Introduction

High-impact practices (HIPs) are widely recognized as standards of excellence in supporting student learning (Kuh, O’Donnell and Schneider, 2017). These practices have been shown to have a particularly positive impact on students from traditionally underserved groups, although these students are also the least likely to have access to these practices (Kuh, 2008). Over a decade ago, Finley and McNair (2013) called for equitable achievement of outcomes as well as equitable access to HIPs. However, subsequent research has found that HIPs are still not accessible to all students or executed equitably (Zilvinskis, Kinzie, Daday et al., 2022a; McPherson and Snyder, 2022) and that implementing HIPs, as currently conceived, may not lead to increased graduation rates at public institutions (Johnson and Stage, 2018). One reason for the inequitable execution, Zilvinskis et al. (2022b) argue, is the social identities and perspectives of those conceptualizing HIPs. Summarizing Patton et al.’s (2015) work of applying critical race theory to evaluate HIPs, Zilvinskis et al. (2022b) note that the scholars of HIPs “often share dominant social identities and in turn envision HIPs for students with similar identities.” They suggest, therefore, that HIPs “still serve students with the most capital” and eclipse “the high-impact racialized experiences of students of color,” both of which “divert much needed resources from the equity agenda” (p. 16).

We contend that embracing a “partnership mindset” (Cook-Sather, 2023) has the potential to increase access and equity in the design and implementation of the key features of HIPs by expanding the roles, social identities, and perspectives that inform how those features are conceptualized and enacted. We define a partnership mindset as one that conceives of the work of teaching and learning as a collaborative process to which both teachers and students actively contribute. Embracing students as partners in educational processes positions them as active agents rather than passive recipients and, rather than assuming a one-way delivery of information or what Freire (1972) called the “banking model” of education, supports reciprocity between and co-creation by faculty and students in teaching and learning. This understanding of a partnership mindset is grounded in the widely cited definition of pedagogical partnership as “a collaborative, reciprocal process through which all participants have the opportunity to contribute equally, although not necessarily in the same ways, to curricular or pedagogical conceptualization, decision making, implementation, investigation, or analysis” (Cook-Sather, Bovill and Felten, 2014, pp. 6–7). In this discussion we argue that the key features of HIPs can be intentionally implemented with enhanced equity through embracing a partnership mindset.

We contextualize our discussion of these contentions by reviewing the key features of HIPs established by Kuh (2008) and colleagues (Kuh, Jankowski, Ikenberry et al., 2014; Kuh, O’Donnell and Schneider, 2017) and outlining the evolution and a definition of pedagogical partnership. The majority of our discussion is dedicated to reimagining several of the key features of HIPs through a partnership mindset by way of two approaches: (a) working on developing and enacting the key features of HIPs through pedagogical partnership programs that support faculty engagement with student consultants not enrolled in those faculty members’ courses, and (b) working within courses to implement the key features of HIPs through co-creation between faculty and enrolled students. Our argument is not that all HIPs need to be fully enacted pedagogical partnership but rather that bringing a partnership mindset to the key features of HIPs can increase equity in and of HIPs through diversifying the roles, identities, and perspectives that inform the conceptualization and enactment of those key features.

Reviewing definitions and key features of high-impact practices (HIPs)

Coined by George Kuh (2008), the term “high-impact practices” refers to a “powerful set of interventions that foster student success” (Kuh, O’Donnell and Schneider, 2017, p. 9; see also Schneider and Preckle, 2017). Kuh, O’Donnell and Schneider (2017) defined student success as an “undergraduate experience marked by academic achievement, engagement in educationally purposeful activities, satisfaction, persistence, attainment of educational objectives, and acquisition of desired learning outcomes that prepare one to live an economically self-sufficient, civically responsible, and rewarding life” (p. 9). Positively associated with high levels of student engagement, deep and integrated learning, and personal and educational gains for all students—particularly for historically underserved students, including first-generation students and racially minoritized populations (Zilvinkis, Kinzie, Daday et al., 2022a)—these transformative practices have also demonstrated a positive impact on student GPA, retention, and graduation rates, including for historically underserved students.

