Over the two days of this visit I also discussed the new project that MMU has introduced for First in Family students called The FirstGen Scheme. This is a flagship project that has only commenced in the last two years and adopts a whole of student life cycle approach to supporting FiF students beginning at the… Read More
The Churchill Fellowship began with a visit to Manchester – a city of great tradition and growth having a city scape dotted with building sites and development – not surprisingly Manchester has one of the largest number of cranes (n=64) within a city centre. My two day visit was with Prof Claire Hamshire and colleagues in order to discuss… Read More
Despite interventions, national departure rates from Australian universities remain consistently high at 18% but if we focus only on figures, we fail to adequately address the personal impacts that leaving university has on those who do depart. In fact, we know that these departing students are often the most vulnerable in our society and… Read More
The Conversations on Engaging and Retaining First-in-Family Learners in Higher Education on Friday 25th November at the University of Wollongong was the finale for this OLT Fellowship – and what a great day it was! We began planning the forum in earnest in March and drew on what we’d done the previous year for the… Read More
I was recently invited to participate in the National Roundtable on Students as Partners organised by Kelly Matthews – this was part of Kelly’s Fellowship work and was held at University of Queensland in September. The Students as Partners approach to curriculum development and university engagement is broadly defined by authentic collaboration between staff and students both within… Read More
‘We must not forget that the poorest students in our society are often those studying without the emotional or financial support of their family.’ (New Starts: The challenges of HE without the support of a family network 2015, p.26) The last few weeks have flown past with travel to the UK and Ireland as well… Read More
Did you know that over half of Australian students are first in their families to attend university? And that over a quarter of them consider leaving in their first year? Or, that during the difficult times, students are more likely to turn to family (or their community) for support? If you’d like to: Learn… Read More
“The workshop was great, very useful. Great layout and enjoyed opportunities for questions and discussions.” Workshop attendee While this Fellowship is looking broadly at ways to engage with the family and community of first-in-family learners, a key facet is working closely with two case study sites, namely UOW and UNSW. In both sites,… Read More
The Australian Tertiary Education Manager’s Forum ran a special session on retaining students and invited me to present. My session was exploring ways to support and retain first-in-family students with a particular emphasis on how HE mentoring programs could be designed to focus on this particular cohort. Some of the take-home messages I delivered from my… Read More
“For those of us who work in the support roles or are involved in teaching students, there is a responsibility to not only acknowledge [students’] strengths but also foreground them in how we define and also, assist student cohorts. This then is the challenge as student populations increase in number and diversity, working within… Read More