered on the year abroad and that the 4th years would not mind participating
more in the workshops. DG said that it might also be useful for 2nd years to meet with
him to discuss practical issues before setting off on the year abroad.
TC mentioned that many 2nd years were confused about the division of duties between
MES and their language departments. PM said that MES students should communicate
with the MES department while on their year abroad, and that language departments
only role was to help finding places abroad during the 2nd year.
6. Points raised by 1st Year Students
DM said that the 4 weeks spent on each subject area of the core course was not
sufficient for students to gain a good understanding of the topics involved. He believed
that the seminars were good, but that student presentations were often a repetition of
the lecture, and that the readings given were also over-long. PM claimed that
confusion was normal because it was still early in their first term of university and that
students would settle in with time. He said that it might be possible to change the
practise of 5 people presenting together, but wanted to ensure students continued to
participate. He also answered the first point by stating that the intention of the course
was to give students a taste of each subject, and texts given out must be of a
sufficiently challenging nature.
DM remarked that it was hard for 1st years to evaluate their progress in the first year
core course because they did not have any coursework to hand in until the end of the
year. PM replied that the practice essay at the end of the first term provided ample
feedback and that he did not think that there was time for either students or staff to
cope with any extra coursework.
7. AOB
No further business discussed.
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