Supporting underrepresented students in Higher Education: Student Success Series (online)

Focusing on supporting and/or working with underrepresented students in Higher Education (HE), the Student Success Staff Speaker series will run between October to March on a bi-monthly basis. This will feature Higher Education practitioners to help raise awareness of issues that students face within HE as well as helping to build an understanding of how to best support these students in our day to day work. 

For any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the Student Success team at smss.studentsuccess@ucl.ac.uk.

Wednesday 9 October (2-3.15pm)

Join us for our event on the 9 October 2024 at 2-3.15pm, where we will be joined by:

Dr. Gurnam Singh, Associate Honorary Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, is a highly respected activist researcher, writer, educator and broadcast journalist who is dedicated to exposing and challenging systems of power, privilege, and violence that perpetuate human suffering and inequality. 

Gurnam Singh's contributions to pedagogy and higher education have earned him numerous accolades throughout his career. In 2009, he was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship from the UK Higher Education Academy, a prestigious annual prize given to the top 50 academics in all UK universities. And in 2018 Dr Singh was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA). He has published numerous research reports, conference papers, blogs, and newspaper articles on a wide range of issues related to social justice and anti-racism in health, social care, and education.

Title: Race Equity, Higher Education and Artificial Intelligence: Challenges and Possibilities

Summary:  The widening of participation in higher education has led to the development of new, creative, and inclusive pedagogies. However, this expansion has also revealed deep-rooted inequities affecting both faculty and students from non-traditional backgrounds. These inequities have prompted the implementation of institutional and sector-wide strategies to address issues such as disparities in degree awarding, the underrepresentation of global majority faculty—particularly in senior positions—and the ongoing efforts to decolonize the curriculum.

The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT and Bard, has introduced new dimensions to these discussions, raising questions about how these technologies may influence the pursuit of race equity in higher education. By reflecting on the historical relationship between science, technology and the development of racist ideologies and practices, we will explore both the potential opportunities and the significant risks that AI presents in the ongoing struggle for racial equality.

You can sign up here.

Please sign up if you are unable to attend but would like access to the recording.

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Wednesday 20 November (2-3pm)

Join us for our event on the 20 November 2024 at 2-3pm, where we will be joined by:

We will be joined by:

Britain’s first Professor of Social Mobility, Lee Elliot-Major OBE.

Title: Developing an equity approach to social mobility - How can universities level up the education playing field?

In this talk Lee will outline what more universities can do to improve prospects for students from under-resourced backgrounds amid increasing material and cultural divides in society.

Social mobility is both a personal and professional passion for Lee. Having lived independently from the age of 15, he became the first in his family to go to university. He now advises education, corporate and government leaders across the world on how to enable children and people from all socio-economic backgrounds to succeed in life.

Lee previously served as the Chief Executive of the Sutton Trust and was a founding trustee of the Education Endowment Foundation. He played a key role in developing its toolkit of evidence-informed best practices, widely utilised by teachers globally.

An accomplished writer and author, Lee regularly contributes to international and national newspapers and has published several books, including his latest, Equity in Education. His popular 2019 TEDx argues for ‘levelling the playing field of life’. More of Lee’s work can be found below:

Confronting higher education’s class divide

Fixing a broken tongue – Why is the language we use in education important?

Levelling the playing field of learning

Warning over unconscious bias against working-class pupils in English schools

You can sign up here.

Please sign up and accept the meeting request if you are unable to attend but would like access to the recording via Teams.

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Wednesday 22 January (2-3pm)

Join us for our next session of the 2024/2025 Student Success Staff Speaker Series on the 22^nd January 2025 at 2-3pm with a spotlight on Care Experienced and Estranged Students.

We will be joined by:

Safiyyah Hanif from the Unite Foundation and Hanan Hauari from the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education.

The Unite Foundation is a charity that supports estranged and care experienced students with a rent-free #HomeAtUniversity through a nationwide accommodation scholarship. The scholarship covers accommodation and bills for up to 3 years at university. That includes all through the holidays too, so students don’t have to wonder where to go during Christmas or summer. Safiyyah will be talking about the Unite Foundation scholarship, guarantors, student community and what they know has the most positive impact on care experienced and estranged students at University.

Hanan Hauari is an Academic Lecturer in Social Science Research. Over the past 16 years, her research has focused on key policy issues in children, young people and families, specifically care experienced young people and foster families. Hanan led on UCL’s report on ‘Getting It Right for Care Experienced Students in Higher Education’ which highlighted the key themes for Care Experienced Students around informed choice, continuity of support, flexibility and belonging.

You can sign up here.

Please sign up if you are unable to attend but would like access to the recording via Teams.

We look forward to seeing you there and do share with colleagues who may be interested.