13 February 2024 meeting report

• Size and availability of suitably sized rooms. It was important to the students that teaching rooms, for lectures, seminars and tutorials, should be the appropriate size for the number of students in the class, rather than being oversized. For example, students dislike having seminars in lecture theatres. It was suggested that partition walls could be used to create more flexible teaching spaces. 
• Suitable resources in teaching spaces. Teaching spaces should be suitably equipped for students to learn effectively. This means the availability of plug sockets and desks that are big enough for laptops. Importantly, lecture theatres must have desks to take notes, not audience style seating. 
• Better wayfinding. While not specific to learning and teaching spaces, room numbering and wayfinding is particularly important for students when trying to locate their lecture and seminar rooms. 
• More equitable modern teaching spaces. The campus currently has a mixture of recently refurbished and older teaching buildings and this leads students to feel that some subjects are prioritised over others. Students want to see improvements to more older buildings. 
• Quiet spaces to learn. The students fed-back extremely positively about the library, however, they said would like the refreshments space to be improved. Overall, the students felt the library was not big enough and there are not enough other options for quiet places to study on campus when silent study is full. Students do not want to sit in seminar rooms by themselves and instead would prefer more comfortable, quiet and smaller spaces. One suggestion was study rooms within their main School building. 

• Comfortable spaces to socialise. In addition to smaller and quieter places to study around campus, the students fed-back that they’d like to have more comfortable and intimate places to socialise on campus, like a living room away from home. The KPA was named as a good example of an existing space. It was suggested the halls social spaces could be better utilised. 
• Space for clubs and societies. Similar to the above, more suitable and versatile spaces were requested for societies and clubs to host their meetings and events.  
• Improvements to the gym and sports centre. The students emphasised wanting to see improvements to the gym and sports centre, and noted that they feel a better value for money at gyms in Newcastle-under-Lyme town centre, which provide 24-hour access and a wider variety of equipment and classes. 
• Support Services Hub. It was suggested that all support services available to students should be co-located; if not in one building, then in nearby buildings, with an SU and KPA presence also nearby. The students fed-back that Tawney building doesn’t look like a support services hub, but is a good location. 

• Accessibility around campus. Accessibility was the key reoccurring theme in the feedback. All teaching and learning spaces should be accessible and pathways across campus should be made easier to navigate. In addition, it was suggested that paths around the woodlands could be improved to enable more people to make use of the woods. 
• Sustainability and biodiversity. Sustainability was another significant priority in the feedback, with students wanting to maintain and see more evidence of the work done on campus to achieve sustainability goals. The students would like to see improved access to recycling and compost points across campus. The students suggested stopping cutting the grass in some areas of campus to help improve biodiversity. In addition, temperatures inside buildings should be better controlled across all buildings to avoid wasteful use of energy. 
• Better integration for students studying at the entrance to campus. It was important to students that any improvements to campus are not solely focused on the heart of campus but provide more support and integration for students who study Medicine, Veterinary Science and programmes in the Business School. 
• Maintaining a small campus. There was a focus on retaining the feeling of a small, walkable campus with lots of open space. Students were keen that there should not be new buildings just for the sake of it, and would prefer the buildings to be small where possible, to avoid a big city style. Also linked to this, the students noted the importance of natural light in buildings and good views from study spaces to support wellbeing while studying. 
• Safety, lighting, and wayfinding. It was suggested that the campus could be made easier to navigate with improvements to wayfinding and signage on buildings, particularly for accommodation blocks. Additionally, while students said they feel safe on campus, more lighting around all walkways, not just commonly used routes, would be welcomed.  

The feedback provided by the Keele 100 will be used to inform the recommendations from HLM Architects and incorporated into the final Capital Plan that will be considered and approved by University Council in summer 2024.