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| University of Dundee (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Graham Nicholson sees a lot of students - but he's no lecturer.
His brief as deputy director of student services at the University of Dundee covers everything from student recruitment to managing student services on campus.
Most of all, however, his job is to listen to what students say about their university.
"There will be a student voice in more than two thirds of the meetings I attend," says Nicholson, dashing between two as we speak.
"Lots of universities engage with student feedback but at Dundee we are positively riddled with it from student reps in every class to student involvement in faculty boards and senior management."
That's why, he suggests, the University of Dundee does well in student-ranked surveys. "Students have a particular eye for things that really matter to students, such as the use of new technology and campus facilities," adds Nicholson.
"When students are used to being engaged in the dialogue, then they start being proactive as well as reactive."
In an era of rising fees and falling numbers, student voice is heralded as something of a panacea. And while the idea of harnessing student feedback has been around since the earliest research into constructivist learning, the feedback bandwagon has rolled into most UK campuses in recent years.
The University of Plymouth has won praise for its commitment to the student voice through its You Said, We Did campaign, raising awareness of how the university responds to students' views.
And Glyndŵr University in Wrexham, where I lecture part-time in multimedia journalism, has appointed an executive director for student experience and boosted student representation on university decision-making committees.
These measures are designed to encourage students to influence decision-making for the better. But is some of this just another box-ticking exercise, a way to keep the vice-chancellor happy while keeping your own head below the parapet?
Prof Philippa Levy, deputy chief executive for academic practice at the Higher Education Academy rejects this: "We are at the beginning of a new phase in how we think about the student voice," she says.
"It's clearly now being driven forward at national policy level, while individual academics are increasingly starting to recognise the benefits."
Used well, she adds, it challenges the idea of students as consumers. "They may be paying for their own education but they also need to put something back in to impact positively as an agent for change."
Not all academics are convinced of the catch-all solution offered by feedback. In the stampede to harness the student voice, are institutions becoming overly preoccupied with student experience at the expense of their education?
Questions such as "Are sports facilities clean?" and "Is the beer cheap at the student union?" are important to students, but Dr Peter Gossman, senior lecturer in education at Glyndŵr University, believes feedback should focus on the critical study of their learning behaviour.
"As lecturers, we are interested in whether learning of a particular type, such as understanding than rote memorisation, has taken place, rather than satisfaction," says Gossman, citing the tendency among students to express satisfaction with forms of teaching that lead to a relatively passive or surface level of learning.
One potential problem with student reviews of teaching is that students tend to rate more highly styles that involve clear, organised delivery of content. This can be at odds with lecturers who make demands on their class to think and analyse.
Furthermore, the reliance on the student as the singularly most worthwhile voice on campus can leave academics frustrated that their own professional input is being downgraded.
In a Point of View programme on BBC Radio 4, Professor Mary Beard argued that one of the key functions of a university education is to push students beyond their immediate comfort zone in terms of learning.
Expecting them to read, reflect and comment on things they would not normally otherwise encounter may be unpopular in the tutorial room, but it's a key element of undergraduate life.
"From where I sit," Beard wrote on an accompanying blog, "dissatisfaction and discomfort have their own, important, role to play in a good university education ... it is, and it's meant to be, destabilizing."
In my own classes, I am implementing an expanding range of feedback exercises, cascading down from senior management like the winter-freeze melt.
New this year is an online "student evaluation of module" form, which allows students to air their views on all aspects of the course midway through its delivery. The aim, I'm guessing, is to demonstrate the lecturer acting on feedback before the end of the module.
Personally, however, I find a simpler approach at classroom level to be far more effective. I recently handed my latest cohort a minute paper.
The idea is basic: to write down anonymously on a blank piece of paper their comments on the course, content and delivery, then fold it over and place it on an empty desk at the front of the room.
I read them back in my office over a coffee. The comments are, unsurprisingly, a mixed bag. "I need more than one week to meet a deadline," writes a second-year journalism student without a hint of irony.
More useful is this one: "I really liked the more practical sessions, such as the live-blogging exercise, as I can see how this will benefit me in my future career." Note to self: less talking, even more hands-on exercises this semester.
As a result of this exercise, I am responding to feedback, amending my teaching for the remainder of the class and, by giving students a clear voice, hopefully engendering a greater sense of personal motivation.
"My advice to academics," says Graham Nicholson, "is not to make it tokenistic. Take students seriously and they have to be serious in return."
It's good advice. But, as academics, let's keep the focus on our use of student voice to improve learning - even if that impacts negatively on student satisfaction at times. Students might even thank us for it one day.
David Atkinson lectures in broadcasting and journalism at Glyndŵr University - follow him on Twitter @GlyndwrUni
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