A Values-Led Approach to Enhancing the Student ExperienceImproving Outcomes for BAME Students in Higher Education Conference 2021

Sheila Gupta: Vice Principal People, Culture and Inclusion

Queen Mary University of London

Wednesday 30th June 2021

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Our Vision, Mission and ValuesThrough the People, Culture and Inclusion Enabling Plan (PCI EP), QMUL ’Our Values in Action' Framework sets clear expectations about what being a good Queen Mary citizen means in terms of values and behaviours.

Our Vision ‘is to open the doors of opportunity.’

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Engaging Council, the Senior Executive Team and Wider University Community

1. Actions build trust

2. Data provides transparency and helps to measure progress

3. Initiating processes and support

4. Discussions at Senior Executive level and Council

5. Confirming positions and activating interest

6. Implementing the People, Culture & inclusion Enabling Plan university-wide

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Governance and Decision-Making: The Staff and Student Voice

I am Chair of EDISG

Most senior EDI Committee within QMUL

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Steering Group

Extended Membership to be more diverse

First Action once in my VP role

Established the Race Equality Action Group

Supports Race Equality Charter

Race Equality Action Group

Greater diversity on EDISG has contributed to creating trust and confidence

Change means contributions

Our students play a vital role in shaping and delivering initiatives that support their own educational journey and academic success.

Student voice

For student engagement to be meaningful, we ensure the student voice informs every aspect of the student journey

Aspiration fulfilment

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Race Equality Action Group (REAG)

1. Using our Values to promote race equality through REAG: representation from BAME students and staff from across the University to shape, inform and oversee our work

2. Responsibility to:

a) Provide oversight of how we promote race equality

b) Capture and include the staff and student voice and lived experiences

3. REAG and the Action Plan are underpinned by the key

principles of Race Equality Chapter (REC)

4. An intersectional approach: ‘diverse’ rather than ‘BAME’

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Initiatives to Embed our Values Across our Staff and Student CommunitiesHaving values is one thing, but getting people to understand how to apply these in their day to day life is another.

We have a shared belief with our SU in the importance of positive collegial behaviour across Queen Mary by our staff and students. We are aligning two key initiatives that are designed to embed Queen Mary’s values across all that we do.

The QMUL ’Our Values in Action' Framework sets clear expectations about what being a good Queen Mary citizen means in terms of values and behaviours. To make these values relevant in real life, we are embedding them across the employee life cycle.

So far, we have embedded our values into our appraisal; new academic career pathways; revised academic promotions process; newly created leadership framework; and reward processes.

Our academic promotions and reward policies explicitly recognise staff for their contribution to good citizenship and inclusion.

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Values and Behaviours in Student Engagement Project

• Improving staff-student engagement to promote a sense of

belonging

• Working with the SU on their own’ Values and Behaviours in

Student Engagement Project

• Ties in with the PCI work on Values in Action to apply these

values to staff-student engagement activities

• Focus this year is on the Academic Advisor role and related

training to bring our values to life in the physical and the on-line

classroom

• At the heart of enhancing the student experience in relation to

belonging and being supported - in response to the impact of the

pandemic.

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Campaign

SU and Professional Services

staff co-created and launched

the Humans of QM Campaign

Initiative

Response to incidents of

inappropriate student conduct

online

Themes

Identified salient themes of

depersonalisation and

disrespectful conduct

Aim

Prevent these incidents

and improve interpersonal

connections

Overall

Work has been all the

more poignant given our

extreme circumstances

The Humans of Queen Mary Campaign

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Values and Behaviours in Student Engagement Project

Online Communities

Focuses on adopting a co-created and inclusive approach to better support student learning by developing student communities.

This work is based on the idea of ‘Houses’, i.e. small communities in a larger community and includes work on dovetailing Peer-led Team Learning into these communities, embedding the principle of students better supporting their peers in their learning.

