The Spirit of collegiality in fostering student-staff partnership: A student perspective

Abstract

This essay  explores from a student perspective how a meaningful student-staff partnership can be fostered through the spirit of collegiality which is comprised of respect, trust, and common values. Student-staff partnerships are founded on inherent power imbalance with the teachers basically having more knowledge and experience than students. Accordingly, the term "partnership" to describe a student-staff relationship has been much contested. Nevertheless, studies have proved different approaches to  student-staff partnership could lead to productive results for student learning.  In this context, I explore how the spirit of collegiality embedded in emotions fostered student-staff partnership for me during the Covid-19, which in turn allowed me to gradually see this conceptual framework beyond power relations. By sharing how I personally felt through cultivating trust, respect, and common values with my teachers, I hope to provide implications for how  sincere attitudes with the intention to build a memorable experience from both sides can foster a meaningful life-time partnership.