A roadmap for

postgrad
inclusion
in the union
Morgan Fairless
Postgraduate Students’ Officer
Sarah Gerwens
Riccardo Jaede

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Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.................................................................................................................. 3
Reasons for the report (Aim & Scope)

APPRAISING THE ISSUE................................................................................................................ 4

Key takeaways........................................................................................................................................... 4
Advice Service........................................................................................................................................... 4
Social offer................................................................................................................................................. 4
Elections and Governance.........................................................................................................................5
Activities.....................................................................................................................................................7
Understanding the Postgraduate Population..........................................................................................8
Feedback from students............................................................................................................................8
Feedback from Society and Athletics Union heads..............................................................................10
The role of the Postgraduate Students’ Officer.................................................................................... 12

RESEARCH STUDENTS AND THE UNION...............................................................................14

Who are PGRs and what do they need?................................................................................................ 14
PGRs and the LSESU.............................................................................................................................. 15
A note on the PGR part-time officer role............................................................................................. 16
Students and teachers at once: GTAs.....................................................................................................17
GTAs and the SU..................................................................................................................................... 18

FINDING THE PATH FORWARD.................................................................................................19

Acknowledging the issue and adopting a whole-organisation approach to solving it......................... 19
Identifying PG needs, including the differences between PG Taught and Research students.......20
Targeted communication practices......................................................................................................... 21
Balancing the Union’s governance.......................................................................................................... 21
Developing the activities offer............................................................................................................... 22
Addressing the PhD gap......................................................................................................................... 22

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
REASONS FOR THE REPORT (AIM & SCOPE)

This report was carried out guided by a manifesto commitment of the current Postgraduate Stu-
dents’ Officer (Morgan Fairless): to help the Students’ Union in becoming a more welcoming
place for Postgraduate (PG) students (both Taught and Research). There is an overwhelming
sense, across most stakeholders at LSE and the Union, that Postgraduate students are not well
represented by the LSESU. However, there has been no concerted effort to redress this issue as
of yet. Considering that Postgraduate students are a majority of LSE students, this poses a grave
issue for the Union’s core objectives as a representative body.

The huge support from Union representatives and staff for this report and its objectives, however,
is taken to mean that there is a willingness to address these issues head on. The organisation is
critical of its shortcomings in these respects and is willing to deliver changes to redress them. This
obviously facilitates the enterprise of this report.

This report thus aims to be a first step in the right direction, within the frame of an overall strategy
review. We try to:

• Establish a clear picture of the Students’ Union offer for Postgraduate Taught (PGT) and Post-
graduate Research (PGR) Students,
• Assess the offer (including blind spots, high performance, low performance, etc.).
• Develop next steps to solve identified problems.

The report does not aim to be exhaustive. Instead, it is exploratory. There are two reasons for this:
timeframe and availability of resources, and the fact that a broader strategy review has been ap-
proved by the LSESU Trustee Board. We deemed it more appropriate to deliver an exploratory
exercise that could feed into the larger project of a strategy review.

The Union is an incredible place, full of talented individuals who strive to push the organisation
forward. It is worth recognising the diligence of all those consulted for this report, to which the
author is indebted. Finally, I wish to recognise the tireless efforts of Sarah Gerwens (the PhD of-
ficer) and Riccardo Jaede (the GTA officer), who volunteered to write a substantial portion of this
report, taking on much more work than usually demanded of Part Time Officers (especially those
undertaking a PhD). Thank you very much to all involved for the support.

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APPRAISING THE ISSUE
This section provides the most substantive overview to this date of the relationship between PG
students and the Union. It is the result of consultations with LSESU staff teams, students, society
and Athletics Union (AU) heads, and some LSE stakeholders. This is complimented with data from
the LSESU Annual survey.

Key takeaways

• The Union’s Advice Service offer seems to track LSE student proportions.
• The Union’s Social offer, especially Tuns, does not track LSE student proportions.
• Student governance (Part Time Officers, Sabbatical Officers, Democracy Committee, and Trus-
tee Board) does not track LSE student proportions. It is overwhelmingly composed of Undergrad-
uate (UG) students.
• LSESU Election processes struggle to engage PG students in a meaningful way as either can-
didates or voters. Specific PG key performance indicators (KPIs) are not met, but the elections
team seeks out feedback and is improving year on year.
• There is prevailing sense that the Union does not have a clear picture of “who Postgraduate stu-
dents are”.
• There is a perception among students that the Union is UG focused.
• Students report perceiving that more mature students are not catered for and wish for more
support for their specific academic and career progression needs (as opposed to starting-out in a
career).
• The Union’s communications strategy is perceived as addressing UG students only.
• The role of the PG Officer is ill-defined and requires structural changes.

