Gemma Marakas
Community Engagement Manager, University of Warwick
I currently manage the postgraduate community engagement team at the University of Warwick. Our aim is to build a programme of activity for PGT and PGR students, based not only in our two spaces (The PG Hub and Research Exchange) but across campus and virtually.
By working with colleagues throughout the university, we strive to support the ‘whole student’ to succeed, emphasising the benefits of community, peer support and well-being.
Our strategic priorities approved by the Board of Graduate Studies in November 2015:
- Fostering a sense of belonging, community, and intercultural awareness for our postgraduates.
- Collaborating with other stakeholders to provide a balanced programme of activity that will enhance and support the postgraduate experience: networking, skills, cultural, social, and wellbeing activities as well as building researcher communities
- To build relationships with students, academics and other service providers to facilitate the development, delivery and promotion of programmes
- Providing safe and flexible spaces, curated to support and enhance the whole postgraduate life-cycle
- Establishing a cohesive approach to communications and our virtual and social media presence
We have also recently launched a new PG Mentoring portal and online well-being course, building our support of part-time and distance learning students, as well as those who prefer to interact virtually.
More information can be found on our webpage.
