Kingston University Students’ Union

Kingston University

January 29th, 2014

Dear Senior Management Team,

We, as the student officers of Kingston University Students Union, are writing to you on behalf of all the student body of KU to express our extreme disappointment in your failure to deliver summer graduations for our students in 2014. Your inability to move graduations from November to July for the students due to finish in May, has led to disappointment and frustration from the student body, especially the cohort of students who will be directly impacted by this. The entirety of the senior management team and relevant associating departments have had well over a year to commit to configuring and solidifying the logistics of summer graduations and to complete the booking form to secure the graduation dates at the Rose. While we appreciate your concern for ensuring our students receive the quality graduation they deserve, you as the Senior Management Team have had both the time and resources to deliver the transition to a summer graduation period.

Our International Students have now had to reschedule flight plans, and have to pay a high premium for it, our home students have had to reschedule appointments and change work schedules. Overall, our student body have had to realign their schedules and priorities for both the summer and autumn time to ensure their own presence at their graduations as their final moments as Kingston students (as the paying stakeholders of this university).

This decision comes at an unfortunate time as it falls atop of a long-line of changes in the 2013-14 year which have seen KU students frustrated with their timetables, aggravated about the availability of WIFI and social/study space and have been left unclear about the benefits the Review of Academic Framework (a framework that allows for earlier ending terms and a larger gap between the end of term time and a November graduation) provides. Amongst all the frustration caused by this time of great change, and the transition that goes with it, was the promise of graduation ceremonies to be permanently moved to the summer for Kingston Students. This promise however, has been unfulfilled and will undoubtedly be negatively reflected in this year’s National Student Survey scores. Although we make every effort to encourage students to consider the entirety of their student experience in their survey – the timing of the announcement of graduations is likely to negatively affect their feedback at this time.

We do appreciate that a substantial amount of reform taking place in the University is to respond to problems previously identified by students and to safeguard the Kingston

Student Experience in the future, however, communicating these changes to students is just as important. Students were very much of the view that the University had indicated that summer graduations in summer 2014 were highly likely and felt this would compensate for the upheaval of entering the new academic framework during their final year of study.

As you have now promised for a second time that summer graduations will be secured for our 2014-2015 class we, as the Students’ Union, aim to ensure that this time you stick to your promise. Our first step will be to work with you as soon as possible to install this new graduation software and to upload our student data from the earliest possible point to ensure a smooth delivery in the summer of 2015.

On behalf of the Student Body, we look forward to taking these discussions forward with you soon.

Executive Committee of Kingston University Students Union

Kingston University Students’ Union

Making Life Better for Kingston Students