Conference Reflections (Episode 1): The ‘who’ of student engagement

By Haley Sneed and Rohit Rao, PhDs at the University of Glasgow

Who better to share their reflections on the RAISE 2025 conference on Student Voice than those experiencing university life as both students and staff? Haley Sneed and Rohit Rao are Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) at host institution the University of Glasgow (UofG). As PhD students and members of teaching staff, they offer valuable perspectives on the conference theme. While distinct in their foci, their reflections share a call for relational engagement with student voice. 

Haley: nurturing real students relationally

Attending RAISE 2025 reminded me why student voice is so important and how powerful it is to hear directly from students. Experiencing the conference as both student and teaching staff meant I was constantly shifting perspectives: sometimes thinking about my own learning journey and sometimes about how I could better support my students. 

Karen MacEachern and Alison Browitt’s session, alongside their Widening Participation (WP) students, was particularly impactful. Students’ reflections on the mentoring they’d received, especially the paid placements they’d been able to access, showed how WP is not just about getting into university but about being sustained, supported, and valued once there. As a student, I felt uplifted by their stories of persistence and success. As staff, I left considering how I can build these kinds of long-term, relational supports into my own practice. 

Ryan Davidson and Sara Akram’s Student Cost of Learning session also resonated deeply. The creative outputs made visible the true financial, emotional and social cost of studying. As a student, I recognised the weight of those hidden burdens. As staff, it reminded me how vital it is to create space where students can share these realities without judgment, and where voice includes not just opinions about modules but lived experiences of what it takes to stay the course. 

Equally, Mentorship, Collaboration, and Identity with Kiu Sum, Tamara Reid, and Ana Souto left a lasting impression. Their reflections on critical friendship, collective care, and dialogue showed how voice flourishes when rooted in trust, reciprocity, and community. It encouraged me to reflect on how I can nurture these conditions in my learning spaces. 

Rohit: Opening the loop

I was invited to speak on the plenary panel on Day 2 of the RAISE conference. In preparation, I tried to absorb as much of the thought-provoking presentations as I could that day. I felt privileged to listen to Duncan, the SRC President, in the morning keynote address, speaking about his unconventional journey to joining UofG. It made me think of my own circuitous relationship with student voice, with regards to how I got here.

As a pupil of colour in an overwhelmingly White rural secondary school in England, I had been made to feel so voiceless and marginalised that I had chosen to become a schoolteacher to try to empower others feeling on the periphery. Realising as a teacher that my childhood experiences were far more widespread and structural, I embarked upon PhD research to platform some of these student voices.

I applied to various institutions but Glasgow was the only place to send me a heartfelt, honest, and open invitation letter written by a real human, which was the selling point for me. Listening to the Student Learning Development team at the University of Glasgow speak about ‘closing the loop’ as a pillar of student voice, I reflected on how important ‘opening the loop’ was for me, in proactively reaching out and treating students with authenticity and humanity.

This developed into one of the key themes of the panel discussion, and the very fact that my student voice was considered on a par with those of accomplished colleagues made me feel validated and empowered.

My action point from the conference was that in my undergraduate teaching this year, I plan to open the floor to students from the first minute of class, asking them what they want to see from me, from their course, and from their university experience. I am confident that this might deconstruct some of the infantilising relics of the teacher-student relationship, so that they see UofG as a place that is interested in their lives, that sees them as active and engaged contributors, and that is transparent with its intentions.