Kuh and O’Donnell (2013), the National Survey of Student Engagement (2015), and Kuh, O’Donnell and Schneider (2017) identified the key features included in Table 1 below that, “when done well,” make the practices high impact.

Table 1. Eight key features and examples of high-impact practices

High-Impact Practice Feature Example
1. Performance expectations set at appropriately high levels Papers, problem sets, or projects evaluated by criteria calibrated to students’ pre-college accomplishments, as evidenced by placement tests or ACT/SAT scores.
2. Significant investment of effort over time Multi-part assignments or projects spanning the academic term, culminating in a completed paper, demonstration, or performance evaluated by a faculty supervisor or third party.
3. Interactions with faculty and peers about substantive matters Out-of-class activities where students meet weekly to attend events or discuss readings and assignments, facilitated by an upper-division peer mentor.
4. Experiences with diversity Service-learning field assignments where students work in settings with participants from diverse backgrounds (e.g., a children’s shelter), paired with class discussions on readings and experiences.
5. Frequent, timely, and constructive feedback Student-faculty research projects where students receive suggestions and progress reviews at multiple points until project completion.
6. Real-world applications of learning Internships, practicums, or field placements where students apply program knowledge and reflect on connections between their studies and work experiences.
7. Public demonstration of competence Oral presentations of capstone seminar projects evaluated by faculty members.
8. Periodic, structured opportunities to reflect and integrate learning Capstone ePortfolio where students explain artifacts that demonstrate knowledge and proficiencies attained throughout their program of study.

  • Adapted from Kuh, O’Donnell and Schneider (2017).

Defining pedagogical partnership and a partnership mindset

Pedagogical partnership has roots in progressive education, critical and feminist pedagogies, student voice, and democratic practice. All of these foreground power, voice, blurring of roles, and sharing of responsibilities in teaching and learning. Dewey (1916) was among the earliest to champion students having a stronger voice in their education (Cook-Sather, Bovill and Felten, 2014; Gordon and English, 2016). Freire (1972) argued for teachers as teacher-learners and students as learner-teachers working through dialogue and with mutual respect. And hooks (1994) enacted and advocated pedagogies based on teachers and students “hearing one another’s voices” to build engaged and inclusive learning communities (p. 8).

“Student voice” as both practice and metaphor first developed in relation to student engagement in K-12 schooling contexts in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US. The term signaled students having a legitimate perspective and an active role “in decisions about and implementation of educational policies and practice” (Holdsworth, 2000, p. 355). Linking power and agency, student voice stood for “meaningful, acknowledged presence” and “the power to influence analyses of, decisions about, and practices in schools” (Cook-Sather, 2006, p. 363) through “radical collegiality” (Fielding, 1999) and, in its fully realized form, “intergenerational learning as lived democracy” (Fielding, 2012, p. 50). Arguments that “the vision of learner as passive consumer is inimical to a view of students as partners with their teachers in a search for understanding” (Ramsden, 2008, p. 16) have evolved to consistently challenge traditional assumptions “about the identities of, and relationships between, learners and teachers” and make way for “respectful, mutually beneficial learning partnerships where students and staff work together on all aspects of educational endeavors” (Matthews, 2017, p. 1).

Drawing on the definition of pedagogical partnership we offered in the introduction above, we understand a partnership mindset as an attitude—a way of conceptualizing the work of teaching and learning as collaborative processes to which both teachers and students actively contribute—even if those faculty and students are not fully enacting partnership practices. We focus on how positioning students in two different kinds of partner role in the arenas of learning, teaching, and assessment and of curriculum design and pedagogic consultancy (Healey, Flint and Harrington, 2016) can enact and foster a partnership mindset. The two kinds of student partner role are:

  1. students not enrolled in courses who take on compensated positions within a pedagogical partnership program as consultants (sharing and discussing valuable perspectives on learning and teaching), co-researchers (collaborating meaningfully on teaching and learning research or subject-based research projects with staff), or pedagogical co-designers (sharing responsibility for designing learning, teaching and assessment (Bovill, Cook-Sather, Felten et al., 2016).