Advice Service

The advice team provided data on their opened cases, and PG feedback from their monthly survey.
In consultation, the advice team noted that they see more PG students than UG students. Feed-
back from PG students on the service is overwhelmingly positive.

Social offer

The social team did not have any take up data on their services that they could segment into UG
and PG. In consultation, they noted that it is common knowledge that Tuns (the LSESU bar)
is frequented overwhelmingly by UG students. PG students prefer The George and The White
Horse over Tuns.

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Elections and Governance

The overwhelming majority of LSESU elected representatives (PTOs and Sabbatical Officers) are
UG or ex-UG (including the current PG officer). All current members of the Democracy com-
mittee are UG students. All but two student trustees are UG students.

The 2020 Annual Survey asked, “Do you feel able to shape how the LSESU is run?” – of PG re-
spondents, only 25% answered yes, the rest said no (52%) or were unsure (23%). The numbers for
the 2018 Annual survey are similar – 35% answered “somewhat” or “a lot”, 65% answered “not at
all” or “very little”1.

All Part Time Officers are UG students, except for those roles which are restricted to PG stu-
dents. In the latter cases, there are documented problems in trying to fill them, especially when
it comes to the Graduate Teaching Assistants’ Officer, and the Postgraduate Research Officer.
These positions frequently get no candidates running for them.

The Elections team sets out targets before running elections. Out of seven said targets for Mich-
aelmas Term 2020 elections, two were PG specific, and neither were met.

Target Actual (Michaelmas 2020) Michaelmas 2019

75% of roles open to all levels 64% N/A

of study have at least one PG
candidate

60% of voters are PGT, 3% 57.58% PGT 53.02% PGT

are PGR 1.03% PGR 1.01%

1The answers available to respondents in 2018 and 2020 changed.

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Lent term elections see even poorer performance with PG students. The Lent Term 2020
Election reports states that “In terms of level of study, we struggled to engage a proportionate
number of non-undergraduate students [as candidates] – with 11 postgraduates and zero PhD
students.”.

The elections team has conducted surveys targeted to PG and International Students, attempt-
ing to find out the reasons for this low engagement. Among the reasons, the following stood out:

Length of course PGT students tend to be at LSE for one year

(or less) and some respondents cited this as
the reason they didn’t vote. For students on a
masters course, they are unlikely to feel any
benefit from the results which, understanda-
bly, disincentives engagement. One respond-
ent went as far as to say that it wouldn’t make
sense for them to vote, likening it to “old
people about to die who vote in the national
elections.”
Feeling uninformed Some respondents felt uninformed, either
about the candidates (and what they stood
for) or the issues affecting students due to a
lack of connection with the LSE community.

LSESU is not representative PG and international students questioned the

relevance of LSESU to them, seeing it as an
organisation for home UG students that they
did not identify with. Similarly, the lack of PG
candidates was also referenced. Two respond-
ents made reference to left wing politics as a
reason for not getting involved.
Too busy Some respondents felt unable to prioritise the
elections due to existing demands on their
time

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Activities

The activities team provided data on the UG/PG split in take up of their services, which include
societies, AU clubs, the active lifestyle offer, and the gym.
Societies and AU clubs are disproportionately populated by UG students, who in 2020/21 make
up 60% of society members, and almost 80% of AU club members.

20/21 19/20 18/19 17/18

Unique 4817 6680 6738 6694

Members
UG 62% 48% 47% 41%

PG 36% 32% 31% 30%

PGR 0% 1% 2% 1%

No Data 1% 20% 20% 28%

Table 1 Society membership by student level (2020/21)

Among AU clubs, the most PG-engaged ones were Capoeira (80%), Football Women’s & Kite-
surf and Wakeboard (45%), Rock Climbing (43%), Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (40%) and Muay Thai
(39%), and the most disengaged ones were Snowsports, Football Men’s, Cricket, Rugby Men’s,
Netball, Lacrosse (All 5% and below). In consultation, the activities team noted that PG students
cannot afford the time to participate in highly competitive sports teams (such as BUCS league
teams).

Whilst PG take up is low for both societies and AU clubs, it is quite high for active lifestyle
schemes and the gym. This could signify that whilst the more social offer is not of interest to PG
students, they do wish for services that allow them to continue with their active lifestyle or even
explore being more active. In 2020/21 58% of gym members are PG students, and 77% of active
lifestyle memberships were purchased by PG students.

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Understanding the Postgraduate Population

In consultation with the SU, it became clear that there is no standardised way of gathering re-
al-time PG student feedback on account of the high one-year turnover for PGTs. That is, whilst
there is an ongoing Annual Survey, the analysis of this survey data (which often does not amass
enough respondents to be statistically significant in its findings), is not substantially used to ad-
dress PG issues.

