Indie Okoye, Student Ambassador, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences

Going to UNC Charlotte University was a really great experience and part of me wishes I could stay because the experiences and the opportunities they gave to their students were just amazing. Not just from an educational standpoint but also from a social standpoint. It felt like they were working to create well rounded human beings that could integrate into society well but also leave university with the prospect of a work placement or even a great well paid job to match their degree.

On a social standpoint they offer so many different ways of integrating into society, confidence building and other things like that. From the over 350 societies, clubs and other events like The International Festival and social gatherings, they invest so much money and time to ensure that each student reaches their full potential.

What I found really amazing was through all this support that was offered you still found students that would give their free time to give back to their community. HCAP (Hispanic College awareness programme) are an amazing society that works without pay to support and increase the number of Hispanic students in Higher Education. This is something that I feel Kingston could really learn from. We have a huge volunteer department but educating their students about it more could enhance the number of students who participate.

From an educational standpoint they offer a lot of support to students including both the SoS (Students obtaining Success) and BEST (Building Educational Strengths and Talents) Programmes.

The SoS programme supports students that are on academic probation, giving them the chance to lift their grades and recover their academic situation.

BEST Learning Community works with first generation students and minority students supporting them through University life. These two programmes were my favourite because I fell that really captured what students really need to know to be successful in their university experience but they offered so much more to really support the student.

What should Kingston University do to improve student experience?

I believe that Kingston needs a better and stronger mentor programme. They need to cater to a lot more students from many different backgrounds and life experiences. I think they need to look at enhancing the social aspect of the university for the students investing in their future, and I think that will relay on to the academic side. I think things like a greater student union and activities for the students. More money needs to be spent to help students gain a rounded experience ready to work in society. It feels like Kingston runs on the mentality that you go to school then go home with nothing in-between to really create a well-rounded human being.

With the increase in tuition fees more needs to be given back to the students because not a lot is given at the moment. I also believe that teachers need to be supportive. In UNC Charlotte I found that teachers went the extra mile to support the students. Teaching was a 24-hour job. They completely focused on supporting students. Kingston may not be able to completely deliver this line of support but I feel something along the lines of this teacher support should be offered.

My plans for the future haven’t changed, I still believe Kingston University is a great university and I would like to stay and finish my education and go on to do my Masters maybe at Kingston. I

wouldn’t go to America because I feel our education is a lot stronger and better. In all my experience was amazing, I met so many amazing and new people and I am so happy I got the chance to experience what American university is like.

Dr Neil Williams, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Computing

On paper the University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNC Charlotte) is very similar to Kingston University. It has 23,000+ students with about half living at home; funding is dominated by teaching-related income and it is very committed to widening participation. On

arriving at the 1000-acre campus the similarities end. The student union building is huge, there are many restaurants and meeting places for students, the sports hall seats 9,000 spectators and they are building an American Football stadium at a cost of $100 million.

Such spectacular student facilities contribute enormously to a greater student engagement with the university. Kingston will never be able to match these resources, but I am sure improved sport and recreational facilities would increase student engagement. In contrast, the scientific teaching laboratories and classrooms that I saw looked “tired” compared to the facilities we have in the Eadweard Muybridge and John Galsworthy buildings. It is this mixture of similarities and differences that made the trip so informative. I was missing Induction week during my visit and it was interesting to note that it is managed very differently at UNC Charlotte. Dr Dennis Weiss, Dean of Students, told us about SOAR

(Student Orientation, Advising and Registration) and how they include parents in the process as well. Multiple, small-scale residential 1 ½ day university inductions are held throughout the summer, well in advance of the start of term. This has the advantage of spreading the burden of enrolling freshers and avoiding long queues. Another successful induction program was UTOP, a well-attended, five-week summer residential programme for minority students.

I was particularly impressed by the wide range of central, student support offices and associated programmes, even if some had rather contrived acronyms (PRODUCE Producing Readiness of a Diverse University Cohort in Education!). I attended a number of

sessions on the work of The University Centre for Academic Excellence (UCAE), headed by Catherine Blat, this covered:

• Tutorial Services, providing tutoring in introductory maths, science, business and foreign languages;

• Skills workshops, and a 10 week Freshmen seminar programme for students on probation.

• Supplemental Instruction (SI), which uses small Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) sessions to help keen students improve their grades “in challenging courses such as science or engineering”;

• BEST (Building Educational Strengths and Talents) which focuses on students who are the first in their family to attend college by providing study seminar classes and a Learning Community.

• SOS (Student Obtaining Success) programme. A Peer Mentor scheme for students who are on academic probation. Mentors are trained to identify academic barriers to success and develop an action plan for the student.

• Another successful mentoring scheme, SAFE (Student Advising for Freshmen Excellence) is run by the Dean of Student Office.

This is open to all students but again is focussed on reaching out to students from underrepresented groups. There are examples of mentoring and supplemental teaching at

Kingston, however my impression is that the scale of the offering and the uptake by Charlotte students is much greater. We had the chance to talk and listen to students involved in each of the programmes. They spoke very passionately about being mentors

and it was illuminating to find out what spurred them on to take on these roles; some did up to 6 hours of mentoring work a week. One reason for their success is that these programmes are well established and have slowly developed over 10+ years. When asked about how they managed to recruit so many mentors, they replied that recommendations from academic staff and well established recruitment and training before the academic year

starts, were key factors. Many of the schemes were successful as they were up and running from week 1 of the term and there was close integration with the Colleges (Faculties). Another critical component to the success was significant staffing resources; the centre has 8 permanent professional members of staff, plus grad assistants, tutors, SI leaders, mentors and student office assistants.

