Rafael Savva is Lecturer in Law at Lancaster University. Rafael’s teaching and research lie in corporate law and corporate governance, with an emphasis on considering legal and economic issues arising from facilitating and promoting companies’ sustainable development. Rafael Savva is a core member of the departmental pastoral support team, which coordinates and provides on-hand pastoral support to students throughout the course of their studies.
Looking Back to Look Forward: Mapping the Student Support Pathway for Law Students through the eyes of a Legal Academic
Abstract:
Student support has a close correlation between student attainment and retention, and plays a key role in advancing student experience. Consequently, academic staff should be encapsulated within the ambit of providing student support, irrespective of whether this translates to academic or pastoral support.
In this session, we draw upon our experience of helping students gain access to both academic and pastoral support and provide some tips and suggestions on the ways in which Law students can gain such support throughout their studies. We approach the provision of student support on the basis of the ways in which it can be made accessible via various points of staff contact. We use several personas developed from our collective experience to highlight possible pathways to integrate systems of providing support from inside the classroom to more formal support provisions at a departmental or an institutional level.
Our advice rests on the rationale that academic staff should be perceived as approachable in order to build up a rapport with students that can foster mutual trust and promote confidence to students to excel autonomously in their studies. We therefore view this as the basis to enabling a mentoring-type relationship, whereby academic staff can provide students with the necessary academic or pastoral support to help them progress in an environment that promotes their development and autonomy. This may include signposting to support services inside and outside of the department and/or the university, as well as the development of intra-departmental academic and pastoral support programmes.