Elective session- When you join us, we will change: community, communication and belonging
A student's need to belong at University begins long before the rhythm of the semester settles. Universities must put tangible and empathetic effort into initial conversations they have with their incoming students, carefully considering representation, voice and inclusivity to ensure that the process of becoming part of the community is effectively launched. This session will guide participants through activities drawn from Adrienne Maree Brown's facilitation frameworks and asks for reflections on questions of representation, inclusion and student voice. It will also demonstrate the content and approach of the pre-arrival resource from the University of Manchester, which has seen over 10,000 users interact with its content more than 55,000 times since launch and aligns with further activities in the traditional welcome and induction period.
Participants in the session will walk away with the framework for similar communications from their context, an understanding of ways the development team negotiated disparate and sometimes conflicting stakeholder demands and an overview of the evaluation and metrics around such a resource.