Interrogating Spaces

In this shorter, edited version of the podcast, we hear from three students about their experience of taking part in Creative Shift’s Women+ of Colour in Leadership (W+CinL) live brief project (2022).

W+CinL is a 10-week project designed to inspire and empower UAL students who identify as female. Giving 15 students an opportunity to develop different aspects of leadership through leadership coaching delivered by Jannett Morgan, Director of JM Learning & Skills, while applying their learnings to an industry live brief. This year we worked with PR agency, Hope&Glory and their client LinkedIn, students designed and presented a PR campaign representing barriers women face in the workplace.

For more about the Women+ in Leadership programme see our webpage here.

Credits / references

Podcast host

Debra Chosen is a highly-experienced communications expert; who has worked across Social Media & Marketing for 8 years including a range of sectors such as fashion and beauty, property and also charity. Carefully crafting brand messages from strategy through to content creation, Debra’s career has orbited around telling stories that engage and provoke human connection. She is currently working as Global Content Manager for Dove at Unilever and hosts Trusting The Process, the podcast that celebrates black women doing big things.

Participants

Davinia Clarke – BA Hons Illustration and Visual Media student
Jade Milton-Baptiste – BA Hons Design Management graduate
Pearl Gerald – BA Hons Graphic and Media Design student

Sound Engineering and Production: Hannah Kemp-Welch

This episode of interrogating spaces brings together the organisers and student and alumni facilitators of the Creative Mindsets initiative that has been running at UAL since 2017.

Creative Mindsets works to improve attainment by developing growth mindsets to address stereotype threat and bias. It has delivered over 150 workshops with both staff and students in the last two years.

The podcast presents a focused discussion of different aspects and occurrences of bias within the UAL learning environment and beyond. The recording gave space for honest feedback and a chance to discuss real-life experiences on the phenomenon of bias at a range of levels, from the personal to the systemic. Through this, the discussion can inform a way forward for a more empathetic teaching practice that incorporates a sense of belonging within the studio environment
Podcast Contributors:

Ernestine Chua
Ernestine is a second year student studying BA Illustration & Visual Media at London College of Communication.

Humiraa Firdaws
Humiraa is a second year student studying BA Illustration & Visual Media at London College of Communication. Instagram: @whatihadinmind

Vikki Hill
Vikki Hill is Educational Developer: Attainment (Identity and Cultural Experience) and is also a Senior Fellow of the HEA. Vikki is part of the Attainment Team and works with staff and students across UAL to develop inclusive pedagogies and practices to address inequitable outcomes for students with particular focus on psycho-social phenomena such as bias, belonging and compassion. Vikki leads the Creative Mindsets initiative.

E. Okobi
E is an educator and interdisciplinary artist who works with performance, sound, video and text. She has devised and performed in social practice art staged at museums such as the British and Brooklyn Museums, and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). She has developed and facilitated educational programming for New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW), and the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. She is also a journalist and writer.

Joel Simpson
Joel Simpson is an artist whose practice involves walking tours of London, focusing on how histories of colonisation shape the design of urban public spaces. He graduated from BA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts in June 2018. In September 2018, Joel started co-delivering Creative Mindsets workshops, before becoming Project Assistant from July - December 2019.
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Many thanks to the technicians and staff within the Sound Design programmes at LCC for helping to make this recording happen.

More information on Creative Mindsets can be found here: https://ualcreativemindsets.myblog.arts.ac.uk/

Creative Mindsets is delivered by:
Vikki Hill, Educational Developer (Attainment), is the main contact for information.
Professor Susan Orr, UAL Dean of Learning, Teaching and Enhancement

Following on from the previous of interrogating spaces that explored concepts of belonging in Higher Education, we move to online learning environments. In the context of Covid-19 and the sharp move to online teaching across the globe, we hear practitioners, academics and students reflect on how we can foster and develop a sense of belonging in digital spaces. We hear about the challenges and affordances of online environments, as well as suggestions as to how we might create a sense of presence and help student feel valued.
For more resources on belonging see UAL's AEM and attainment resources page.
Podcast contributors:

Hansika Jethnani
Hansika Jethnani is a poet and visual artist. She graduated from London College of Communication in 2016 and went onto serve two terms as the Education Officer at UAL Students’ Union between 2016 and 2018 where she worked on a variety of campaigns including decolonising the curriculum, and propelling international student support within the university.

Jess Moody
Jess is a Senior Adviser at Advance HE, exploring diversity and inclusion across the staff and student lifecycles in higher education. She has supported a range of universities with their inclusive learning and teaching, and tackling of structural inequality in access and participation.

Dr Bonnie Stewart
Bonnie Stewart is an educator and social media researcher interested in what digital networks mean for institutions and society. Assistant Professor of Online Pedagogy and Workplace Learning in the University of Windsor’s Faculty of Education, Bonnie was an early MOOC researcher and ethnographer of Twitter, and is currently investigating educators' data literacies.

