Doing the Work: Institutional Policy, Research, and Practice for Closing the White-BAME Awarding Gap

This chapter explores the journey of Student Success as an institutional research and practice initiative that, over almost ten years, has provided a platform to host, develop, and sustain initiatives and interventions to investigate and address the white-BAME awarding gap at the University of Kent. By bringing together academics, students, and a team of practitioners, Student Success has contributed to the understanding of the complex dynamics of attainment differentials. The evolution of the Student Success team is presented from the perspective of Theory of Change, as a planning and evaluation methodology that provides a linear and unifying framework (Mayne, 2017) to examine the different phases of this initiative. Across three distinct phases, Student Success has sought to address many of the challenges common to institutional EDI work, including achieving buy-in from academic staff, balancing central leadership with devolved responsibility for academic schools, developing effective models for monitoring and evaluation, and negotiating organisational changes within the institution. Overall, we believe the lessons learnt and experiences shared in this chapter can inform other higher education practitioners when planning or delivering similar projects to address attainment differentials through the lens of students’ and academics’ engagement, institutional research, monitoring, and evaluation.