Further, there is an overwhelming sense among staff and Sabbatical representatives that we “do
not know who Postgraduate students are”. Rules of thumb, like maturity, are used as guidance,
but there is no whole-organisation effort to understand how Postgraduates are a different con-
stituency. This issue is doubled when it comes to Research students.

Feedback from students

This report aimed to contain a substantial consultation of PGT and PGR students by carrying
out Focus Groups and Semi-structured interviews. Events outside of the control of the report
writers led to the failure to recruit sufficient participants. To redress this, a survey was carried out
to invite feedback. Whilst the survey received very few responses, it is worth reporting on some
topics that arose

• The Union’s communications strategy and general attitude is perceived as focused on UG

students (“we come to the surprise that much of it is targeted to the undergraduate”; “Current-
ly the Union doesn’t care about postgrads at all. Please just care!”; “Agree that lots of the SU
emails are UG focused rather than PG, possibly some more PG specific ones would be good?”)

• Older students feel this issue is even greater with mature students (“An understanding that
PG needs are different; as an older population, we are more likely to have partners who moved
here with us, have children and other caring responsibilities, and be supporting ourselves finan-
cially in a very expensive city.”; “I would like LSESU to provide more tailored support for mature
students (…) as our needs in terms of social activities, careers advice and academic support are
different from younger students. (…) Sometimes I feel isolated because it can be difficult to
relate to younger students, who understandably have a very different set of priorities and expec-
tations. This is compounded by the fact that all postgraduate events I have seen advertised are
simply for postgraduates, rather than older students.”)

• Often communications assume knowledge. Some students even referred to the survey and
communications they were responding to as filled with jargon that they did not understand. PG
students face a steep learning curve in their new LSE environment.
(“p.s i dont know what the T or R in PGT and PGR are”; “there’s a secret code at LSE, and if you

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don’t know it you’re an outsider.”)

• PG students, whilst wishing to socialise and generate a community, are also looking to satisfy
academic and professional needs through the Union. (Many submissions recommended more
academic events, and professionally oriented events; “Organize more informal events with local
alumni as a networking opportunity for PGs.”)
The 2020 Annual Survey asked We would love your help to be better. What one thing do you
think we should do differently. By coding the open-ended answers, the following topics arose (in
order of frequency).

Topic Examples
PG Integration “Emphasise that the SU is also an important
place for PGs”
“Have more events in the evenings for part-
time students”
“The key aspect I sometimes feel could be
improved is the Union’s interaction with post-
graduate students. It’s great that the Union
has some specific postgrad representation and
many of the activities are also accessible to
postgrads, but I do sometimes get the sense
that the Union doesn’t adequately engage with
what is an enormous component of the uni-
versity (compared to postgrad populations in
many other universities). I’d have loved to see
more events specifically targeted at postgrads,
and I think that would have done a lot to dispel
the perception amongst many postgrads that
the LSESU is mostly there for undergrads.”
Communication practices “Engage more with students to make them
aware of what you are all about”
“I think more targeted communication would
be useful (for a specific event/cause) and thus
somehow making the union more accessible
and unified”
“More feedback channels”
“Provide better information about what you
do”

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Topic Examples
Openness and Transparency “More transparent about follow ups to motions
passed and interactions with LSE Directors so
we know what is ACTUALLY going to be done
vs what motion has theoretically been passed.”
“Be more transparent with work you do, allow
students to volunteer for you, make the elec-
tions more democratic”
“President and reps should go to classes and
make themselves known personally”
“More openly advocate what is going on
behind the scenes (i.e., what do all the Of-
ficers do and what have they achieved / not
achieved?)”

Feedback from Society and Athletics Union heads

A consultation was carried out with committee members of AU clubs that have a high number of
PG students.

• The majority of committee members did not report any specific measures taken for recruit-
ment, beyond posting in PG forums. They mostly related their success in recruiting PG students
to the nature of their clubs, which were often either more focused on recreational activity or
were well suited to those who wanted to continue their sporting careers from their UG experi-
ences.
• However, some stressed the fact that they offered a lot of flexibility (social memberships, ex-
tended give it a go, friendly timetables such as later trainings).
• Committee members noted that compared to UG students, PG students had less available
time, required more flexibility, and often were not as interested in the standard social activities
(such as going to Zoo).
The committee members had some suggestions on how the Union could do better in PG inclu-
sion:
• “Give it a go sessions are key in getting postgraduates to join and so perhaps should be focus on
making sure those sessions are well carried out and advertised appropriately. After this time, we
see far fewer new people signing up.” (Squash)
• “Fitting their schedules better and offering competitive options at an inter-university level”
(Muay Thai)
• “During Welcome Fair - PG have their own slot to attend/ chance to network & meet other
PG. Work closer with departments to share what AU clubs are available - this is PG main source
of information.” (Volleyball)
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• “Make Michaelmas Term Elections more accessible for all - Best opportunity for PG to be
involved in the Committee. Publicise to clubs that they can run MT elections for PG too not just
Lent Term. Would be very helpful to have a PG module on training hub” (Kitesurf)
• “Perhaps a postgrad AU social would be good (…) it would be cool to have an AU-wide social
(as AU events tend to be mostly undergrad attendance)” (Rowing)

Additionally, the 2020 Annual Survey had the following open question: Is there anything we can
do to improve your experience as a sports club or society member? Relevant answers from PG
students can be divided into two topics.

