Working with students as our partners to improve student engagement

Sometimes the term ‘student engagement’ can inadvertently be considered something that is done to or for students and can be focused too much on outcomes (see for example Matthews 2016). Consequently, in a School of Strategy and Leadership within a UK University Business School, we are starting to focus more on the relational process of engaging with our students via various ‘Students as Partners’ type initiatives. We believe that this approach also enables the development of strong relationships with our students built on mutual trust and respect which we see as being particularly important at a time when the student population is becoming ever more diverse (albeit not always particularly well integrated). As such working with our student partners we have over the last 18 months delivered a number of ‘Students as Partners’ activities which will be discussed in this paper. These include the roll out of a student buddy scheme for new first year undergraduate students, a number of student projects where students themselves have undertaken ‘SOTL’ related research with the aim of improving Student Experience, a staff - student forum on improving student engagement on our largest undergraduate course as well as a ‘best practice’ workshop in which staff worked alongside students to consider new ways to work on partnership activities within the School. Additionally, we have recently launched student led practice presentation workshops delivered as part of an assessed module, and will shortly be rolling out of a School wide Student Ideas Scheme. This Paper will provide an overview of each of these initiatives including some practical advice on developing Students as Partners activities from scratch, together with a discussion of some of the main benefits we have seen for both students and staff arising from the roll out of these initiatives. The paper will also discuss the main challenges we have faced and our plans to overcome those challenges.