  2. enrolled students who engage in whole-class co-creation, which entails “inviting a whole group of students who are studying together in any teaching setting face-to-face or online, to actively collaborate and negotiate with the teacher and each other, elements of the learning process” (Bovill, 2020a, p. 1025).

These forms of pedagogical partnership (and other forms) have become widely recognized as a practice, documented in a growing body of scholarship (Healey and Healey, 2024) and reflected in the creation of several journals devoted to partnership practice: Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education, created in 2010; Journal of Educational Innovation, Partnership and Change, created in 2015; and International Journal for Students as Partners, created in 2017. While partnership approaches require upfront investment of time, they have been shown to save time later and to make time more productive (Cook-Sather, 2024).

A partnership mindset is informed by a partnership ethos (Cook-Sather, Bovill and Felten, 2014; Matthews, Cook-Sather and Healey, 2018; Mercer-Mapstone, Marquis and McConnell, 2018), which Gravett, Kinchin and Winstone (2020) characterize as “a dialogic and values-based approach to learning and teaching that has the potential to be transformative, developmental and fun” (p. 2,586). While an ethos is a spirit as manifested in beliefs and practices, a mindset is more intentional—an attitude or set of attitudes that can be developed. Calling for the application of a partnership mindset to the conceptualization and implementation of the key features of HIPs actually links back to the origin of HIPs. One of the four original National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) scales that informed the conceptualization of HIPs (Kuh, O’Donnell and Schneider, 2017) was student-faculty interaction. While student-faculty pedagogical partnership experiences were not listed in the Enriching Education Experiences (EEE) scale at the time, as they had quite simply not yet been designated as such, we contend that they constitute a co-creative type of such interaction that fundamentally centers relationships as a grounding principle rather than a byproduct.

This development of notions of faculty-student interactions has generated the emergence of a specific mindset that now deserves to be explicitly included in conversations around HIPs. We propose that revisiting the key features of HIPs through a partnership mindset is one way to work toward that inclusion. A partnership mindset, when brought to bear in developing and implementing the key features of HIPs, could help higher education achieve transformative levels of impact by reaching a greater diversity of students.

Bringing a partnership mindset to key features of HIPs: Examples and discussion

With definitions of HIPs and their key features and pedagogical partnership and a partnership mindset established, we revisit below several of the key features of HIPs identified by Kuh, O’Donnell and Schneider (2017) to illustrate the benefits of embracing a partnership mindset framing. Table 2 summarizes all eight key features of HIPs, both those we discuss below and those we do not, and reviews how bringing a partnership mindset reconceptualizes those features.

Table 2. Bringing a partnership mindset to the eight key features of HIPs

Eight Key Features of HIPs and Examples (from Kuh, O’Donnell and Schneider, 2017, p. 11) Partnership Mindset
1. Performance expectations set at appropriate high levels
Example: Expectations set by external sources and criteria “… to achieve beyond their current ability level as judged by criteria calibrated to students’ pre-college accomplishment evidenced by placement tests or ACT or SAT scores …”		 Considers a wider range of criteria, informed by dialogue between faculty and students, that draws on students’ previous experiences and understandings
2. Significant investment of concentrated effort by students over an extended period. Academic work is effortful and evaluated by supervisors
Example: “… [a student] demonstration or performance evaluated by an independent third party or faculty supervisor.”		 Invites faculty and students to invest effort over time in relational approaches that strengthen all steps involved in accomplishing any given academic endeavor
3. Interactions with faculty and peers about substantive matters
Example: “Out-of-class activities in which students in a learning community…come together to attend an enrichment event…”		 Centers relationships through seeing students who are not enrolled as collegial partners in the substantive work of developing course practices and resources; within courses, sees enrolled students as partners in co-designing content and process, thereby shifting who has agency in decision-making
4. Experiences with diversity, wherein students are exposed to and must contend with people and circumstances that differ from those with which students are familiar
Example: “… discussions and journaling about the connections between class readings and the field assignment experience		 Brings intersecting identities, previous lived experiences, and resulting perspectives together and supports faculty and students learning to draw on differences as resources and making more connections between students’ formal education and the world in which it is situated
5. Frequent timely, and constructive feedback
Example: “A student-faculty research project during which students meet with and receive suggestions from the supervising faculty (or staff) member …”		 Shifts from focusing solely on faculty feedback to recognizing the expertise of both faculty and students in feedback loops, making formative assessment a routine through collecting actionable feedback
6. Opportunities to discover relevance of learning through real-world applications
Example: “… students apply the knowledge and skills acquired during their program of study, or supervisor mediated discussions among student workers …”		 Real-world applications draw on the experiences and expertise of both faculty and students so that application of what is learned, and how, shapes relationships among participants as well as what is learned
7. Public demonstration of competence
Example: “An oral presentation of a capstone seminar project evaluated by a faculty member and/or accomplished practitioner …”		 Supports faculty and students together conceptualizing what constitutes competence and widens the “public” beyond faculty
8. Periodic, structured opportunities to reflect and integrate learning
Example: “… Instructor designs assignments that require students to draw on material covered, knowledge and proficiencies attained during their program of study.”		 Supports faculty and students engaging in ongoing dialogue through which they co-design opportunities to reflect on learning and a wider variety of ways to demonstrate integration of learning