Dr. Terrell Strayhorn
Terrell Strayhorn is Professor of Urban Education in the Evelyn Reid Syphax School of Education at Virginia Union University, where he also serves as Associate Provost and Director of the SEF Center for the Study of HBCUs. Author of 10 books and 200+ scholarly publications, Strayhorn is an internationally-recognized expert on the social psychological determinants of student success. Influencer in education, business, and contributor to ThriveGlobal, HigherEdJobs, and The Conversation, he can reached on social media @tlstrayhorn

Professor Liz Thomas
Liz Thomas is Professor of Higher Education at Edge Hill University, and an independent higher education researcher and consultant. She has more than twenty years’ experience undertaking and managing research about widening participation, student engagement, belonging, retention and success, and institutional approaches to improving the student experience and student outcomes.

David White
David White is the Head of Digital Learning at the University of the Arts London. He has worked at the intersection of teaching, research and digital for over 20 years. David is best known for the Digital Visitors and Residents idea which provides a framework to understand what motivates online engagement in different forms.

Jennifer Williams-Baffoe
Jennifer is Learning Technologist at Central Saint Martins, where she coordinates the technology enhanced learning for the college. Jennifer has been teaching online for over 6 years with the short courses team in an array of creative disciplines from creative business to Manufacturing. Additionally, Jennifer is the part time Virtual Learning Environment Manager at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and is undertaking an MA with a focus on Digital inductions within academia.
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This episode was produced by:
Liz Bunting
Vikki Hill
Gemma Riggs

This panel discussion on pass/fail assessment in arts higher education took place online during the ‘Belonging through assessment: Pipelines of compassion’ symposium on 21st October 2021. The symposium forms part of the QAA Collaborative Enhancement Project 2021 and is a partnership between University of the Arts London (UAL), Glasgow School of Art and Leeds Arts University (LAU). The discussion between invited speakers: Professor Sam Broadhead (LAU), Dr Neil Currant, (UAL) and Peter Hughes, (LAU) is facilitated by Dr Kate Mori (Academic Engagement Manager, QAA).

The discussion explores the potential of pass/fail as a compassionate approach to assessment and explores the challenges in changing practice and policies from the perspective of staff, students and the wider institution. A fascinating conversation that explores the complexities of feedback and assessment and implications for student belonging.

For more information please contact project lead, Vikki Hill at [email protected] or visit: https://belongingthroughassessment.myblog.arts.ac.uk/

Speaker biographies:

Professor Samantha Broadhead:
Samantha Broadhead is Head of Research at Leeds Arts University. Her research interests include access and widening participation in art and design education and the educational sociology of Basil Bernstein (1924–2000). She serves on the Journal of Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning’s editorial board. Broadhead publishes work on access and widening participation. Broadhead has co-authored with Professor Maggie Gregson (2018) Practical Wisdom and Democratic Education - Phronesis, Art and Non-traditional Students, Macmillan Palgrave. She also has co-authored with Rosemarie Davies and Anthony Hudson (2019) Perspectives on Access: Practice and Research, Emerald Publishing.

Dr. Neil Currant:
Dr. Neil Currant is an Educational Developer and Senior Fellow HEA. Neil supports new lecturers and postgraduate students with their teaching practices and runs the professional recognition programme at UAL.
Peter Hughes:
Peter Hughes is an educational developer. He is Academic Development Manager at Leeds Arts University and is a National Teaching Fellow.
Dr Kate Mori:
Kate has worked in higher education for the past 20 years, starting as a lecturer and then moving in to course management and leading teaching and learning activities. Her work at the QAA focuses on the quality of teaching and learning and also Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).

In this podcast we hear from three students about their experience of taking part in Creative Shift’s Women+ of Colour in Leadership (W+CinL) live brief project (2022).

W+CinL is a 10-week project designed to inspire and empower UAL students who identify as female. Giving 15 students an opportunity to develop different aspects of leadership through leadership coaching delivered by Jannett Morgan, Director of JM Learning & Skills, while applying their learnings to an industry live brief. This year we worked with PR agency, Hope&Glory and their client LinkedIn, students designed and presented a PR campaign representing barriers women face in the workplace.

For more about the Women+ in Leadership programme see our webpage here.

Credits / references

Podcast host

Debra Chosen is a highly-experienced communications expert; who has worked across Social Media & Marketing for 8 years including a range of sectors such as fashion and beauty, property and also charity. Carefully crafting brand messages from strategy through to content creation, Debra’s career has orbited around telling stories that engage and provoke human connection. She is currently working as Global Content Manager for Dove at Unilever and hosts Trusting The Process, the podcast that celebrates black women doing big things.

Participants

Davinia Clarke – BA Hons Illustration and Visual Media student
Jade Milton-Baptiste – BA Hons Design Management graduate
Pearl Gerald – BA Hons Graphic and Media Design student

Sound Engineering and Production: Hannah Kemp-Welch