Ted Elling, Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, demonstrated the extensive evaluation of these schemes. The results of these evaluations have been instrumental in sustaining many of these programmes. We were also lucky enough to listen to a Learning Community programme research presentation hosted by Cynthia Wolf Johnson (Associate Provost for Academic Services), where the reasons for their success were probed by Kim Buch and Daniel Bonilla from the Psychology department. Learning communities of students have proved successful in improving grade point averages and progression rates.

One fundamental difference is that where at Kingston we might modify the curriculum, teaching or assessment in a module to tackle low grades and poor progression, at UNC Charlotte it seemed that the module is less likely to be changed; instead support mechanisms tend be invoked. Also a lot of the academic skills covered by UCAE are taught in academic skills modules and dealt with in PDP sessions with personal tutors. However, I think Kingston could gain a lot by recruiting more mentors and PAL leaders and using Learning communities to support students who find various transitions at University challenging. Perhaps a university centre to provide training and funding for this type of activity would be a good idea.

I think Kingston could also make use of the principle of academic probation, where students who are failing in semester one are identified and required to engage with one of the activities of the ACAE. This may be a 10-week seminar scheme aimed at getting them engaged with the university and classes on a variety of academic skills, or a scheme such as SOS, where student mentors and staff help develop a personal action plan for the upcoming

semester.

*Lyrics by Ryan Adams

David Banfro, Student Ambassador, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Computing

After being invited to attend the UNC Charlotte tour in September I was more than curious as to what our partner university in the United States had to offer. We arrived in Charlotte on Saturday evening and we began our activities on Sunday morning. Once we had settled into our hotels and acclimatised ourselves with the area which didn’t take long, we were invited to an introductory lunch at the University on Sunday evening. We were picked up by the university Minibus and chauffeured to the university campus which was less than a 10 minute drive away. Once we reached the campus I was immediately struck by the sheer size of the campus.

We were informed that the whole site was just under a 1000 acres and that more buildings were due to be developed. The site had a feel of a new city centre just being opened with the pavements clean and the air surrounding the campus being quite fresh. The buildings were red bricked and new, and statues of former sport stars and Charlotte city legends were dotted around our route into the campus. As we drove into the campus we bypassed a huge

plot of land that was being developed for a 30,000 all seated American football stadium which would open in 2013, adding to the immense size and scale of the university. We met the alumni and staff members for the first time shortly afterwards and I was immediately struck by the level of hospitality and warmth we received from the UNC Charlotte staff. After we had been formally introduced to the staff we were invited by one of the students to watch a movie that night in the student union.

The student union by itself was impressive, fitted with its own cinema and four fast food restaurants, shops and an Apple store. They also had a Student Union shop which contained a Barnes & Noble bookstore alongside memorabilia of the university including

t-shirts, sweaters, hats, scarves and many other clothing items.  And as we watched Steven Spielberg’s latest’s film in the 210 seated cinema, I was quietly excited and intrigued as to what more Charlotte had to offer.

For the next five days we were picked up in the morning by the university minibus and we were always greeted warmly by a member of staff who would be looking after us and chauffeuring us to and from different meetings during the day. Two members of the

university faculty stood out for me in particular; Dennis Weiss and Dr Sam Lopez and we had the pleasure of being in their presence for the duration of our trip. Dr Lopez in particular had a fantastic rapport and closeness with most of the students on campus which if I am

honest I have not seen from many staff members at Kingston. He organised many meetings and social evenings so that we could meet the students and integrate into the university life. I remember him taking us to an El Salvadorian restaurant on the outskirts of Charlotte where we were treated to good food and hospitality by the students. Another meeting Dr Lopez organized took place the following morning when I and a member of the KU staff, Rebecca

Lees, were asked to attend a learning community class. So without really knowing what to expect myself and Rebecca made our way over to the Lynch building. We were greeted by Terence who I later discovered was the Resident Coordinator for Hawthorn Hall. Terence

led us into the classroom where we met Tanya the coordinator for the group that day. We were soon introduced to the group which consisted of about fifteen students who were in the preparation stage before beginning the freshmen year. Once everyone had settled down Tanya took up her seat at the back of the room and three of the students led the group through a fifteen minute session on leadership. The session was completely student led and followed up by quick quiz on the presentation. Every student was fully engaged and involved in the quiz before eagerly participating in leadership games and activities. Every activity the group covered was done together and nobody was left isolated and alone. There was a genuine spirit of friendship and camaraderie between the students. Tanya finished the session with a five minute talk on leadership and looking out for each other, the session finished with socialising and students hugging each other. When I asked one student what made for the unique atmosphere he replied “we’re in this together, we are a team although some of us may take different pathways we’ll stick together because together were unstoppable!”

Reflection

So in summary, never have I been received with such warmth and kindness as we have been given by the students and faculty at UNC Charlotte. Since our arrival in Charlotte we were treated to a real Southern welcome. We have been greeted, chauffeured, pampered, doted on and fed by the staff and students at the university. It surprised me what lengths the University had gone to, to make our stay a comfortable one. From the moment we met the

staff on Sunday they have made us feel more than welcome and have showed us the real meaning of Southern hospitality. We have been treated to good food movies, tours, and outings by the university. Before arriving in North Carolina I was aware of the term

Southern Hospitality, but I never envisaged how friendly it would actually be. I only hope we can replicate the same atmosphere of warmth when UNC Charlotte students and faculty arrive in Kingston. The visit to UNC Charlotte has definitely strengthened my belief that university is more than just a place for learning and graduating. In my opinion university is where you form relationships, rules, and build the foundation for your life. So just by

looking at the examples of friendship hospitality teamwork and selflessness that I saw at UNC Charlotte, I can truly say that I am glad to be a KU student as I see many of the same values on our campuses and I look forward to implementing some of the Charlotte programmes at Kingston. Thank You UNC Charlotte