Beyond Access: Developing better supports for students in higher education

The University Accord has significantly shifted the goalposts when it comes to how universities report on student supports. The changes mandated in Higher Education Provider Amendment (Support for Students Policy) Guidelines 2023 came into effect on 1st April 2024, with a mandate for universities to report on “how the provider determined what support services should be available for their student cohort, consistent with the provider’s ‘support for students’ policy, and the efficacy of those support services”. Simultaneously, the federal Department of Education has changed the way HEPPP is evaluated and reported in an effort to understand — at a deeper, research-based level — the impact of programming and supports designed for students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.

These policy shifts open an opportunity for universities to respond to calls to address the critiques about student supports often carrying deficit-framings and assumptions about what students need (rather than negotiating supports with students). The University Accord provides us with the imperative to rethink how and what support is offered, and how to tailor it to the needs of the students who need help the most. It also prompts universities to think creatively about how to reach students and communities who typically do not seek help before pausing or withdrawing their studies.

Over the last decade, several studies have pointed to gaps in provision in terms of meeting the needs (and negotiating the needs) of students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds, as well as evaluating whether support services are doing what they need to for these cohorts. These gaps are in some part the result of the disconnects between research, policy and practice, and a lack of holistic, whole-of-sector strategy for supporting students once they are enrolled. This policy shift therefore sets out a horizon of possibilities with regard to determining how effective existing student support services are for the needs of these students.

This symposium will bring together colleagues working (research, policy, practice) in the area of access and equity from Australia and the United States to discuss what we know about supporting students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds to transition into, through and out of their studies, and begin to workshop possibilities for developing more responsive and co-designed services and support programs. This issue has grown in importance in the United States in recent years given the reversal of their Affirmative Action policies and well as political debates around ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’. To this end, we will consider questions such as:

• How can we create systems-level changes to foster caring, scaffolded student supports that are not viewed or resourced as auxiliary to teaching and learning?
• How do we ensure that the planning and execution of student support strategies are embedded within the lived experiences of marginalised or under-represented student cohorts?

Presented by POLIS: The Centre for Social Policy and Research, this one-day event will bring together key thinkers from the fields of supporting equity students, equity and higher education policy, and teaching and learning from Australia and the US to consider these issues from a global and national perspective.

Associate Professor Tony Jack (Boston University)

Anthony Abraham Jack received his BA in Women’s and Gender Studies and Religion cum laude from Amherst College and an AM and Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University. He is the Inaugural Faculty Director of the Boston University Newbury Center and Associate Professor of Higher Education Leadership at Boston University Wheelock College of Education and Human Development. Anthony’s research has been featured in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Nation, American Conservative Magazine, The National Review, The Washington Post, Vice, Vox, and NPR, as well as biographical profiles of his experiences as a first-generation college student. His first book, The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students, was awarded the 2020 Mirra Komarovsky Book Award, the 2019 CEP Mildred Garcia Award for Exemplary Scholarship, and the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize and was also named a finalist for the 2019 C. Wright Mills Award and a NPR Book’s Best Book of 2019. His second book project, Class Dismissed: When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price, is due out in August 2024

Professor Sarah O’Shea (Charles Sturt University)

Having spent nearly three decades teaching and researching in the higher education field, Professor Sarah O’Shea is regarded as an expert in educational equity. Currently a Distinguished Professor and Dean at Charles Sturt University, Sarah’s research ($AUD 3.8million+) advances understanding about how under-represented student cohorts enact success within university, manage competing identities and negotiate aspirations for self and others. Sarah has also held numerous university leadership positions, which have directly informed changes across the Australian higher education sector, this work recognised via numerous awards and fellowships.

Professor Andrew Norton (Australian National University)

Andrew Norton is Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy at the Australian National University’s POLIS: Centre for Social Policy & Research and Methods. He was previously the Higher Education Program Director at the Grattan Institute, a public policy think-tank. Mr Norton is the author or co-author of many publications on higher education topics. His Mapping Australian higher education 2023 is an overview of higher education policy and trends. In 2013-14 he was the co-author of a government-commissioned review of the demand driven student funding system. He was on the ministerial reference group for the Universities Accord.

Professor Sally Kift (PFHEA FAAL ALTF GAICD)

Professor Sally Kift is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA), a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law (FAAL), and President of the Australian Learning & Teaching Fellows (ALTF). She has held several university leadership positions, including as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at James Cook University. Sally is a national Teaching Award winner, a national Program Award winner and a national Senior Teaching Fellow on the First Year Experience. In 2010, she was appointed an Australian Discipline Scholar in Law. In 2017, Sally received an Australian University Career Achievement Award for her contribution to Australian higher education. Sally was a member of the Australian Qualifications Framework Review Panel that reported to Government in September 2019. Since 2017, she has been working as an independent higher education consultant.