30/09/2022

Dear Postgraduate and Research students,

As we move into the last few months of this year, we wanted to take the opportunity to update you on developments around PARSA’s future. We are still operating as usual and will continue to offer services and representation until at least June 2023. However, throughout the rest of this year we will be working with the ANU and ANUSA on building a new student association model with restored funding, to take over PARSA’s work halfway through next year. The ANU has committed to ensuring PARSA’s service provision is capable of running uninterrupted for the duration of this process.

The Postgraduate Services Support and Representation Taskforce has been set up to work through the transition phase of this process. No decision on the shape of the future model has been made by the Taskforce as of yet. As part of preliminary work, the Taskforce has been considering the requirements of the postgraduate community and how postgraduates can be effectively represented and catered for in a new student association. During these discussions, PARSA has raised the following three themes as key demands shared by postgraduate and research students for any new model:

1. Postgraduate and research students are provided with separate and protected funding to run postgraduate specific services, activities and advocacy campaigns
2. Postgraduate and research students are guaranteed fair, equitable and meaningful representation, which reflects the size, diversity and importance of the postgraduate and research community
3. Postgraduate and research students have continued access to specialised and well-resourced service provision with minimal impact on existing research-specific support services

PARSA's defunding is an opportunity for undergraduate and postgraduate student representatives to rethink and transform student representation at the ANU. Any future combined association model will be a radically different and exciting new association decided on equal terms, not a subsuming of one organisation into another.

We will continue to advocate for a model which respects the needs and concerns of postgraduate and research community and keep you updated through this transitional period. If you have any questions, concerns or feedback you would like to share, please feel free to contact your PARSA representatives at parsa@anu.edu.au