This is the latest of our weekly newsletters for staff about the work underway to ensure the continuity of Teaching, Learning and Assessment for our students during the Covid-19 pandemic.

We would like to take the opportunity to say thankyou to all colleagues for your continued hard work throughout Term 2. We hope you have an enjoyable and restful Easter break. 

Today we are covering: 

• Reading Lists – Update and Thankyou 
• EUTOPIA Week
• Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Conference 
• Student Engagement with Student Opportunity 

We would like to thank departments for their support in our work to ensure that all 2020/21 Reading Lists are available online via Talis Aspire. 69% of modules now have a published list in Talis Aspire and thanks to the investigations of the Reading List Liaison Officers and Academic Support Librarians, 78% of modules are fully accounted for. The Library will be rolling over to create draft lists for 2021/22 at the beginning of May and look forward to working with you to build on this progress.
 

EUTOPIA Week online will take place 12-16 April. The week will include workshops and seminars on a wide range of topics, relevant to students, staff and researchers from the alliance and beyond. 

Find out more here 
 

The next Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Conference: 'Interdisciplinarity: Learning from Each Other', will be held on 15 April. The conference theme asks participants to consider the elements of collaboration, co-construction of knowledge and practice that underpin the interdisciplinary teaching and learning experiences of students and teachers.  

Find out more and register here
 

We will be using our weekly newsletter to highlight the creative approaches that colleagues are taking to adapt their teaching, learning and student support in the current context. This week, we are highlighting some of the work from across Student Opportunity. 

Student Engagement with Student Opportunity
Student Opportunity comprises teams offering co-curricular development opportunities to students in relation to careers and employability, skills development, student mobility, volunteering and internationalisation. SO offers a number of schemes where students may apply for associated bursary funding and in spite of many restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020-21 has proved a bumper year for student interest in our activities. Below, we share just a few examples:    

Undergraduate Research Support Scheme (URSS)  
Supporting undergraduate students to experience the research process is a central objective of the Education Strategy. The URSS enables undergraduate students to carry out a research project (and from 2021 a public engagement project) over the summer vacation. Students submitting an application may seek to apply for a bursary to contribute to living and other associated costs whilst carrying out their project. Efforts have specifically been made to invest in the bursary this year in order to expand the number of students able to participate. The highest ever number of students have applied for URSS funding this year. The URSS Board meets this week to make awards.   

Warwick Internship Programme (WIP) 
In 2021 the Warwick Internship Programme offers undergraduate students an opportunity to undertake an internship with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), charities and (in smaller numbers) departments of the University. The core internships programme is supported by a suite of learning support via Moodle which prepares students to embark upon their internships, supports them throughout the experience and encourages reflection and learning upon its conclusion. The 2021 internship scheme has had to be significantly re-modelled for Covid circumstances and this year offers students the equivalent of 220 hours/6 weeks of paid full or part-time internships which may be physically or remotely conducted.  

Short Term Mobility 
Warwick students are supported to take advantage of short-term mobility opportunities world-wide and Student Opportunity has successfully pursued an active policy of enhancing short-term mobility opportunities for students in the last 2-3 years, with the range of opportunities developing considerably. These range from a few days to several weeks in duration and offer students the opportunity to engage in summer placements, typically summer schools; research opportunities such as attending an undergraduate research conference or a trip contributing towards a student’s dissertation preparation; attending an event contributing to academic or professional development or a volunteering opportunity overseas. In 2021, £40k has been made available for bursary support for students. Funding is available for up to 80 students with each potentially able to access a bursary of up to £500.  

TeamWork 
The TeamWork virtual international project programme was originally developed as a joint venture with our strategic partner, Monash University Australia and in 2021 will run for the third time. This summer, Student Opportunity will also be running the inaugural iteration of a new multi-partner variant, TeamWork Global, developed by reaching out to high calibre institutions around the globe in an effort to add opportunities for students to work internationally, albeit remotely, with a wider group of their peers at a time when physical mobility beyond Europe has been under such pressure. Student Opportunity also secured Innovation Funding of £30k to provide bursary funding for specific groups of students undertaking TeamWork this year and these funds have been augmented by additional contributions from the WP team in SROAS. As a consequence, we have been able to offer financial support to students from all backgrounds, and Warwick’s position on bursary provision has led a number of our new TeamWork Global partners to adopt similar financial support arrangements for their own participating students.