SESSION OVERVIEW
Universities often champion inclusion and belonging, yet these values frequently sit
dormant at the edges of institutional life.
Student unions, clubs, and societies, critical spaces for connection which shape much of the student experience, often go about their business without alignment or support from university leadership.
This matters: belonging strongly influences retention, graduation, and wellbeing. How do we embed inclusion beyond policy, across every student-led space? This session offers practical strategies and a roadmap for making belonging a shared responsibility across the entire university.
Drawing on the Welcoming Universities Standard and the innovative benchmarking tool
derived from the Welcoming Clubs Standard the discussion will tackle key questions:
• What does a truly welcoming university look like when inclusion is embedded beyond policy, into every club, society, and student-led space?
• Where does the responsibility sit: with the core institution, student associations/guilds/unions, or both?
• How can universities ensure consistency in values and practices, while respecting student autonomy and diversity of expression?
• What practical strategies can bridge the gap between institutional aspiration and student experience?
By connecting principles with practice, this session will offer a roadmap for moving beyond transactional engagement toward relational inclusion, creating campuses where every student feels they belong, everywhere.
Putting principle into practice, this interactive session will place the benchmarking tool in the hands of the attending delegates and invite them to consider how key criteria function within university clubs, and societies under headings of leadership, community engagement, social and cultural inclusion, recruitment and retention, places and spaces and economic participation.
PRESENTERS
Cate Gilpin coordinates Welcoming Universities, an initiative of Welcoming Australia that supports higher education institutions to foster belonging, inclusion, and student and staff wellbeing. With a background in community engagement and social cohesion, she works closely with universities, local government, and partner organisations to strengthen connections between campuses and communities, and to create environments where diversity is recognised as a strength.
Stephen O’Grady is the Queensland Coordinator of Welcoming Clubs. In this role Stephen delivers workshops on Active Inclusion, Inclusive Coaching and Upstander Training (anti-racism) to community and sport organisations, clubs and societies across Queensland and Australia.
In 2023, Stephen completed a PhD study examining the role of sport in the integration process for women with refugee backgrounds in Queensland. This important research project was carried out at Bond University and supported by the Queensland Government.
Stephen is a former journalist, having started out as a sport journalist in Ireland before moving into media and communications at Griffith University. After starting his PhD and moving into academia, Stephen lectured in sport management at Griffith and Bond Universities.