By Luisa Foliaki
Students at the STRIVE Leadership Conference as well as a close friend of mine encouraged me to nominate for the Online Study Student Representative Committee (SRC). I was pleasantly surprised when I was elected. A few weeks later I was mortified when I discovered that I had missed the first meeting!
Despite a missed start, the SRC members were welcoming. It has been a privilege and pleasure to learn and work with them for the past year. Soon after the 2019-20 Online Study SRC was formed, we had a training meeting and a planning meeting. We will have achieved our goals by the end of our tenure.
How does the SRC work?
There is an SRC for each Charles Sturt campus, those being Online, Bathurst, Wagga Wagga, Albury-Wodonga, Dubbo, Orange, Port Macquarie along with the Study Centres in Melbourne and Sydney. Within that, SRCs elect an Executive, consisting of the President, Secretary, Treasurer and sometimes a Vice President.
General members can be assigned roles according to their strengths and interests. I am the Publications Officer as I study a Bachelor of Communication. I have been guided and supported in this role by some dedicated Student Liaison Officers (SLOs) and my Course Director.
Additionally, each SRC have two Senate members, including myself from the Online SRC, who attend Senate meetings where we discuss university issues and make decisions with members of the Vice Chancellor Leadership Team.
Making a difference
For each SRC, we get to really make a difference for the lives of our cohort of students. In this term my SRC subsidised boots for paramedic students, re-branded our identity to Online SRC, created a new logo (shout out to Gabriella from Port Macquarie SRC who digitalised it), created scholarships, ran weekly competitions, created Instagram and Twitter profiles and affiliated the first three online clubs at the University.
A highlight for me was joining Club Executives, Residential Advisors (RAs), SLOs and the rest of the SRC Executives in Bathurst at Leaders Training. I caught up with SRC members from Wagga Wagga and Albury-Wodonga and met students from other SRCs. Their experience, ideas and ongoing support has been invaluable and I am grateful.
My favourite part of being Publications Officer was producing the “StudentsConnect” posts on the Online SRC Facebook page. Student Leaders and moderators from the Charles Sturt mentor groups have been profiled. Experienced, new, international, campus and online students have also participated. I enjoy connecting with students and sharing their stories, they’re all interesting.
A Rewarding Environment
Working with other members of the SRC is very rewarding. Like me they care about students and want to help them get the best experience in their studies and University life. They also have great personalities and a variety of backgrounds which makes it fun. Students should always be part of the conversation at University and SRCs are their voice, which is why I value being a member of the Online SRC at Charles Sturt.
SRC Nominations for 2020 are now open and you should definitely consider nominating for the roles. Go to https://student.csu.edu.au/student-life and click on the Nominate Now button under Student Representation on the web page.
You can make a difference. Nominate yourself now.
