The importance and intensity of student engagement within Universities has never been greater (BIS 2015). Across the sector, students engage at unit, programme or department level; through mechanisms such as staff student liaison committees, internal student surveys and external metrics such as the National Student Survey (NSS) (Canning 2017). Higher up the University though, student voices become harder to discern. Their contribution becomes filtered through layers of academic management or reduced to quantitative measures of satisfaction. Worst case, students can be unintentionally or deliberately silenced by the unequal power relations between them and senior staff (Robinson and Taylor, 2007).
How then can institutions be confident that they are hearing students accurately and responding to their concerns in a timely and effective manner? This case study from Manchester Metropolitan University, presented at RAISE conference 2019 in Newcastle, presents an institution wide framework for engaging students and listening to the student voice. We call it our Conversation. Continue reading Engaging with the executive: embedding student engagement throughout the university hierarchy: RAISE Conference Sept 2019