How did you find your university tribe? Those of us who now work at universities and were university students a few decades earlier, can remember a time when we ‘belonged’. We all arrived with an interest in ‘being’ someone or something but as time progressed through our university lives, it became more about how we would be able to find our way in the world. Finding our discipline tribe was not only the first step, but the enduring one. Digital technologies and pre-pandemic years saw student engagement move away from the physical classroom. Lectures were recorded and accessed through learning management systems (LMS’), pandemic years saw the shift to Teams and Zoom recordings… a far cry from catching up on lectures by borrowing a cassette tape from the library in the late 80s.

Professional Identity Crisis

As educators and instructors, we are experiencing diminished student engagement. It’s hard to engage when students are simply not there. Given pressures like cost of living, managing family life and life’s imbalances, it’s no wonder that part-time work now takes a front seat as more students opt for full time employment while being enrolled in full-time study. The issue lies in reduced student engagement. Reduced engagement results in missing out on forming professional identities. The tiny moments of impromptu conversations with teachers and peers in tutorial classes, laboratory and engineering or art and design maker spaces are now vital for demystifying discipline norms for forming professional identities while studying at university. The simple solution: bring students and teachers together, physically, socially, and casually. Our lived experience as educators; points to this strategy. Call it old-fashioned but coming together to ‘break bread’ as our discipline tribe is the way to go!

Forming the Discipline Tribe

The concept of belonging hasn’t really changed. Wellbeing is also wrapped up in that concept of belonging. Furthermore, a sense of belonging and wellbeing is linked to student success. This has been a topic of interest that has come into sharp focus in recent years. With QILT scores informed by SES data telling us as educators that students don’t feel like they belong at university. QILT outcomes tell the story of some students being at risk of exiting university studies early due to imbalanced workloads, lack of academic support, and connection to the university community. However, many students know how to find their way at university, while others may not know where they sit in the ecosystem let alone achieving academic success. Our experience as educators supports the notion that belonging to your academic discipline and their tribe can have positive effects on wellbeing and student success. When students are not engaged with their academic discipline culture and/or with the coursework we provide, their chance of success is reduced.

The move towards MS Teams and Zoom recorded lectures, catalysed by the pandemic, has resulted in reduced student engagement. We’ve seen it first hand in the courses we teach. However, while digital delivery is useful in reducing physical space requirements for courses and convenient for students when holding down employment whilst studying, students still report that they prefer in-person interactions. A true paradox. In our Biomedical Sciences discipline, in-person interactions often happen in tutorials and laboratory lessons. However, we can’t ignore the power of student societies and the social agency they have in uniting the tribe under the engagement crisis universities are experiencing.

Community Support – It takes a Village to Build a Professional Identity

At UNSW we have been responding to QILT and SES outcomes with many initiatives that include Education Focused Communities of Practice (CoPs), Strategic Projects focused on Student Belonging, Wellbeing and Success, The Nexus Program and Healthy Universities Initiative (HUI) as well as events hosted by the Scientia Education Academy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68ZzPkZvLzs). These structural dimensions work across the university ecosystem; however, we also need belonging, wellbeing and student success approaches on the ground within the academic discipline culture. Academics from our School of Biomedical Sciences were invited to this year’s UNSW Medical Science Student Society to share information on Majors Pathways. Topics included subject selection, choosing your major and types of career pathways. What a way to bring the tribe together in one space! University student societies have a strong place for bringing the student tribe together and forming that sense of belonging. They always played this role. But in this era of remote and flexible higher education, this role will be even more important in providing face-to-face interactions with students as well as staff on campus.

Discipline Connect

Bring in Discipline Connect. This initiative was developed through The Nexus program within the School of Biomedical Sciences to connect staff and students who teach and take courses delivered through the Bachelor of Medical Science, Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Advanced Science degree programs at UNSW. Connections were formed at lunchtime by playing board games over food and conversation. We as teachers have always had a presence at Medical Student Society events, but students working with their academics as partners to engage undergraduates into discipline tribes became our joint mission. Not only by organising lunchtime board game challenges but by working with our students and their societies. Small badges as tokens were provided for everyone at these events. In our discipline world, folks taking or teaching a Pathology major wearing a ‘Pathology’ badge, were brought together in a fun way to immediately connect at these social gatherings (Discipline Badges shown in Figure 1).

Call it Old-Fashioned; But it Works

In this modern era of digital progress with simultaneous uncertainty and isolation, it’s important to bring the university discipline tribes together. Funnily enough, it’s an age-old formula. Bringing people together over food and conversation with shared interests in reinstating our discipline connections and sense of who we are in our professional worlds. One can’t quite help but feel that what’s old is new again.

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