Valuing Mature Student Voices
I always describe my job to people as ‘I do all the fun stuff’ but being a Student Experience Officer in the Lifelong Learning Centre (LLC) at the University of Leeds is actually so much more than that.
The Lifelong Learning Centre (LLC) at the University of Leeds
Firstly, it would help to explain what we do in the LLC as we have a dual role as both an interdisciplinary teaching school and a service to support mature undergraduate (UG) students wherever they’re studying in the University. We have around 500 students for whom we are their parent school and around 1500 mature UG students who are studying in other schools but can access our support offer. As Student Experience Officer, I run multiple interventions and activities throughout the academic year for all of these students. These include: overseeing student representation and student voice in the centre, running family and friends events, sending out tailored newsletters, running campus tours and just generally being a smiley, friendly and helpful person when things get a bit overwhelming.
I’ve been in my role since 2020 having joined the LLC after serving two years as an elected student officer at Leeds University Union (LUU). Student Voice is something I’ve been very passionate about since I first came to the University of Leeds to study in 2013 and this passion only grew as I got more involved and continued to see the impact I could have and that I could empower other students to have. I knew coming into my role at the LLC that engagement with the students’ union and other student voice opportunities was a challenge. Not least due to the barriers that mature and widening participation students in-particular face at University. I’ve made it my mission to change this and make sure our students are heard!
As student-facing staff in the LLC, we were frequently hearing the same challenges coming up from mature UG students however, sharing this anecdotal feedback just didn’t seem to be making the difference we wanted it to. And this is where the idea for the Mature Student Advisory Board (MSAB) was born…
The Mature Student Advisory Board (MSAB)
In discussion with colleagues within the LLC and the wider University, Laura Conroy (Senior Faculty Student Success Officer), Paul Devlin (Student Support Officer) and myself (Lauren Huxley, Student Experience Officer) created the MSAB in October 2021. We agreed a purpose of serving the diversity of the mature student community and bringing their voices and experiences to the heart of the LLC and the University more widely. The collective aim of the board is for the members’ shared expertise and personal experiences to inform and direct the development of our service offer, other services across the University, and to maximise engagement with our Centre amongst the mature student community.
We opened applications up to all mature undergraduate students at the University with an aim to recruit from each faculty and ensure representation from across a range of different experiences and protected characteristics. We received a whopping 56 applications for the 15 paid positions on the board and were able to recruit students from every faculty in our first year. The applications were of an incredible standard and, reading through them, we felt that the need for this space became even clearer. Each year we have recruited, we have been overwhelmed with the number of applications and the quality, it’s been wonderful to have such a high level of interest in joining the board!
In the application form we asked students to speak to their own experiences at Leeds as a mature student and what impact they would like to have through being part of the MSAB. Our application form also encouraged students to frame this in a solution focused way, being clear that this is what we would expect of members during meetings. We of course encourage critique and honest sharing of negative experiences during meetings but have managed to create a culture in the group that is genuinely respectful and centres around positive change.
As part of the application process, we also asked about students’ protected characteristics as well as whether there were any other aspects to their identity they felt influenced their experiences both as a student and in their day-to-day lives. We were explicit about the fact that we wanted the board members to represent the diversity and intersectionality of the mature student community at the University of Leeds and this has brought a real richness to our discussions and made space for us all to bring our authentic selves to the conversations.
From the beginning we have also placed great importance on fostering community. To achieve this we take time during every meeting to check-in with one another, have created an MS Teams space for members and staff to interact between meetings, invited members to celebration events to thank them for their contributions and supported members to get involved in other opportunities at the University. I have loved getting to know the members and I don’t think I can over-state how much value comes from building trust and making time for the ‘fluffy’ conversations — particularly for under-represented groups. It helps us all to feel that we matter.
Positioning the MSAB in the Wider University Context
There’s been an abundance of interest in the board since its inception, with members feeding directly into the University’s Access and Participation Plan and high-profile guests such as the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Student Education and the University’s Librarian joining us to hear about mature students’ experiences. We have also had many teams across the University and LUU join meetings to gather feedback on projects from events to strategic plans giving an opportunity to ensure that mature students’ voices are considered in plans at all levels. Students and members are also encouraged to raise agenda items which have led to some of our most notable achievements as a board such as the Mature Student Skills Resource and Middle Ground Network. Both of these projects continue to have involvement from board members and they have been vital to the development of multiple projects — we make sure that we also pay students for any additional work between meetings to remove that barrier to participation. We didn’t want to set up an advisory board where we just ask for feedback about our work or take members ideas and develop them ourselves, we believe co-creation is key to the success of the MSAB, creating further opportunities for students and valuing their contributions at every stage.