Topic
Lack of integration of PG Students
Need for a more inclusive induction period
Examples
“Better integration of postgraduates in socie-
ties”
“Make some more accessible for part-time
students (i.e. not have everything on during
the middle of the day)”
“There are not a lot of postgraduate-focused
societies/sports clubs”
“Make sports clubs more available to postgrad
students”
“These cater more towards undergrads than
grad students”
“Different, more post-grad friendly practice
times for sport clubs.”
“Engage with more postgrads, provide more of
an inclusive environment for postgrads”
“Sports: don’t have MSc classes on Wednes-
day afternoon, or make it clear from the be-
ginning that MSc students often can’t play
matches”
“I feel like there can be several rounds promo-
tion for membership in sports clubs and socie-
ties.”
“I wanted to join but needed to understand
my academic commitments first. Perhaps a
re-freshers fayre in January would have been
nice”

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The role of the Postgraduate Students’ Officer

The Postgraduate Students’ Officer (PG Officer) exists in a complicated place within the union:
it is the only part-time Sabbatical officer position, starting their tenure about 5 months after the
rest of the Sabbatical team. Many issues arise from this structurally awkward position.

1. Haphazard induction

Induction practices seem to be an issue all around, with all Sabbatical officers seemingly being
uncomfortable with the onboarding provision. The PG officer induction was carried out in an un-
structured manner over the course of a month and a half. This led to counterproductive alloca-
tion of time. For instance, the PG officer received his project management training after having
completed all of the project management documentation.

The PG officer received no guidebook, or handover, from their predecessor. LSE stakeholders, in
introductory meetings, seemed confused on this point, particularly on the fact that the current
PG officer knew little about past projects or even ongoing conversations between LSE and the
Union.

Being the only Sabbatical officer to start at a different time than their peers can have secondary
issues of coordination and socialization into the team. Put simply, when the PG Officer arrives,
the ball is already rolling.

2. Remit

Apart from the General Secretary, who represents all students, the PG Officer is the only role
that has a remit based on the type of student they represent - this generates clashes of remit
with every other Sabbatical position. In this current working year, these clashes were not sub-
stantial due to the good working relationship between the PG Officer and other Sabbaticals but
is easy to imagine a world where these clashes can become a point of failure for the necessary
coordination among the Sabbatical team.

There is also a clear clash of remits with the part time Postgraduate Research Officer. The PGR
Officer is a Part-time officer position often filled by a PhD student. More has been written on
this clash of remit in Section 4, but it is worth underlining the following point: PGT and PGR
students are worlds apart – for effective representation to happen, remit arrangements and more
collaboration needs to occur to facilitate the work of both the PG Officer and the PGR Officer.

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3. Unsustainable working arrangements

As in any political position, the Sabbatical officer role can be as demanding as one wants it to be.
For committed PG Officers wishing to keep up to date and engaged with the work of the Un-
ion as a whole, and their Sabbatical peers specifically, the demands of the role are substantial.
Working part-time whilst undergoing full-time study is demanding for any student, and some PG
Officers in the past have not been able to cope with these demands appropriately.

Whilst clearly delineated working days are encouraged to mitigate these issues, it is simply not
possible to stick to them in any meaningful sense given that the role relies substantially on meet-
ings with other key stakeholders. Often these meetings are either out of the control of the PG
officer (such as board meetings), pre-established, or simply too important to miss.

The current PG officer also found that studying and working within the same environment leads
to difficulties in “keeping away” from work during non-work hours. Additionally, even a few
meetings in a “study day” take a toll on the ability to concentrate on studies before and after.

These latter points are obviously subjective. Some PG officers will be better at coping with these
demands than others. But it remains the case that the overall work structure and arrangement
can be overly demanding for many officers.

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RESEARCH STUDENTS AND THE UNION
A report by Sarah Gerwens (LSESU PhD Officer) and Riccardo Jaede (LSESU GTA Officer)

In 2018/19, around 12% of all postgraduate students were pursuing an MPhil, MRes, or PhD. The
length of their studies as well as the nature and depth of their involvement with the School make
them a unique demographic central to the School’s research and teaching mission, with links to
the broader student body. However, research students are not well integrated into the LSESU.

