Integrating student participation and EDI with Board of Studies: towards a community of critical readers

School:  Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Team Members: Benjamin Bateman, Chris Perkins, Katherine Inglis, Iona Macintyre, Jackie Barnhart

Abstract

Over the past few years LLC has made progress in embedding Equality, Diversity and Inclusion [EDI] considerations into our Board of Studies (BoS), mainly through the contributions of our EDI and Quality Directors, who both sit on the board. These considerations include but are not limited to race, gender, sexuality, disability, and carer status. This input has been invaluable in surfacing issues that may previously have passed unnoticed, but our experience teaches us that we as academics might still be missing some of the diverse needs and concerns of our student body. And while there is student representation on the board, there is simply too much material for a single representative to address.

In response to this challenge, we propose recruiting and training a small number of student EDI ‘critical readers’, who will be tasked with looking at, discussing, and offering suggestions on course and programme proposals. Through close cooperation with this group, we will gain insight into how students view our course ratification processes and will be able to experiment with methods of folding student feedback into our BoS. The project will also help us understand better what extra EDI specific information we should solicit from colleagues when proposing new activities, and how best to codify those expectations. Finally, we hope the outcome of this project will help make the case for establishing a similar system in LLC on a more permanent basis.