Join us for the first joint faculty Inclusive Education Festival
Open to staff and students, this event brings together voices from across the University in a shared, collaborative space. Building on the success of previous faculty-led events, it creates an opportunity to connect work, deepen learning, and drive collective progress.
During the day, you can expect:
An Engaging Keynote
Department Spotlights
Interactive Breakouts
+ much more to be announced!
Programme:
The event features a collaborative programme designed to share practice, explore challenges, and advance inclusive change across the university. Full session blurbs and speakers will be available very soon.
Welcome
Welcome and introduction session led by Professor Beccy Freeman, Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor (Education) and Faculty Education Chairs, Marta Guerriero (Arts), Martyn Parker (SEM) and Karen Simecek (Social Sciences).
Dr Ryan Arthur
This keynote argues for a fundamental shift in higher education policy and practice, moving beyond deficit and accommodation toward a genuine appreciation of what students bring to our institutions. Conventional approaches have largely focused on remedying and accommodating perceived deficiencies. While these efforts have delivered important structural gains, and for many students remain a necessary foundation, they have also reached their limits.
A move toward appreciation recognises that students arrive at university with strengths, unique insights, and forms of agency that formal curricula often overlook. The capacity to navigate adversity, move across different social worlds, and question what others take for granted are not incidental qualities; they are rich intellectual resources. These perspectives enable students to see institutional blind spots and possibilities that others may miss.
When higher education learns to recognise and draw on these contributions, the benefits extend well beyond the students themselves. The central question, then, is not how universities should fix or accommodate students, but how appreciating their presence can transform the academy itself.
Dr Ryan Arthur is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Warwick. He is a P2K Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS), where his work challenges dominant approaches to researching the Black experience in higher education. He critiques a tendency within existing research to centre deficit, often reducing Black students’ experiences to narratives of adversity and overlooking the fullness of their lives. In response, his fellowship focuses on developing a praxis of appreciation, emphasising value, agency, and lived richness. Through this work, he is leading the development of three projects designed to advance this perspective within the sector.
Department Spotlights
Our Department Spotlight Sessions bring together colleagues from across all three faculties to share practice, insights, and lived experience of what it takes to create meaningful change. These sessions offer space to explore what has worked, what hasn’t, and what we are still learning.
Across the spotlight series, staff and student contributors will reflect on key themes including:
Mentoring and coaching programmes
Supporting neurodiverse and disabled students
Embedding inclusive change
Transitions and academic support
Inclusive Assessment
Working with students as partners
These sessions will showcase the depth and diversity of work happening across the institution, while creating opportunities to learn from one another and inspire future practice.
More information and session blurbs will be available very soon.
Breakout Sessions
Our interactive breakout sessions offer space to explore key challenges and approaches in greater depth. They invite attendees to share perspectives, test ideas, and learn collaboratively.
Sessions include:
Engagement: What Works?
Tackling Racial Inequality at Warwick: Curriculum and Assessment Clinic
Using and analysing inclusion data
Understanding our cohort
More information and session blurbs will be available very soon.
Closing session
Our closing session celebrates the work students are leading to make the university more inclusive. Facilitated by a team of Student Inclusion Officers, it shines a light on the ideas and initiatives emerging from across the student community.
This session will also offer the chance to reflect on the day and hear from Pro-Vice Chancellor (Education) Lorenzo Frigerio.
