Learning From the Pandemic: The Impacts of Moving Student-Staff Partnerships Online

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.1774

Keywords:

student-staff partnership, online engagement, student success

Abstract

While numerous studies on the impacts of COVID-19 on university learning and teaching are now emerging, there has been less critical attention focused on the impact of the shift to online engagement on student-staff partnership (SSP) practices. This article analyses the experiences and perceptions of students and staff from an Australian university as they shifted their partnership practices online during the pandemic. It provides valuable insights into the specific positive and negative impacts of online SSP for students and staff, foregrounding both groups’ perceptions of the accessibility and communication aspects of online SSP. The study’s findings lead to the recommendation of a blended approach and will be of use as SSP programs recalibrate for a post-COVID context.

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Author Biographies

Madeleine-Marie Judd, The University of Queensland

Madelaine-Marie is currently the Service Improvement Manager of Careers at The University of Queensland. Prior to this role, Madelaine-Marie co-led the design and implementation of the Student-Staff Partnership Program at UQ from its beginning in 2018 until 2021. Madelaine-Marie is also a doctoral candidate at Western Sydney University in which her research focuses on the policy and practice divide in universities specifically around culture and graduate attributes.

Franciele Spinelli, The University of Queensland

Franciele is currently a Casual Academic and an e-Learning officer at The University of Queensland. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Languages and Education from Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (Brazil) and a MA in Applied Linguistics and TESOL from The University of Queensland. Originally from Brazil, she has a background in language teaching, education and research. She is a strong advocate of the Student as Partners (SaP) ethos, who has been actively engaged in the Student-staff Partnership program at UQ since 2018. Her research interests include second language acquisition, peer interaction in classroom-based research, blended language learning pedagogies, bilingualism, and student-staff partnerships at higher education.

Brooke Szucs, The University of Queensland

Brooke Szucs is a student of cultures and languages (Honours) at the University of Queensland with a keen interest in Student Representation and Partnerships, especially as it relates to diversity and the impact of inclusive voices on student outcomes.

Starting as a Student Partner in the University of Queensland’s Student Staff Partnership pilot program in 2017, Brooke Szucs has been increasingly involved with the program as a Partner on various projects and worked as a research assistant within the Student Employability Centre evaluating the impact of the program.

In addition, Brooke Szucs has a passion for improving the student experience through Representation and has served on university School Teaching and Learning committees, Program Boards, Operational committees, and chaired a student run advisory board.

Currently she works as a research assistant in the School of Law, where she works to support research that promotes disabled students and staff success in academia.

Naima Crisp, The University of Queensland

Naima Crisp is currently an Employability Facilitator at The University of Queensland and is responsible for designing and facilitating employability development opportunities for the community. She has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Psychology and a multi-disciplinary background in learning sciences, multimedia, and research. In her staff roles and studies, Naima has sought a variety of opportunities to engage in student-staff partnerships including co-creating a faculty industry mentoring program, harmonising faculty student representation processes, co-researching the student lifecycle to enhance service offerings, and supporting students and staff to develop their own partnership project ideas.  

Julia Groening, The University of Queensland

Julia Groening holds a PhD in Natural Sciences and joined the Student-Staff Partnerships Team at the University of Queensland in July 2019. In her role as a Student Partners Project Officer, Julia contributes to the administration, promotion and enhancement of the SSP Projects Program at UQ and supports students and staff on their partnership journey. Julia believes that we can all learn from each other, irrespective of our academic titles and achievements and loves to be part of a program that fosters an engaged and inclusive community and empowers students and staff to effect positive change.

Christy Collis, University of Southern Queensland

Professor Christy Collis is Associate Director of the Academic Transformation Portfolio at the University of Southern Queensland. At USQ, Christy is responsible for Academic Development and for the Learning and Teaching Media Production Studio. Christy is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and an elected executive member of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA). Her current research focuses on work-integrated learning for non-traditional students.

Beata Batorowicz, The University of Queensland

Associate Professor Beata Batorowicz is the Associate Head (Research) in the School of Creative Arts at the University of Southern Queensland. Her visual art projects like Dark Rituals (2018-19), Antipods (2015), Tales Within Historical Spaces (2012) have secured key funding including Australia Council for the Arts (2018-19) and Social Sciences and Humanities Research (2015) and Arts Queensland (2011). Batorowicz has published in Biography (2020) Arts and Humanities in Higher Education (2018) and Australian Art Education (2017) and is also a recipient of two USQ Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning (2016, 2018) with the latter focusing on the Student-as-Partners approach.

Dino Willox, The University of Queensland

Dr Dino Willox is Director, Student Employability, at The University of Queensland and a Principal Fellow of AdvanceHE. They are responsible for developing and coordinating the strategic direction, framework, and services that empower students to become game-changing graduates. Working in partnership with internal and external stakeholders, Dino’s work spans professional, academic, and extracurricular spaces, taking a multidimensional strategic approach to embedding employability. Dino is also Chair of the Employability Group and a member of the Student Experience and Global Mobility Groups for Universitas 21 (U21), a global network of research-intensive universities. In a former life, they represented Wales, Great Britain, and Australia as a field hockey umpire in tournaments worldwide.

Anna Richards, The University of Queensland

Anna Richards is the Senior Manager – Learning Partnerships for Student Enrichment and Employability Development at The University of Queensland, and an Associate Fellow of AdvanceHE. Anna works in partnership with staff across the university to embed employability development and work integrated learning within courses and programs, and manages a team that coordinates a range of employability initiatives for students, including the Student Staff Partnership Program. Anna is also the co-author and course director for the Massive Open Online Course, EMPLOY101x.

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Published

2021-11-02

How to Cite

Judd, M.-M., Spinelli, F., Szucs, B., Crisp, N., Groening, J., Collis, C., … Richards, A. (2021). Learning From the Pandemic: The Impacts of Moving Student-Staff Partnerships Online . Student Success, 12(3), 73–83. https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.1774

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 3 (2021): Special Issue: Student Success in a Global Pandemic

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2021 Madeleine-Marie Judd, Franciele Spinelli, Brooke Szucs, Naima Crisp, Julia Groening, Christy Collis, Beata Batorowicz, Dino Willox, Anna Richards

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International Licence (CC BY 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.