Oscar Greenfield

Hello! I’m Oscar (he/him), a second year PPE/Math Sci student and I’m running to be your next undergraduate CASS rep with RAGE for ANUSA! As someone who’s angry about some of the ways our university is changing, I’m prepared to advocate and fight for your education.

No more cuts

The Renew ANU course and job cuts to the College of Arts and Social Sciences need to stop. Students, some of whom have moved across the country to study at the ANU, deserve the education they signed up for. Students are getting less and less choice of what courses they can complete, whilst at the same time tutorial sizes are increasing, reducing the standard of education offered at this university. Mandatory courses are being cut, forcing students to pick between overloading now to complete the course in the last year it will be offered, or to apply for an exemption, neither of which should be expected of students.

I will call on the university to cease all future cuts to CASS and will pressure the university to restore the standard of education present before these cuts.

Better course accessibility & standardisation of course Canvas pages

The university needs to do better in making their courses as accessible to students as possible. Lecture recordings often have poor audio quality, do not have transcripts, and are frequently cut short. Additionally, every course’s Canvas page has a completely different layout and structure, making the transition from Wattle more confusing.

I will advocate for the university to:

• Standardise the structure of Canvas pages across the entire College of Arts and Social Sciences, and make sure that all course content is easily accessible from the front page, without having to dig through modules.
• Ensure lecture transcripts and full lecture recordings are available. I will advocate for the university to properly educate staff on how to use the lecture recording software to ensure that the full length of lectures are recorded, and push for the availability of accurate lecture transcripts.

Clear assessment extension and deferral procedure and policy

As someone who has to frequently navigate the current system, it needs work. The current extension page is clunky and difficult to find, and the criteria for extensions are opaque, and sometimes vary between courses. Additionally, when students do need to defer an exam or complete a supplementary examination, the date is often not given to students until as little as two weeks out from the exam date.

I will advocate for the university to make it easier for students to navigate the extension and deferral system, and pressure the university to publish supplementary and deferred exam dates earlier.

Make sure that some compulsory classes are offered outside of business hours

For some working students, participation in a compulsory tutorial, seminar or workshop just isn’t possible due to a lack of diversity in timetable offerings, especially in smaller courses.

I will advocate for courses to offer compulsory classes across a greater range of times and days, with a handful being offered outside of regular business hours to accommodate students better.