Abstract:

In the university under review, all classes are appointed a class coordinator from the academic staff of the students’ department. The main role of the Class Coordinator is developing a sense of belonging among the group and communication between students and faculty. This study looks at interventions developed by a first-year class coordination team for a degree in Business.

The group under study come from backgrounds made up predominantly of students with disabilities, immigrants, students who are the first in their house to attend university, and students from socially disadvantaged areas. The university offers these students disability supports, academic success coaching, extra one to one tuition in some subjects, counselling, and careers services. An issue for many of the students is the sense that they do not belong in university. Much work of the coordination team is in developing a sense of belonging among students.

In the last academic year the class coordination team introduced extra interventions that included 2 days of orientation when students arrived at the university. This was to help get them started, know what was expected of them, how they might find their way around the campus, get set up on the IT systems, access supports, and develop a mindfulness approach. Thereafter the coordination team organised, regular in class games, off campus trips, and breakfast sessions.

A survey instrument was used to gather the data and 21 of the 34 students in the group completed the survey. The findings show that very few of the students used the university provided support. No students accessed disability support, 5 students used the one-to-one tuition, 1 student used counselling and careers. Conversely, 6 students made appointments to work individually with the class coordinator. Take up of the extra interventions organized by the department’s coordination team was also much higher than college provided support. 14 students attended the induction days, 15 took part in class games, 15 joined in the icebreakers, 11 students went on an off-campus trip, 3 of those who completed the survey attended breakfast sessions.

The conclusion drawn is that class coordinator arranged activities have a much higher take up than university wide supports making them vital to help engage students and develop a sense of belonging. This is not only shown by the take up of these events but when asked what the advantages of such events were students said things like “I felt welcomed”, “I made some friends”, ”I knew I would be OK in this university”.

Keywords:

Higher Education, Belonging, Class coordinator.