Creating a sense of belonging.
Community
The goal of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program is to create a network of changemakers, so community is central to the program’s success.
Community builds aspirations, combats isolation, cultivates resilience and creates huge potential for impact in the student and alumni community and across the institution. Phase One of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program has represented community and a sense of belonging at its most tight-knit, and shown what it feels like to have that sense of community fall apart.
Intersections between race and mental health
Learnings
- Mastercard Foundation Scholars over the years have expressed a feeling of ‘otherness’ through the direct experience of racism and microaggressions at the University.
- Criticisms have been particularly strong about the speed of mental health referrals and access.
- A cross-cutting issue is the perceived lack of cultural understanding and representation amongst both the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program and central Student Support Services.
- The Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program adapted to this challenge by encouraging peer-to-peer support and triaging scholars to a range of services.
- Scholars passionate about institutional change sought institutional leadership positions, in the Students' Association, the Sports Union, and BlackEd.
- Scholars led anti-racism work on campus. They petitioned for change while empowering other international students to compete for leadership positions and become change agents within the University.
- Female scholars who face cultural bias at home appear to both benefit and influence others as they advocate for their rights.
- Several international scholars got around 9,000 signatures on a petition to the University on Black Lives Matter sensitising, which is hoped to lead to more change that will benefit the wider racialised student population.
Recommendations
- Diversify staff team and advisors, coaches and mentors connected to the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program to help scholars experience cultural understanding in their interactions
- Provide a range of welfare support, including provision that will offer cultural sensitivities where scholars need it, for example, referrals to counselling services led by African service providers
- Create and resource opportunities for scholars with lived experience to take on institutional leadership roles to bring about system change
- Further learning and recommendations are included in the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program Mid-Term Review Summary:
Online scholar community building
The Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program is unique in its offering to online scholars. It offers financial support, leadership training and opportunities at a postgraduate level.
Learnings
- Online Mastercard Foundation Scholars have a very different level of engagement and experience
- They often feel adrift from the University's support structures and Transformative Leadership (TL) programming.
- Encouraging and supporting integration of both the online and on campus scholar communities enabled online scholars to 'feel' they are part of the University community and also be perceived as part of the University community.
Recommendations
- Widen the debate around online course delivery for global access students to explore how to ensure equity in experience and inclusion.
- The final program evaluation identified good practice for effective ODL student support.
- Get to know ODL Scholars - communicate regularly with them and keep track of key information about them like location, employment status
- Build strong relationships with the various academic schools delivering the ODL courses to ensure consistency of quality and good communication channels
- Make ODL provision as accessible as possible to get a more diverse intake which aligns with the Scholars Program
- Pay attention to how ODL sessions are facilitated to ensure inclusion and high engagement for all students
- Provide regular opportunities for ODL Scholars to take leadership roles, within both the Scholars Program and the University
- Enable in-person networking between ODL scholars, between ODL Scholars and on-campus scholars, and with relevant alumni.
- For further learning and recommendations see the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program Final Evaluation below:
Gender-based violence
Challenging and harmful experiences relating to gender-based violence surfaced during the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program and created an opportunity to develop a more nuanced approach to sense of belonging work around a highly sensitive issue.
Learnings
- The discussion of gender-based violence cuts across intersectional issues (race, sexuality, etc.); adequate responses to this issue need to take account of these intersections
- In creating spaces to discuss these nuanced reflections it is important to find support services and workshop facilitators that represented Mastercard Foundation Scholars' diverse cultural contexts
- Mastercard Foundation Scholars want to have autonomy in creating spaces to reflect
- When Mastercard Foundation Scholars did not disclosure incidents through formal reporting structures but instead only informed the Program Team of the incidents, it was difficult for the Program Team to understand how properly to support the survivor while not being able to pursue accountability for the perpetrator.
Recommendations
- Mastercard Foundation Scholars want spaces where they can share how they are feeling, outside of academic and their transformative leadership journeys
- Work with partners and workshop facilitators that represent scholars' diverse cultural contexts.
Scholar Story
Joy Chepkorir
Joy Chepkorir is in her final year of an MSc in Global Health Policy (online) at the University of Edinburgh.
This course complements her research interests in nursing, researching breast and cervical cancer. She has been committed to promoting cancer prevention through community-based education and cancer screening for Kenyan and American women since her undergraduate days.
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