Embracing Excellence through Diversity: Insights from Mychelle Pride’s Conference

11/09/2024
UniDistance Suisse · EDUDL+
Henrietta Carbonel

At our conference on Embracing Excellence through Diversity, Mychelle Pride, Academic Director and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Students at Open University UK, shared her insights and experiences on fostering equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility (EDIA) within higher education. The session offered a comprehensive exploration of how we can create more inclusive academic environments to support every student’s success.

Watch a short interview on what EDIA is, why it is so important in higher education, and what we can do to foster it.

Understanding Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility

In the conference, Mychelle began by defining what EDIA means in the context of higher education. Diversity includes a broad spectrum of identities and experiences such as socio-economic status, disability, sexual orientation, rural and religious backgrounds, and more. Recognising and embracing these diverse experiences is essential to building an inclusive and supportive educational environment.

All students, regardless of background, should have equitable opportunities to access and participate in higher education, and their learning should be facilitated so that they can achieve to the best of their abilities. EDIA is about creating communities where students and staff can thrive, not about lowering the standards.

EDIA leads to more innovative, creative, and socially just communities. By prioritising EDIA, institutions fulfil their ethical and legal obligations, enhance their reputations, and better prepare students for a diverse society.

Institutional and Faculty-Level Actions

Mychelle emphasised the need for action at both the institutional and faculty levels to support EDIA. This includes developing comprehensive EDIA policies, forming support structures like accessibility panels, and fostering environments where both students and staff can thrive. The creation of an inclusive curriculum was highlighted as a means to ensure that course content reflects the diverse backgrounds and experiences of the student body.

Practical Strategies for Inclusive Teaching

The main tip was: Know your students and ask them what they need. They are the best person to tell you how you can best help them succeed.

You will find more practical tips on how to make learning, teaching, and assessment more inclusive in Mychelle’s presentation, including:

Curriculum design (slide 38) and inclusive curriculum (slide 47)
Facilitating learning (slide 39)
Synchronous live sessions (slides 40 and 49)
Inclusive assessment (slides 46 and 48)

Here is Mychelle’s full presentation:

Excellence through diversity.pdf

Conclusion

Mychelle Pride’s conference underscored that by embracing inclusive practices, we can create academic environments where every student has the opportunity to reach their full potential. This session was a powerful reminder of the importance of EDIA in fostering a vibrant, innovative, and supportive educational community.

This event was financed through the P8 Digital Skills project from swissuniversities, held by UniDistance Suisse and the University of Lausanne. Link to the project page: https://wp.unil.ch/digitalskills/en/