Student voices 'centre stage' at Conference

Students were at the heart of this week’s SATHC at LJMU – literally!

More than a dozen student presenters turned the tables on their lecturers to speak at the two-day Students at the Heart event, which attracted around 600 delegates to the Student Life Building.

Their participation underlines the growing involvement of UGs and PGs in teaching, research and public engagement.

Midwifery undergraduates Olga Machado-Le Gal and Gina Chapman presented The Mistory decolonisation project: maternal racial health disparities jointly with Dr Andrea Livesey and Dr Clare Maxwell.

The supremely-confident pair described conducting research and focus groups to better understand the historic links between institutional racism in healthcare and contemporary outcomes where Black and Asian women are at far higher risk of death and morbidity in childbirth.

Gina and Olga, who will be published as undergraduates, modestly described their contribution to SaTH as ‘winging it’!

Masters students Sana Kurude and Tino Simata (above) joined the Student Recruitment Marketing & Admissions team to present on Campus Connect, while Libby Robinson (below) doubled with Ange Garden to showcase work on a university sensory resource hub for neurodiverse students.

Doctoral student Rupy Kaur Roberts led her own session with Professor Helen Poole on the experiences at LJMU of disability and how good practice can enhance the student journey, as reported elsewhere on this website.

In the arts, a quartet of Masters students presented on their role in organising the 2024 Liverpool Shirt film Festival, a huge enterprise which annually attracts thousands of student films from all over the world.

The four - Peter Sutcliffe, Frank Greally, Kharis Dunsby and Emily White, all MA Film, talked about their skill progression and the confidence they gained in curating the festival under the guidance OF Martin Jones and Lydia Papadimitriou.

Undergraduate in Business Management Cameron Askew, who is on a placement year with LJMU Outreach spoke about his role in going back to his old high school in West Derby to inspire first-generation students to consider university in the same way he was inspired to do when at school.

Undergraduate law student Ruby Henry-Dicks and undergraduate Human Resource Management students Danielle Gore and Megan Currall shared their experiences of working on 'Building Community in Clinics' alongside their tutors Liz Jones and Paula Doran, School of Law & Joshi Jariwala, Liverpool Business School. Danielle and Megan also joined tutor Joshi Jariwala on 'Building Communities of Practice through your Module' (pictured below).