“The true partnership work which is happening across the university due to this incredible group of mature students coming together to improve outcomes and get our voices heard!” — MSAB member
Getting It Right: Closing the Feedback Loop
I don’t want to come across like all of this is easy to achieve, it’s a lot of time and hard work! Closing the feedback loop is something we all know is vital for engagement with student voice opportunities and is something that takes up a significant chunk of the administrative support needed to ensure the continued success of the MSAB. Not only do we schedule meetings based on students’ availability (anyone who’s tried to do this will know how big of a hurdle this can be in itself), but we put together a formal agenda, keep an ongoing action log, write up minutes as well as creating infographic summaries from each meeting. This has now led to me employing a wonderful Student Representation Intern as the administration of the board was becoming a challenge for us to fit into our busy schedules. The infographic summaries in-particular take a lot of time to create however, have been tremendously appreciated by staff and students as a way to disseminate key points from our meetings (no one loves reading 10 pages of minutes).
In preparation for presenting at the UoL Student Success Conference on how we partnered with students through MSAB (you can view the presentation here), we conducted an exploratory session with board members to understand the barriers they faced, what worked well, and what didn’t. The members gave us some really useful insights:
Payment: Members expressed that being paid for their roles made them feel valued and enabled them to participate, given their already time-constrained schedules and the challenging economic climate.
Ensuring Representation: In recruiting for the board, we emphasised both the quality of applications and the need for a diverse range of voices across different faculties, journeys to HE, and protected characteristics. Board members appreciated this approach, noting that it led to richer discussions.
Power Dynamics: Previously, students felt that staff were the senior authority in student voice spaces. As staff at MSAB, we are there to facilitate rather than lead. Decisions about meeting times, agenda items, and guest speakers are all student-led, shifting the traditional hierarchy and empowering students.
Formality vs. Informality: Board members frequently highlighted the importance of the informal and personable approach we adopted which is something we pride ourselves on in all our interactions. By taking the time to get to know members as individuals before launching into agendas, we created a comfortable environment where students felt able to share their authentic selves.
Community and Belonging: The board has not only been a powerful tool for institutional change but also fostered a sense of community among mature students who might not have otherwise connected. This enhanced their sense of belonging and strengthened the bond among mature students scattered across different faculties.
Closing the Feedback Loop: To ensure that student voice remains meaningful, it’s crucial to report back on actions taken and provide updates on discussions. As mentioned, we do this through infographic summaries that capture key themes and actions from our meetings in an easily digestible format as well as keeping an up to date action log.
These insights have proven critical in understanding and navigating the challenges of facilitating successful student-staff partnerships. We also share a Microsoft form with members at the end of each academic year to evaluate and reflect on the board. For the 2022/23 academic year, 93% of members strongly agreed that their involvement in the MSAB positively impacted mature student experiences, 93% agreed (strongly agree/agree) that they found their time on the board enjoyable and 86% agreed (strongly agree/agree) that their views had been listened to.
“I loved attending the meetings and listening to amazing ideas, the passion to make a change and the freedom to express opinions. [The staff-chairs] are very involved, passionate and supportive about the purpose of the board therefore it was great to be felt valued.” — MSAB member
Something that has come out of the MSAB more recently was an idea to bring together all of the advisory boards and pockets of student voice at the University and LUU. In collaboration with LUU, I organised an Advisory Board Mixer where staff and students from all of these groups could come together to share best practices and challenges. It was a great event and the first time that people involved in this work across the institution had come together. Attendees agreed there was clear overlap in priorities and challenges and that it would be beneficial to grow the connections between our advisory boards, working together to ensure student voice is at the heart of everything the University does.
Celebrating Success and Looking to the Future
I couldn’t write about the MSAB without mentioning that we’ve won a few awards! The above photo is from us winning School Community Partnership of the Year at the Partnership Awards in 2022 which we have also received at a local level as well as awards for Positive Contribution to Student Experience. We’ve also had several members acknowledged with awards for the contributions they’ve made as a member of MSAB and beyond.
The board has given us a clear pathway to understand what’s working and what isn’t, where in the University mature students feel welcome or unwelcome, and how we can spread the word about our specialist services and support for mature UGs so they can make the most of it. It is without a doubt one of the highlights of my job and I can’t wait to see what we achieve next!
Lauren Huxley is a Student Experience Officer at the Lifelong Learning Centre, University of Leeds.
