Changing Higher Ed How to Attract and Inspire Underrepresented Students: Lessons from Lucy Cavendish College
Higher ed leaders looking to not only expand their student population to include underrepresented communities but to ensure they succeed can actually replicate a comprehensive program from the University of Cambridge’s Lucy Cavendish College in the UK. Part of the larger Cambridge system that once depended largely on legacy admissions from private schools for decades, Lucy Cavendish now admits 90% of its freshmen class from 180 public high schools across the country.
In this podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton draws from his knowledge of U.S. colleges and universities to learn about key processes and procedures from Lucy Cavendish College President Dr. Madeleine Atkins that can be emulated here in the States. Dr. Atkins discusses how the college identifies students who wouldn’t normally attend Lucy Cavendish, drives these students’ academic achievement and academic attainment, helps potential freshmen apply at top universities and prepare for mandatory entrance tests, and enrolls them in specialized orientation programs and more robust versions of the U.S.’s affinity groups that strengthen these students’ sense of belonging.
Highlights
- Lucy Cavendish’s Academic Attainment Program first identifies high schools in socio-economic disadvantaged and minority ethnic communities that don't send pupils to the UK’s top universities.
- Next, college team members work with those schools’ teachers and counselors to understand the backgrounds and lives of these students to learn how they can help these schools improve these students’ grades.
- Because most of these students can’t access traditional higher ed outreach programs, the college provides free online workshops every fortnight with academic subject teachers who understand both the high school curriculum and university demands. Through this program, prospective students meet like-minded peers with similar backgrounds, creating a sense of belonging.
- Roundabout Now, a boot camp program similar to U.S. affinity groups, provides career guidance and helps identify which universities and courses resonate with students’ ambitions. In the summer, students create the most competitive college application that will attract the top universities.
- In addition to learning how to submit critical documents, these summer boot camps help students prepare for tests that some top universities require before the interview process. Staff and faculty discuss these interviews and what interviewers are looking for, and they perform practice interviews.
- In addition to typical orientation, Bridging Week, a pre-orientation program designed to assist these students, reinforces the idea that they are working at the level their top university requires and provides group teaching sessions where students write essays or solve problem sheets and receive feedback. Bridging Week also provides additional networking opportunities and helps communicate where certain places are on campus so they can feel empowered to make their university work for them.
About Our Podcast Guest Dr. Madeleine Atkins
Madeleine’s background includes reading Law and History as an undergraduate at Cambridge, teaching in a large comprehensive school in Huntingdon, and completing a Ph.D. and post-doctoral research contracts at the University of Nottingham.
Following various senior positions at Newcastle University, including Pro-Vice-Chancellor, she was Vice-Chancellor of Coventry University between 2004 and 2013. Madeleine then joined the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) as its Chief Executive in January 2014, retaining that post until March 2018.
About Our Podcast Host
Dr. Drumm McNaughton, host and consultant to higher ed institutions. To find out more about his services and read other thought leadership pieces, visit his firm’s website, https://changinghighered.com/.
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