This liminality of PhD researchers1 – who are not quite ‘just’ students, nor full School employ-
ees – repeatedly leaves them slipping through the cracks of LSE’s bureaucracy. Therefore, Union
support is all the more crucial, but challenging. This section outlines some of the key character-
istics and needs of postgraduate research students and takes stock of the current LSESU-PGR
relationship, indicating ways forward.

Who are PGRs and what do they need?

PGRs are supervisees, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), event organisers for their depart-
ments, and researchers for LSE projects. Some come to campus nearly every day, others spent
the majority of their time away from London on fieldwork. Rather than ordinary students, they
are best conceptualised as ‘students plus’, with a plus of additional responsibilities and engagement
with the School, but also a plus of dependencies on it. Students’ supervisors, especially, are of
crucial importance to their academic and (in some cases) professional lives. PGRs on scholarships
depend on the School or their respective funding body financially. This dependency creates vul-
nerability – and the space for collective interest representation by the LSESU.

Importantly, PGR students are no monolith. As with all student groups, it is impossible to say what
they need in their entirety. Nonetheless, in addition to the dependencies highlighted above, there
are a range of issues to keep in mind where the Union can support PGR students. One of these
is community-building and mental health support, issues that have become even more crucial as
COVID-19 has made an at times lonely endeavour more isolated2 and rendered an already vul-
nerable population even more so3 . Furthermore, the LSESU could support PGRs in creating more
avenues for collective bargaining, increasing collaboration between departments, and reducing
inter-departmental inequalities. Some established Union campaigning issues, such as keeping the
LSE nursery open, are also in the interest of many PGR students.
1 Depending on programme type and progression, this also includes MPhil, MRes, and MSc students. For
ease of reading, all students progressing towards a PhD are hereafter referred to as ‘PhD students/researchers’
or ‘doctoral researchers’, even if they are currently enrolled in a master’s programme.
2 See the report on COVID-19’s impact on LSE PhD researchers.
3 Levecque, K., Anseel, F., De Beuckelaer, A., Van der Heyden, J., & Gisle, L. (2017). Work organization
and mental health problems in PhD students. Research Policy, 46(4), 868–879. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.re-
spol.2017.02.008; Evans, T. M., Bira, L., Gastelum, J. B., Weiss, L. T., & Vanderford, N. L. (2018). Evidence for
a mental health crisis in graduate education. Nature Biotechnology, 36(3), 282–284. https://doi.org/10.1038/
nbt.4089
14
PGRs and the LSESU

In the last SU elections, only a handful of students voted to elect a PGR Officer, out of 700+
eligible voters. This lack of engagement is symptomatic of the relationship between the LSESU
and PGRs more generally. Anecdotal evidence underlines this point: when asked what they think
of the LSESU, some research students are not entirely sure what it even is, much less what it
does or how it might be relevant to them. The LSESU has little presence in a PhD student’s stay
at the LSE, beyond a stand at the welcome fair in the PhD Academy (in pre-COVID times) and
the SU-run gym. Few PhD students are in societies, the locus of their life at the School often
lies within their department or Institute, not the wider LSE community. Some of this is likely a
natural by-product of the PGR demographics – even with the best PGR engagement, they will
probably never show up in the Three Tuns in droves. But demographics do not explain why their
participation in the Union elections is so low, their awareness of the SU in general is so spotty, or
their assumption that the Union is not really for them.

So much for the status quo. Where to go from here? This question will be best answered with more
data on LSE PGRs and their needs at hand. In the interim, this report indicates some avenues to
explore below. In short, the LSESU needs to find its ‘ecological niche’ in the PGR support struc-
ture, identify its added value to the PhD experience, and communicate this to students.

1 Finding the SU’s ‘added value: Even more so than most other students, doctoral researchers are
stretched for time. Many also are not looking for the same kind of social and entertainment pro-
gramming that undergraduate or postgraduate students might want. The LSESU offer for PGRs,
therefore, should be both specific and practical. This could mean making the Union’s role as a cam-
paigning resource more explicit and strengthening links with PhD student representatives. This
might also include working on issues where the ‘student’ part of the PGR experience is strongest,
such as regarding the supervisory relationship or asking for an increase in the COVID extension
programme. Other avenues to consider could be:
 a. for the SU to take a pro-active role about PGR mental health (including repeatedly advertis-
ing existing services at LSE and LSESU, explaining the procedures, etc.); this will also likely make
the Union more relevant for research students.
 b.to take a pro-active role in organising PGR academic life. Currently, there are few PhD-led
conferences, workshops, research groups except as small, intra-disciplinary departmental initia-
tives; or top-down, School-level initiatives (e.g. institutes, or the Poverty and Inequality Research
cluster, which however mainly organises faculty). This might go beyond the resources and capaci-
ties of any one PhD rep or PTO, but a collaborative effort to organising department-level reps to
carry such initiatives with School support could go a long way.