Learner/Engagement Analytics

Focuses on how can we best analyse student engagement in relation to student learning:

Identify those students early who need either extra academic support, pastoral care or mental health support. This will also help us to better identify students who are often from more disadvantaged backgrounds, who do not have the confidence to reach out to module organisers and programme directors, and to offer them more targeted and tailored support.

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Promoting an Inclusive Curriculum

Workstream tasks:

• Reviewing literature on the following: inclusive curriculums, inclusive pedagogy, the attainment gap and much more

• Reviewing case studies of efforts to promote inclusive curriculum across higher education

• Gaining student perspectives of the inclusive curriculum’s proposed principles using focus groups and surveys

• Producing case studies of good practices at QMUL

Emediong Jumbo3rd year Global Health

Student Lead for the Global Health Anti-

racism Subcommittee

My understanding of what an inclusive curriculum aims to do:

The learning environment

is accessible and tailored

to all students

AccessibleDiverse teaching content

and practices. Students

need to see themselves

reflected.

Diversify Empower

Students becoming

active participant in

knowledge production

Participatory

learning Students becoming empowered

through the learning environment,

where critical reflection and

consciously takes place

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Promoting an Inclusive Curriculum Continued My Project FocusesEmma Bowker

3rd year History and Politics

“As a joint honours student I have experienced first hand the inconsistencies in assessment and feedback between academics and the schools within the university.”

“An education strategy that is informed by student experiences allows students to develop a greater understanding of what is required for assessments and will allow staff to create an environment which gives students the most opportunities to thrive.”

Assessment and feedback

Assessment Design and Modes of Feedback

My work on the project will focus on three main aspects:

1:

2:

3:

Bringing current student experiences to the education strategy.

Gathering qualitative and quantitative data through survey's and interviews, and analysing the data to inform the assessment and feedback strategy.

Focused,streamlined,

and aligned

progresses the student learning

experience.

Generate feedback

that is supportive of students to enable them to

realise their academic potential

Workwith students

to enhance thelearner journey

Use student feedback to

evolve assessment

and feedback practices

assessment andfeedback which

Completing desk based research to make recommendations to be included in the workstream tasks.

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Promoting an Inclusive Curriculum Continued

Assisting with student focus groups on graduate attributes to ensure that the student voice is represented

Assisting with the planning and communication of the pilot scheme

Researching the surrounding literature to gain an understanding of the best practice for embedding graduate attributes within courses

Producing recommendations as to how academics can embed citizenship and sustainability graduate attributes into their programmes

Citizenship and

sustainability Literature

Student focus groups

Pilot scheme

My role as a student intern:

I am delighted to be able to be involved in this workstream, providing support to Queen Mary in refreshing

its graduate attributes. At Queen Mary, the student opinion is always welcome and none more so than in

this project where I feel my student voice is valued and appreciated.

Kieran Reidy

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Promoting a Culture of Dignity and Respect and Addressing Harassment and Discrimination

• We recognise that an inclusive and supportive culture and environment are key to ensuring a positive student experience.

• We are therefore applying our values to our policies and processes on harassment and discrimination to foster community trust and confidence.

• Our work in this area is intersectional in focus based on data and evidence.

• Some examples of initiatives that we have in train are:

➢ Preventing and Addressing Incidents of Racial Harassment

➢ Engaging with students and policy development

➢ Training to address intersectional issues

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Wellbeing and Mental Health

• ‘Diversity Speaks’

• Offer Black, Asian and ethnically diverse students within Humanities and Social Sciences students an opportunity to take part

• We are keen for all students to succeed, feel valued and supported while they study at QMUL. These group sessions aim to:

- Improve the experience of ethnic diverse students at university

- Begin to tackle wider issues of anxiety and promote positive emotional well-being

- Share ideas and experiences to find better ways to manage, whilst building confidence

- Identify potential barriers to their advancement in their studies

• We fund external counsellors from specific BAME backgrounds

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EDI Training

Extensive programme of race equality training including:

• Introducing Inclusion

• Unconscious Bias

• Targetted EDI training for those in decision-making roles and specialised workshops

• Active Bystander training

• Talking confidently about race

• Coaching, mentoring, Action Learning Sets to support diverse leaders

• Through Queen Mary Academy a wide range of academic development and researcher development provision to enhance career development and progression opportunities at all career stages.

