Since taking on my role as PVC Education at Bath, one of the things that has brought me the most joy at work, is meeting and connecting with members of our community to talk about the key issues in education.
'Let's Talk Education' is my approach to capturing and sharing those conversations with our community.
I'm delighted to have once again 'passed the mic' to one of our Associate Pro Vice-Chancellors' - this time it's the turn of Professor Momna Hejmadi, who in her APVC (Education Equality and Enhancement) role, oversees the implementation of our Access & Participation Plan (APP).
Bath was one of 40 volunteers that submitted an APP last year following a new set of regulation and guidance, and in this video, Momna chats with Stephanie Gan, Campus Events Manager, and Abraham Bayo, an alumnus of our Computer Science Department and Gold Scholarship Programme, to hear all about our expanding work in this area, and how, as a community, we can best lend our support.
The video is particularly timely, as a number of our Outreach Programmes are currently recruiting prospective students, our new Claverton Scholarship has just launched, and we'll shortly be receiving a visit from the Office for Students (OfS) Director for Fair Access, John Blake - this will be a great opportunity for us to reflect together, and share with him some of the truly inspirational stories of students like Abraham.
Having an approved APP is a condition of registration with the OfS, and allows the University to continue to charge the higher rate fee - our plan sets out how we support a diverse cohort of home undergraduate students into, through and out of Bath.
The APP focuses on Risks to Equality of Opportunity – effectively systemic barriers that limit students from certain backgrounds accessing or succeeding at Bath. The plan is focused (by direction of OfS) on home undergraduate students.
In the video, Momna and Steph discuss the importance of understanding the impact of our access and participation work, both for individual students, the University, and more broadly - this is something we've really increased our emphasis on as part of our 2024-2028 Access and Participation Plan.
The plan, developed through an extensive consultation exercise with both students and staff across the University, has four targets, two of which are focused on access to the University and two are focused on closing degree awarding gaps.
These inform a series of action plans (called Intervention Strategies, a term you'll have heard in the video) that set out how the University will mitigate the risks to equality of opportunity to ensure accessibility to students from all backgrounds.
As Momna highlights in the video, this is an area of work we need our whole community behind - staff can find out more about ways to get involved here, including the Bath Outreach Network, a community of practice for staff and PhD students who are interested in outreach, the School Governors Network, and a Widening Participation Research Network.
Find out about ways to get involved here.
Find out about our Scholarships and Bursaries here.
Find out about our Outreach activities here.