Past Event: Belonging & Student Engagement Across HE

Past Event: Belonging & Student Engagement Across Higher Education

This was an open online event for students and staff interested in hearing from experts on belonging and student engagement from across the UK higher education sector.

Event Overview:

This event opened with a panel discussion so attendees had an opportunity to hear from each of the panellist on their area of expertise and perspective they bring. Following the panel discussion we went into panellist-facilitated discussion groups so attendees had an opportunity to ask questions, share about their interests and work in the area and make connections.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with Inca (Inca.O.Hide-Wright@warwick.ac.uk) or Sarah (Sarah.J.R.Bennett@warwick.ac.uk).

Professor Kelly Edmunds

Kelly Edmunds is Professor of Biology Education and Student Experience at the University of East Anglia.

She works across both undergraduate and postgraduate taught levels with her work within the area of belonging being centred around understanding the needs of student cohorts and using this to inform tailored support during their transition into university. Kelly helps organise the annual Student Belonging Conference (4^thyear in 2026!), which has led to Kelly establishing a Community of Practice focused on Student Belonging, which has >500 members from across multiple continents. Kelly has made multiple published contributions within the area of student experience, including co-editing the 2025 book Student Belonging in Action. Kelly is a first generation academic and holds an NTF, CATE, SFHEA and is a Fellow of the European First Year Experience Network.

Dr David Gilani

David works at Middlesex University as a staff governor and their Head of Access and Participation, leading on their interventions, research and reporting to ensure equitable student success.

Having started his career as a students’ union officer, he is a passionate proponent of the student voice and in 2012 he founded the Student Publication Association, which supports student journalists across the UK and Ireland. He believes strongly in universities working together to support student engagement efforts, and so is a former co-chair of the CASE Student Communications conference and lead for AHEP’s Student Experience and Engagement Network. In 2024 he received his PhD from the University of York on the topic of student belonging and regularly speaks and publishes on topics related to student engagement, belonging, wellbeing and success. He is the co-editor of the 2025 book Student Belonging in Action: Practical Case Studies to Foster a Sense of Belonging Across the Higher Education Student Journey, co-lead of the UK-wide Belonging Research Methodologies Group, and co-organiser of a special issue on dynamic sense of belonging in the Studies in Higher Education journal (expected live April 2026).

Professor Ed Venn

Ed is an multi-award winning educator who has specialities in using technology to enhance student education and the development of international collaborative learning programmes.

Ed's interest in enhancing student education spans his entire professional career. In 2007 Ed was awarded a cross-institutional teaching award at Lancaster University for my use of virtual learning environments in teaching and in 2014 received a University Student Education Fellowship award at the University of Leeds for my work in technology-mediated active learning. My leadership in student education and advocacy for technologically enhanced learning resulted in the award of Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK) in 2018. Most recently, my technological adventures have led to the establishment of a COIL (collaborative online international learning) project between some of my undergraduates at Leeds and postgraduates at Indiana University, USA.

This practice is combined with pedagogic research. I have written about student engagement with videos for flipped learning in music analysis, as well as led an International Collaborative Writing Group exploring student engagement with online resources. In 2021–23 I was partially seconded to the Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence (LITE) to research studentsense of belonging and interactive pedagogiesLink opens in a new window; during this time I also chaired the 2023 RAISE annual conference – on student belonging - held at the University of Leeds in September 2023. In 2025, I published a co-edited collection with Miyoung Ahn and Tom Lowe, Student Belonging in Higher EducationLink opens in a new window and began a second LITE fellowship Link opens in a new windowwith my colleagues Karen Burland and Carla Douglas to develop a student-facing tool to measure and support sense of belonging.

In 2023 I was appointed Director of Pedagogical Research in the Arts at the University of Leeds and co-convenor of the Arts and Humanities Special Interest Group for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL); in 2025 I was appointed co-chair of the ISSOTL advocacy committee.

Conor Naughton (SFHEA)

Conor is a Senior Consultant in the Not for Profit Practice at Peridot Partners, where he works with small and medium-sized charities and students’ unions to recruit exceptional leaders and board members.

Alongside his work in executive search, he brings extensive experience in higher education, student engagement and belonging.

Conor’s career has focused on student voice, social mobility, engagement and creating environments where students feel they belong and can thrive. Most recently, he was Education and Student Experience Manager at the University of Nottingham, providing strategic leadership to support faculty education and student experience priorities. Previously, he spent two years as an Educational Developer at Nottingham Trent University, leading academic development initiatives focused on student engagement, transition and inclusive practice.

He began his career as President and Chair of the Board at Nottingham Trent Students’ Union, where he served for two years.

Conor continues to champion student engagement and belonging through his sector work. He is Deputy Chair at Salford Students’ Union and served on the committee of RAISE, the international student engagement network, from 2022–2025. Through this work he has co-authored aStudent Belonging Good Practice Guide, acted as a journal editor for a special issue on student voice, and co-authored the study“Why Are Students Not Attending In-Person Classes Post-COVID-19? An Explorative Study in Student Engagement”, published inSage’sActive Learning in Higher Education.

Debra Whitehead

Belonging Through Micro‑Engagements: Strengthening Connection Across the Year.

As Senior Personal Tutor for the department and a Lead Innovation Scholar for Belonging at the University, Debra has led a year‑long programme of belonging‑focused initiatives.

These initiatives are aimed at creating regular, low‑barrier opportunities for student connection, well‑being, and academic confidence. This work employed a blended model of digital and on‑campus micro‑engagements designed to embed belonging as an everyday experience rather than a standalone intervention.

Digital micro‑engagements were delivered through Microsoft Teams and Moodle, where personal tutors integrated conversation starters, well‑being check‑ins, and peer recognition prompts directly into their communication with tutor groups. These small, intentional touchpoints supported consistent, personalised contact and helped reduce participation barriers for commuter and non‑traditional students who may otherwise feel peripheral to campus life.

Complementing the online strand, a series of short, themed in‑person events created informal spaces for collaboration, creativity, and relationship‑building. Activities includedWellbeing Wednesday,Biscuits & Board games, theBelonging Treasure Hunt—which concluded with a reflective personal tutor meeting—and a fun Halloween escape room. Taken together, these initiatives generated a continuous rhythm of engagement across the year.

This presentation will share the approach, insights from implementation, and emerging impact, demonstrating how micro‑engagements can foster inclusive, supportive learning communities across diverse student cohorts.

Dr Ann Kaegi (SFHEA)

Ann is the Faculty EDI Lead and the Athena Swan Lead for the Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences, and Education at the University of Hull. She previously served as Director of Education and Student Experience and, before that, Director of Learning and Teaching in three successive Schools.

In the latter roles she led the development and delivery of strategies that delivered timely step-changes in student outcomes, satisfaction, and subject rankings.

She attributes these gains to her inveterate discontent with the status quo, and, above all, to involving as many students as early and often as possible in strategic work, centring their priorities and proposed solutions while supporting staff with streamlined processes. Dissatisfied with consultation methods that often exclude the marginalised voices most in need of being heard, she has adopted person-centred, equity-focused design thinking as a core practice and mindset. Committed to developing approaches that model the goal of improving inclusion and valuing diversity, she has refined her approach to co-designing from the margins on successive projects, including a redesign of Student Services and its physical ‘hub’, a wholesale redesign of PGT programmes in Education, and a student-staff initiative to create more (neuro)inclusive campus spaces.