Liberate Teaching & Learning

The ‘Queering University’ project supports staff and students at Warwick to develop, implement and sustain queer pedagogies and perspectives. It encourages teaching & learning and pastoral practices that are inclusive of trans and LGBTQUA+ people, and provide greater understanding in the classroom and wider university settings.

Ultimately, the project hopes to embed & centre queer perspectives, with the goal of understanding and improving student experience and dismantling barriers that hinder community/belonging, attainment, continuation/completion, and academic progression (including from undergraduate to postgraduate study).

It works explicitly in the intersections with other axes of oppression, including race, religion, disability, and gender.

In Place:

• An initial collective vision for the project was set following a meeting open to all staff and students at Warwick. (WIHEA)
• Collaborating with the Queer & Trans Pedagogies Learning Circle to deliver the Queering University project. (WIHEA)

We're fighting for a decolonised curriculum and anti-racist pedagogy at Warwick, tackling poor student experiences for students of colour as well as the Black attainment gap.

In Progress:

• Growing and supporting the Warwick Decolonise Programme and its advocates, to strengthen efforts to decolonise the curriculum at Warwick.
• Engaging with the Anti-Racist Pedagogy and Process in HE learning circle led by Dr Meleisa Ono-George and Dr Anil Awesti.

In Place:

• Launched the Warwick Decolonise Programme with the aim of lobbying the university for a curriculum that reflects the diversity of the student body and promotes critical thinking.
• Recruited a team of advocates to work with the SU and their departments to decolonise the curriculum.
• Education Officer, Larissa Kennedy, sat on a panel alongside Stuart Croft (Vice-Chancellor), Dr Meleisa Ono George (Director of Student Experience, History), and Amatey Doku (VP Higher Education, NUS), discussing the Black student experience and social mobility.

Warwick Enable and the SU's Disabled Students' Officer organised a series of events titled 'What Your Disabled Students Want You To Know', aiming to support staff understanding and practice in relation to accessibility for disabled students in the academic context.

You can watch this recording of an event in the series.

The Liberate my Module reporting tool allows students to report issues on a module-by-module basis.

Reports are shared with course reps within the relevant department(s), to be raised at their Student-Staff Liaison Committee (SSLC) meetings.

Reports also inform our wider work on liberating the curriculum.