Staff-student partnerships: power and opportunity

Sarah Pittaway

Authors

Sarah Pittaway University of Worcester

Keywords:

partnership, student engagement, widening participation

Abstract

Over recent years, partnership has become a key issue in the Higher Education landscape. The Change Agents’ Network Conference 2018 showcased a host of exciting partnerships and some prompted delegates to consider the underpinning power dynamics behind them. This piece outlines some of these issues and goes further to explore how equitable partnership opportunities are, and ending with a call to action, asks who we might unintentionally be leaving behind.

Author Biography

Sarah Pittaway, University of Worcester

Sarah leads the Academic Services team at The Hive, home to Europe’s first integrated public and university library, Worcestershire’s Archives & Archaeology Service and Worcestershire County Council’s Customer Service Hub. Sarah is an associate member of the HEA and holds a PhD in Medieval Studies, having flirted with an academic career prior to embracing life as a librarian. Her career has encompassed a variety of teaching, subject librarian and e-resources roles, working at the University of Birmingham before moving to Worcester in 2013. Sarah is a member of the UKSG Outreach & Engagement Committee, and is the Evaluation Officer for the Mercian Staff Development Group. She also sits on the editorial board of the International Journal of Birth & Parent Education. Alongside her day job, Sarah writes and presents on such topics as student engagement, partnership working and the changing nature of librarianship. When she’s not being a librarian, Sarah enjoys gardening, cats, yoga, and lindy hop.

References

Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and Archives and Records Association (ARA) (2015). A study of the UK information workforce: mapping the library, archives, records, information management, knowledge management and related professions. Available at: https://archive.cilip.org.uk/research/workforce-mapping (Accessed 22 May 2018)

NUS (2015). A manifesto for partnership. Available at: https://www.nusconnect.org.uk/resources/a-manifesto-for-partnership (Accessed 22 May 2018)

Pittaway, S. (2016). ‘Students as partners in recruitment’, SCONUL Focus, 65, 40-43. Available at: https://www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/10_15.pdf (Accessed 22 May 2018)

Pittaway, S. (2018), ‘Can students contribute to the recruitment of staff? New approaches to partnership working at the University of Worcester’. In: Change Agent Network Conference 2018: Championing Student-Staff Partnerships in an Age of Change, 19-20 April 2018, University of Winchester. Available at: http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/6565/ (Accessed 22 May 2018)

Shah, D. (2018). What do we really mean by “partnership work”? Available at: https://blogs.city.ac.uk/learningatcity/2018/04/26/what-do-we-really-mean-by-partnership-work/#.Wv7ejqQvzIV (Accessed 22 May 2018)

Shotts, J. and R. Taylor-Long, Reflections on CAN 2018. Available at: https://can.jiscinvolve.org/wp/files/2018/04/CAN18-reflection-Shotts-and-Taylor-Long-UoLincoln.pdf (Accessed 22 May 2018)