The student–staff partnership movement: striving for inclusion as we push sectorial change

ABSTRACT

A growing number of practitioners are re-envisioning higher education through student–staff partnership. Such a culture shift toward partnership can only be achieved through collaborative efforts among academic developers, other faculty/staff, and students. Using evidence from literature and my own reflections, I map the ways this partnership movement is unfolding across contexts. In doing so, I hope to provide a sense of camaraderie for practitioners in outlining how individual practices contribute to sectorial change, to question how we could be more inclusive in this movement, and to provide suggestions for expanding the movement in the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Educational change
• inclusivity
• sense of belonging
• student-staff partnership
• students as partners

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Dan Bishop, Cathy Bovill, and Duncan Cross for providing constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lucy Mercer-Mapstone

Lucy Mercer-Mapstone is a Lecturer in Higher Education Learning Design, University of Technology Sydney. This manuscript was prepared while she was an Endeavour Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.