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Improving the Talent Pipeline: increasing access and participation for BAME students in postgraduate research studyFeedback from our students and alumni indicates that anxiety over the PGR application process is a real barrier for many:

• We will be running three events with participants from academia and industry to support students navigate the PGR application process and will be open to other London universities to be of most value

• Skills enhancement programme for research interns: we run funded internships for BAME students to give them ‘hands-on’ experience of research projects. With support from IBM, we offer a skills enrichment programme to help interns develop their confidence and professional skills to apply for PGR opportunities.

• IBM colleagues also provide mentoring and career modelling for BAME students, to show them the range of career opportunities that are accessible to them.

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Inclusive Leadership1. Inclusive Leadership is essential to delivering the values-based

culture espoused in the 2030 Strategy.

2. This concept of the inclusive leader is embedded in our newly developed leadership framework that defines the behaviours and competencies expected of leaders at the University.

3. It is an important attribute for all leaders if they are to foster an inclusive environment in which they are able to optimise a diverse talent pool of students and staff.

4. Our students tell us that they do not see people like them in our staff community, particularly at senior levels.

5. Like most universities, women and PoC are underrepresented at middle and senior levels of University leadership.

6. For us, having a fair and transparent succession planning route through this model is key to creating a pipeline of future leaders, so that we enhance diversity at all levels of the University’s leadership and decision-making structures.

Inclusive Leadership

Commitment

Courage

Cognizance of bias

Curiosity

Culturally Intelligent

Collaborative

*Deloitte University Press 2016. The six signature traits of inclusive leadership: Thriving in a diverse new world

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Engaging our Alumni

Zahra Arjomand Nia BSc Pharmaceutical

Chemistry 2019 Technology

Consultant for Capgemini and social

media extraordinaire

Dr Reena WadiaDentistry, 2011

Specialist Periodontist.

Samerah SaeedBSc Biochemistry, 2008 & Medicine,

2013General Surgery Registrar, University

Hospitals Birmingham

Jasneet TaakPhysics BSc, 2019

Co-founder of Accelerate, educating

BAME students who are pursuing STEM

based degrees

Dr Karen AkinsanyaBSc Biochemistry, 1989

Executive Vice President, Chief Biomedical

Scientist and Head of Discovery R&D at

Schrödinger

Dr Ibilola AmaoCivil Engineering BEng, 1985

Principle Consultant, Lonadek Global Services;

Board Member, IP Week; Governing Council

Member, Energy Institute and Board Member

New Partnership for Africa’s Development

(NEPAD) Business Group

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Engaging our Alumni

Zeeshan Nazar

BSc Psychology, 2019Commercial Manager in Banking

and Financial Services for BT.

Dara Nasr

Law LLB, 1996Managing Director at

Twitter UK

Junior Ogunyemi

BSc Economics, 2011CEO & Co-founder of Zipstream

Technology

Aaron Akinyemi

BA English and History, 2007Multimedia Broadcast Journalist

and Producer at BBC

Dr Martin Griffiths CBE DL

Medicine MBBS 1991Consultant Vascular, Endovascular

& Trauma Surgeon at Barts Health

NHS Trust

Navjot Sawhney

Aerospace Engineering MEng, 2013Founder of The Washing Machine Project

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Research project: The influence of the Higher Education built environment on student outcomes

• Part of a national project conducting research into the influence of the Higher Education built environment on student outcomes

• Why are we doing this? Because no cohesive body of evidence exists to demonstrate the link between the quality of the HE built environment and improved student outcomes.

• The initial areas of focus will be the:

➢ Impact of design and use of green spaces and sports facilities on student outcomes

➢ Impact of living arrangements including living on campus on student outcomes

➢ Relationship between design and use of campus spaces and places on social capital and learning culture

Thank you