LCC Student Changemakers
An introduction to the LCC Student Changemakers, a staff – student collaboration initiative.
As an academic community, we are more aware now than ever of the persistent racial inequalities in the higher education sector. The latest sector research says that work to address this needs to be in partnership with students and with sufficient focus on race as a stand-alone issue (NUS & Universities UK, 2019). LCC has been following this recommendation with Liberate the Curriculum, and this year takes staff-student collaboration to the next level.
The new LCC Student Changemakers initiative creates the opportunity for students to play a sustained partnership role in curriculum and pedagogic development through the lenses of liberation and decolonisation. A total of nine Changemakers are being recruited for a 2020-2021 pilot (seven so far), offering one to each programme area for 4 hours every Wednesday.
Changemakers are currently completing an initial online training programme to gain:
- Understanding of institutional processes around curriculum and pedagogic development, such as course reapproval and monitoring, unit feedback and modifications, course performance indicators and enhancement initiatives such as the UAL Academic Enhancement Model.
- Capabilities in working with programme/course teams, promoting collaboration between course teams, students, librarians, academic support, language development etc. and an understanding of where their role sits in relation to Course Reps, Peer Mentors etc.
- Confidence in being agents of change and facilitators of liberation and decolonisation, including how to participate and facilitate discussions and other work to address issues related to race, whiteness, the legacy of colonialism etc.
From mid-May they will be working closely with staff in their programme to identify key opportunities for facilitating decolonisation within undergraduate curricula. For more information please contact me, the project manager on: l.panesar@lcc.arts.ac.uk