Keynote by Dr Lucy Mercer-Mapstone
Channel: Student Voice Australasia
Date: 07/12/2023

Quiet students or silenced voices? An intersectional and trauma-informed approach to including diverse students in higher education governance and decision-making.

A thought-provoking Keynote by an internationally renowned engagement expert advocating for equity, diversity, and inclusion, Dr Lucy Mercer-Mapstone. 

Taking a feminist intersectional approach to exploring systems of power and oppression, Lucy invited delegates to examine their own identities and how, as practitioners, we can be intentional in addressing both our own and institutional biases which construct barriers to engagement for students.
Lucy further explored engagement within a trauma-informed framework which acknowledges that, for students who carry cumulative experience of trauma resulting from systemic oppression (those from ‘diverse backgrounds’), engagement requires purposeful and critically self-aware ways of working. The Keynote ended with an emphasis on developing practices which honour diverse expertise and student’s situated knowledges and promote psychological safety, empowerment, collaboration, and trust.