OU Law Society Vice-President

That’s me, that is, for 2011-12. I’m honoured.

The Open Uni­ver­sity Law Soci­ety has been pretty quiet for a few years now; I think it had in fact been moribund before last years’ com­mit­tee got it going again. I’m glad to be be involved at the out­set of this effect­ively new soci­ety — there are many ways in which a strong and act­ive soci­ety can bene­fit OU law stu­dents. We suf­fer a num­ber of sig­ni­fic­ant chal­lenges in terms of law–related extra­cur­ricular activ­it­ies in com­par­ison to tra­di­tional law stu­dents given the spread of OU law stu­dents through­out the UK.

There are some ways in which the soci­ety can dir­ectly help with extra­cur­ricular activ­it­ies. Moot­ing is an obvi­ous example, and one in which we should become much more act­ive. Oth­ers, such as help­ing people with law–related volun­teer­ing and sim­ilar activ­it­ies, are more dif­fi­cult — but we should at least be able to act as a repos­it­ory and con­duit of inform­a­tion about activ­it­ies that are par­tic­u­larly suit­able for OU students.

We want to act as a method of mak­ing the Open Uni­ver­sity take heed of the con­cerns of law stu­dents. It’s good that the fac­ulty is pre­pared to both listen and act at the moment — we aim to cap­it­al­ise on this and enable stu­dents to have a power­ful say in shap­ing the OU law degree.

The one thing we can’t do is anti­cip­ate every sug­ges­tion on how the soci­ety can help stu­dents with extra­cur­ricular activ­it­ies and to make the OU law degree of even more value. And to that end, I’d love to hear from any­one with thoughts or sug­ges­tions. The com­mit­tee are still find­ing their feet at the moment, but the sooner we hear from people the sooner we can col­late a pro­gramme of work for us for the com­ing year.