15
2 Effectively collaborating with the PhD Academy: PhD students have a unique – and very lucky
– position of having a full support infrastructure dedicated only to them. This is a recognition of
their special relationship to the School and their importance to LSE’s research and teaching mis-
sion. However, this also means working with PGR students’ needs to include coordinating with the
PhD Academy. This is necessary to avoid a duplication of efforts and to best identify PGR needs.
That the Union is now chairing the Research Students Consultative Forum is an important first
step, but further linkages can be identified. This should also extend to lobbying the PhD Academy
to include the PGR and GTA PTO in more of their work.

3 Communication: Union Communication often appears to be geared at undergraduate and

taught students. Most PGRs rarely engage with it and, therefore, miss out on the programmes
that might be relevant to them. This furthers the disconnect between the Union and research stu-
dents. Targeted and sparing communication – thinking back to point 1: PGR engagement should
be specific and practical – is key. Societies could also be encouraged to engage more with PhD
students. Particularly for issue-focused groups, doctoral researchers might present a great and so
far, underutilised resource for events, mentoring, or career programming.

A note on the PGR part-time officer role

The PGR PTO, ideally, is the person coordinating the efforts outlined above. However, Officers
have not always felt supported and recognised by the School nor the Union. The fact that the PGR
representative currently does not have a vote in the Executive Committee highlights this further.
Additionally, there is little institutional knowledge on the content of the PGR and GTA PTO roles,
or even the PGR experience more generally. The current PGR and GTA Officers will compile
guidebooks for their successors, but the LSESU should also consider developing a more extensive
‘onboarding package’ for incoming Officers that includes this guidebook as well as PGR-related
resources and Union campaigns developed in the past.

Lastly, from a structural point of view, having both a PG Officer representing all PG students as
well as a PGR Officer representing PGR students in particular is not the most efficient way of
student representation nor resource allocation. Representing PGT students is a demanding task as
it stands, adding PGR students on top of that not only complicates the position’s brief, but risks
that not all students will be equally well represented. In practice, this is indeed what has happened
in the past: linkages between PGR students and the PG position have been very limited. Further-
more, the PG Officer is generally not a PGR student, so they are understandably less familiar and
networked with the LSE PGR community. PGR and PGT students share the ‘PG’ in their name,
but beyond this, their needs, demographics, and relationship to the School are markedly different.
Recognising this difference in how PGR students are represented would be an important step to-
wards serving and supporting them better.

16
Students and teachers at once: GTAs

GTAs intersect with the LSESU’s remit twice: as teachers for UGs (that should be well trained to
provide strong pedagogical services) and as PhD students (that should be fairly paid, transparently
recruited, and adequately supported). Accordingly, they fall through the cracks twice: they are
seen as not real employees by LSE, and also not seen as students. As employees, they are invisi-
bilised by being students and as students, they are invisibilised through their labour relationship to
their employer. This came out forcefully during the pandemic, when at least some departments
failed to extend its caring obligations to them as students and employees, but the underlying
problem has existed beyond the pandemic. The overall result of both the 2016 School survey of
GTAs (n=110) and of a 2018 focus group session is summarised in the report as such: “GTAs do not
believe LSE as an institution supports them in a professional capacity, often feeling overworked,
under-appreciated and underpaid.” PhD students – and GTAs a fortiori – embody the transition
of promising students into the academic precariat. The School’s extremely poor performance with
regards to student satisfaction with teaching within the Russell Group continues to neglect GTAs,
who are an obvious link. GTAs conduct LSE frontline teaching. The School’s framing of GTAing as
part of the PhD training does not do justice to the fact that teaching large classes for years entails
far more than just training – it is core teaching, but with poor support.

The main cause areas with regards to the School include:

1. Professionalising the role including in terms of its training, support, labour rights protections, and
adequate dignity for the importance of the role within the LSE service provision. This should also
include the provision of adequate mental health, neurodiversity, and equality support both as part
of the pedagogical training of GTAs, and as support for GTAs with their own vulnerabilities. This
is to be developed in collaboration with the Eden Centre, the PhD Academy, DWS, and others.

2. Equalising pay across departments, and improving the structure of contracts and remuneration.

3. Institutionalising regular GTA surveys by the School, with monitoring and advisory competen-
cies for relevant SU reps. This should include diversity indicators to surveil potential intra- and
inter-departmental inequalities in hiring, remuneration, workload, course choice, and support by
course convenors. It also should include mental health and neurodiversity indicators.

