The ChemEng café – a pilot to enhance student experience through student-staff partnerships

Advanced HE, in their Student Success Framework series, has identified ‘Student Engagement through Partnership’ as one important area to enhance student experience, while at the same time, a review of students’ retention by Austen et al. (2023) found that“Student interactions with academic staff, classroom and campus are evidenced as associated with an intention to persist. Pedagogic strategies of which enable interaction are
seen to validate a sense of being known and valued (belonging)”.

In piloting the ChemEng Café, we hypothesise that by offering a relaxed and safe space for community building, peer-to-peer learning, and co-creative activities, our students may feel closer to their peers, lecturers, and the university, feeling more supported, confident and with better prospects for the future.  Ultimately, we believe that the ChemEng Café will provide the opportunity to build student- staff partnerships to work on future projects focusing on enhancing the curriculum and student experience in targeted areas found in this first pilot.

This session, presented by Dr Ximena Schmidt, will share the preliminary learning of the ChemEng Café, as it is completing its first academic year.

Aims & Objectives