MDHS Student Advisory Council

The MDHS SAC has two broad roles: 1) being an advisory body and providing a student voice/perspective in the identification, planning and implementation of faculty-wide strategic initiatives; and 2) being an idea generation body, and feeding those ideas to relevant faculty leaders and executive committees.

The purpose of the SAC is not to duplicate existing student bodies (i.e., GSA, UMSU) in being representative of the student body. Instead, it is to provide faculty with a broad body of students from within the faculty to act on the two broad roles above, such as advising on key strategic initiatives and acting as an idea generating body.

Given  our role of advising on faculty-wide policy, initiatives, etc., we will not advise on things that are at a school or department level only, or only affect a sub-set of students (i.e., just honours students, or just students with clinical placements) except on a case-by-case basis where it is pertinent to our broader mission. If you wish to receive advice on these out-of-scope initiatives or policy, please go through the existing processes for your school/department.

The MDHS SAC is one body with volunteer student members assigned to one of two sub-councils: The Coursework (CW) SubSAC and the Research Training (RT) SubSAC. The CW SubSAC has members from undergraduate and postgraduate coursework programs across all schools within the faculty. The RT SubSAC has members from across all the schools in the faculty who are enrolled in PhDs, relevant masters programs (i.e., MPhil or Master of Biomedical Science), and Honours students.

The MDHS SAC is run by the chairs and deputy chairs of the two SubSACs (“The Chairs”). They are responsible for the overall outcomes and operations of their respective SubSACs as well as the SAC overall and are who should be contacted for specific SAC related business rather than the general members.

If you are interested in joining the SAC, then please feel free to fill in an expression of interest below. When positions on the SAC become available, we will assess your application and reach out to you.

Expression of Interest Form for Research Training

Expression of Interest Form for Coursework

The roles and responsibilities of general members of the SAC are to actively participate, attend meetings, voice objective opinions, and work in the best interest of Faculty goals and values.

Each member of the SAC is expected to attend meetings once every 2 months throughout the year as well as training sessions early in their membership. There will also be some time required ahead of each meeting for reading relevant documentation and preparing for these meetings. Finally, SAC members may be invited to events or asked to provide input out of session, however these are optional.

The SAC will meet five times in 2023, with three meetings being individual SubSAC meetings, and two being combined whole-of-SAC meetings on the following dates:

Combined Meetings:

18 May 2023 - Final  submission date for document consideration: 1 May 2023

13 September 2023 – Final submission date for document consideration: 30 August 2023

CW SubSAC Meetings:

TBC July 2023 – Final submission date for document consideration: Two weeks prior to  the meeting

TBC November 2023 – Final submission date for document consideration: Two weeks prior to the meeting

RT SubSAC Meetings:

13 July 2023 – Final submission date for document consideration: 28 June 2023

15 November 2023 – Final submission date for document consideration: 1 November 2023

We encourage faculty staff to reach out to the SAC for consultation on faculty-wide matters related to student experience and wellbeing. This could be in the form of, but is not limited to, ideas for improvement/consultation on bigger picture strategic planning, or co-designing initiatives that enhance student life and wellbeing.

Although we understand this is not always feasible, if you have something that you would like SAC consultation and advice on, we encourage you to approach us as early as possible in the process (such as the idea conception phase) so that we can provide meaningful and specific input. If we are only consulted late in the process (i.e., during/after planning), we may not be able to provide as much advice for you.

To get in touch with us, please go to the submission form below and fill in the requested information. Please note that as the SAC is made up of volunteer students, and only meets every two months, there will be some turnaround time in order for us to provide advice from the full SAC. If you have a tighter deadline than this, please still get in contact with us, but please be aware that we will work through these on a case-by-case basis and may only be able to provide more limited advice in these cases. If you have any questions or something you would like to get in contact with us about that doesn’t fit into the submission form below, please email mdhs-sac@unimelb.edu.au.

Contact Form