17
GTAs and the SU

The GTA post was only created in 2018, in collaboration with the PhD Officer at the time.
After the first occupancy, it was vacant for a year for lack of candidates or volunteers. In 2020,
the role was advertised at the beginning of MT and due to an absence of candidates had to be
re-advertised at the initiative of the SU toward the end of MT. The current GTA Officer was not
elected and occupies the post as a volunteer (and he had not received the first election call). The
immediate conclusion from this echoes that of the section on PhD students, but is arguably even
more pronounced: this lack of awareness, engagement, and communication reflects more broad-
ly the relationship between SU and GTAs.

In parallel to the underserved relation to the School, they fall through the cracks twice: as PhD
students, and a fortiori as employees. The competence and expertise of a student union in cater-
ing to students insofar as they are employees of LSE is not clearly outlined, nor is it communi-
cated.
The main cause areas in relationship to the SU include the following:

1. Institutionalising the role of GTA Officer. This should include an automatic briefing by SU
representatives, and a handover (or takeover) protocol that includes an extensive briefing on the
current and past issues, the unofficial workings of the relevant stakeholders at LSE, as well as
relevant contacts. Furthermore, the GTA Officer should be granted automatic or quick access to
the email list of all GTAs at LSE, which to this date (26.02.2021) has not happened but will likely
be taken care of by the PhD Academy soon. Finally, the GTA Officer position could be adver-
tised as part of the GTA induction training.

2. Consider moving the elections for the GTA Officer to the end of MT or beginning of LT. The
GTA Officer should be someone who has already taught before rather than be at the very begin-
ning. Furthermore, elections at the beginning of MT also conflict with the fact teaching appoint-
ments are sometimes not announced or formalised until after MT has begun.

3. Take a pro-active role in co-developing the GTA survey. This should include SU support for
a focus group study and a GTA Report for 2020/2021 (design, execution, write-up, dissemi-
nation). There is scope for collaboration with the Eden Centre and the PhD Academy, as the
labour and financial costs for this should be borne by the School as the service provider. SU
involvement can help raise awareness of the potential role and usefulness of the SU in the eyes
of GTAs.

4. Create a system of departmental GTA reps, be it informally, to generate a stronger sense of

community. Facilitate the exchange of information and resources, and to support and multiply
the work of the GTA Officer. This can also help communication and visibility.
18
FINDING THE PATH FORWARD
The previous sections have laid out in detail some of the identified issues. Above all, the findings
provide some depth and confirmation to the initial scenario: Postgraduate representation and in-
volvement in the Union is indeed a recognizable issue.

This section lays out some identified avenues for change. They are intended as top-line possibilities
that need to be explored and substantiated through the strategy review process.

Acknowledging the issue and adopting a whole-organisation approach to solving it

The SU needs to be strategic and purposeful in its approach to this issue. An initial step, recognis-
ing that we are indeed underrepresenting and serving PG students, is underway. Staff and repre-
sentatives broadly agree on the key points regarding the problem but have different approaches to
solving them at their levels in the organisation.

The SU thus requires a whole-organisation steer in the direction of tackling this issue in a coordi-
nated manner. The issue of PG representation is compounded across different areas. That is, it is
difficult to ascertain the precise causes (and causal direction) of the issue. It may be the case that
a lack of representation at governance levels leads to de-prioritisation of PG issues, but it may also
be the case that a lack of PG involvement in societies is what leads to lack of governance involve-
ment.

The following could be part of setting out a whole-organisation approach:

• Setting up an SU working group to identify solutions and monitor progress across several years.
• Adopting specific targets and key performance indicators across departments to monitor chang-
es and progress.
• Conducting a more in-depth review of all processes and policies with a view to identifying weak
spots.
• Adapt the SU working year calendar to fit both the Undergraduate and Postgraduate academic
calendar.
• Acknowledge the issue with PG students, and seek feedback on progress from them.

19
 Dedicated KPI’s
All students engage
The union is not only around postgrads
in one thing that the
for undergrads engaged into
Union does
departments

Moving away from

More student voice/
the Union being run Full time PG Officer
insight work about
on the Undergrad role
what postgrads want
Year

Tailoring our Robust form of

Agreed % of welcome communications for
Postgrads in programme for the each community
leadership positions needs of students that happens
across the org at the level they are regularly and
coming to LSE at consistency

Figure 1: A snippet from an initial strategy brainstorming session with staff ideas on the topic of this report

Identifying PG needs, including the differences between PG Taught and Research students

The Union does not have a clear understanding of what its PG population wants from it. This
issue is compounded by the fact that PG students are bunched together. As the specific report
on research students notes, the taught and research postgraduate populations are different, and
have different needs in terms of the type of representation and services they require. A key part
of moving forward must be to carry out a consultation exercise dedicated to understanding these
needs. A key to success in this area is to decrease the Union’s overreliance on surveys as a way of
understanding the student population. Other methodological approaches will provide more fine-
grained and nuanced data on student needs. For instance: conducting in-depth interviews, focus
groups, observational studies, and commissioning Change Makers projects.

