Susan Smith
The reasons for the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students’ poorer learning experience, the degree attainment gap and their reduced employability are complex and multifactorial (Richardson, 2008 a & b; Allen, 2016; Newbold et al, 2011). This inequality may be compounded in the case of those disproportionately high numbers of BAME students who also commute to the LBU campus (Thomas & Jones, 2017).
This poster outlines findings from a qualitative project at Leeds Beckett University (LBU) focusing on the commuting experience of BAME undergraduates and explores how their articulated needs have been addressed through a range of cultural, infrastructural and curricular interventions generated from ideas from the students themselves.
An interpretive approach was adopted for this mixed methods project focussing on qualitative enquiry (Cresswell, 2007) and action research (Healey et al, 2010) to explore commuter students’ experiences.
The findings from 2 focus groups with 20 self-selecting BAME students are identified in the poster. Many difficulties faced by BAME commuting students are identical to those faced by all commuting students: e.g. stress, impractical timetabling and assessment deadlines.
The impetus to solve these issues must be situated within a broader framework of inclusive academic practice, drawing on a “holistic engagement vision” (Pickford, 2016) of infrastructural support and partnership working between students and staff to build a more inclusive learning culture. Thomas and Jones (2017) showed that commuting BAME students prioritise academic engagement but may be unaware of the wider social and cultural capital that enhances social mobility gained from participating in extra-curricular activities.
Students were invited to offer solutions to issues raised and a series of actions were agreed with the aim of building an inclusive learning culture for all but which aimed to solve the problems the BAME commuting students had raised. This poster lists the actions as discussion points and asks readers whether they are transferable to other universities and specifically if their BAME students’ commuting experiences are similar.
i) The maximising on-campus time; ii) the building of activities which could be undertaken in the working day which develop students’ wider social and cultural capital; iii) a focus on induction and transition and post graduate aspiration at every level; iv) facilitating access to online resources; v) estate measures (more dwell space) which facilitated an all day, on-campus stay; vi) targeted academic advising; and vii) building of an online student support framework accessible off-campus
