Macquarie Kickstart – Partnering with Students to Impact Belonging and Retention

BIO: Kevin Newport and Grace Cheung are Managers within the Student Engagement, Inclusion and Belonging Team at Macquarie University.  Kevin implemented and lead the first iteration of the Kickstart Initiative for onboarding of commencing students and Grace is now supporting and co-leading the revised initiative in 2024.  They are passionate about delivering impactful student experience from commencement to graduation and beyond.

SESSION OVERVIEW: The session will discuss the wicked problem of retention and ‘sense of belonging’ – How do you measure the intangible? How can you impact the student experience from the moment they enrol?
Macquarie University piloted Macquarie Kickstart in Session 1 2023 in order to develop a strong sense of community, a university preparedness course and a retention exercise all rolled into one.
They partnered with students to build the sessions, to run the sessions, and to provide continual feedback on the improvement of the program.
Post Session 1 delivery they have adjusted the program to run as a ‘on demand’ service mid session, and again in Session two to assist students with finding a ‘soft landing’ at University.

Key points covered in the session include:
1. How they partnered with students to create and run the sessions
2. The challenges of student recruitment and what was learnt
3. Continuous improvement with student and staff feedback – what was valuable

Pain points:
1. Doing more with less and getting ‘buy in’
2. Student engagement