20
It will also be necessary to develop strategies to monitor changes in demands across time. De-
spite the fact that most PG students are at LSE for a year, it is not necessary to conduct new
data gathering exercises year on year. To counterbalance this turnaround issue, it is best to adopt
an attentive monitoring approach. With time, the Union will start to get a sense of how PG stu-
dents differ and are similar to UG students, and institutional knowledge will develop.

Targeted communication practices

The consultation for this report overwhelmingly identified an issue with the Union’s commu-
nication practices. Whilst improving in quality and targeting already, it is worth exploring the
feedback in this report to devise strategies to segment communicational strategies according to
degree level. This issue can be seen more clearly with research students, who find that the com-
munications they receive are too UG focused and rarely have an impact on them. Although PGT
students are more likely to be closer in age and background to UG students, they also identified
the issue in consultation. It is possible that the perception of the Union as UG focused has to do
with our communication practices.

Additionally, it became clear that PG students pay more attention to LSE than the Union.
Therefore, including more Union messaging and signposting in LSE and Departmental emails
could increase engagement.

Balancing the Union’s governance

There is a clear imbalance of UG and PG students in the Union’s governance structure. Whilst
the solution to this issue may not involve benchmarking participation at the level of LSE’s demo-
graphics (i.e., we would want 60% of elected representatives to be PG), more must be done to
facilitate involvement and ownership of the Union for PG students.

This may involve:

• Rethinking how the electoral calendar works.
• Enabling PG students to become more involved with the Union, despite their larger workloads.
• In the case of full-time taught postgraduates, exploring how to facilitate involvement despite
the one-year turnaround.
• Improving support for the PG officer as outlined in the previous section. This includes recognis-
ing and working out the clashes in remit with other officers and the PG-specific PTO roles.
• Exploring ways of increasing the sense of ownership in the Union’s governance procedures for
all students, even if they don’t want to become very involved. This piece of work may be more
suitable for a democracy review, but it is worth keeping in mind as a strategic aim.

21
Developing the activities offer

There is a great ambition to improve the activities offer for PG students across the Union activi-
ties team as the societies and AU clubs consulted noted. The section above details some the con-
sultation that occurred. PG students may want more professionally oriented activities that still
serve as socialization spaces. There is also appetite for the Union to help societies and AU clubs
cater to PG students.

A few areas to explore are:

• Increased training for committee members on how to cater for PG students.
• Providing assistance in developing society and club offers to meet PG requirements. This can
involve PG-friendly timetabling and help with communications.
• Ensure there is an adequate offer of activities for mature, part-time and commuting students,
who are often underserved1.
• Make welcome more PG-inclusive, perhaps even considering amplifying to a digital welcome
before registration so that one-year PG students can “hit the ground running”.

Addressing the PhD gap

Many recommendations are made in the research students sub-report (pp.14-19).

The following are abridged versions of some of these recommendations:

• Finding the SU’s ‘added value: The LSESU offer for PGRs should be both specific and prac-
tical. This could mean making the Union’s role as a campaigning resource more explicit and
strengthening links with PhD student representatives. This might also include working on issues
where the ‘student’ part of the PGR experience is strongest.

• Effectively collaborating with the PhD Academy: Working with PGR students’ needs to in-
clude coordinating with the PhD Academy. This is necessary to avoid a duplication of efforts and
to best identify PGR needs.

• Institutionalising the role of the GTA and PhD Officers: This should include an automatic
briefing by SU representatives, and a handover (or takeover) protocol that includes an extensive
briefing on the current and past issues, the unofficial workings of the relevant stakeholders at
LSE, as well as relevant contacts. This may include addressing electoral calendar issues to facili-
tate inclusion.

1 See How do commuting master’s students understand and create a sense of community and social life at the
LSE? https://info.lse.ac.uk/staff/divisions/Eden-Centre/Assets-EC/Documents/Change-makers/10-Commut-
ing-MSc-Students-WEB.pdf
22
• Consider moving the elections for the GTA Officer to the end of MT or beginning of LT. The
GTA Officer should be someone who has already taught before rather than be at the very begin-
ning. Furthermore, elections at the beginning of MT also conflict with the fact teaching appoint-
ments are sometimes not announced or formalised until after MT has begun.

• Take a pro-active role in co-developing the GTA survey. This should include SU support for a
focus group study and a GTA Report for 2020/2021 (design, execution, write-up, dissemina-
tion).

• Create a system of departmental GTA reps, be it informally, to generate a stronger sense of

community.

23
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