For each feature we discuss, we offer examples that aim to highlight how a partnership mindset enriches “student-faculty interaction” (original NSSE feature): such a mindset helps us better qualify the relational nature of these interactions, thus also moving us towards achieving more equitable access to, and impact of, HIPs. As noted above, the examples we offer in the sections below are drawn from two forms of partnership work. The first form is through pedagogical partnership programs or projects that support faculty partners exploring with one student or a small group of students not enrolled in the class aspects of teaching and learning in the course, class, or department; in the text below, we signal these as “PP.” The second form is through co-creation with enrolled students; we signal these below as “CC.” Either approach can be adapted across disciplines in contexts with or without existing partnership programs if faculty and students embrace a partnership mindset.

1. Performance expectations set at appropriately high levels

This key feature of HIPs conceptualizes performance expectations in terms of challenging students “to achieve beyond their current ability level as judged by criteria calibrated to students’ pre-college accomplishment evidenced by placement tests or ACT or SAT scores” (Kuh, O’Donnell and Schneider, 2017, p. 11). As typically enacted, this feature has the performance expectations conceptualized by faculty and keyed to traditional forms of testing. Students do not actively contribute to formulating the performance expectations, and there is no reciprocity between or co-creation by faculty and students.

Through a partnership mindset, faculty and students could consider a wider range of criteria, informed by dialogue that draws not only on teacher expertise but also on students’ previous experiences and understandings. Students have a different sense of their current ability from what might be measured through a standardized test, and they might also have ideas about how to demonstrate their abilities. Embracing a partnership mindset positions students—and minoritized students in particular—as “holders and creators of knowledge” (Delgado Bernal, 2002, p. 106). It recognizes their lived experiences “as valid, appropriate, and necessary forms of data” (Yosso, Parker, Solórzano et al., 2004, p. 15) in informing the conceptualization of performance criteria. Through embracing this more dialogic conceptualization of performance expectations and this more reciprocal and co-creative process, a partnership mindset fosters in student partners a particular capacity to articulate a wider range of high expectations, and supports enrolled students in pursuing them.

PP: One example of how a pedagogical partnership program can foster the development of a partnership mindset comes from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. A professor of Security and Intelligence required students in one of his courses to work in groups to develop written briefs regarding intelligence or counterintelligence matters. Student performance consistently showed that this was an area where students were lacking proficiency and not meeting standards, and the professor assumed this had to do with the students’ inability to work in groups. He asked the student partner he worked with through Embry-Riddle’s pedagogical partnership program to gather feedback from enrolled students on the struggles they were facing with these tasks. Through engaging in dialogue with enrolled students through which those students were able to articulate their experiences and what would help them demonstrate their capacities, the student partner was able to gain honest feedback from students that the gap in this performance was due to their lack of writing skills and confidence in writing rather than their team working skills. This prompted the student partner to gather a small group of student leaders to host a writing workshop, with the support of the professor, to help students develop writing skills known to be expected in this industry. After providing this writing workshop, the faculty and student partner saw that student briefs not only met the mark, but exceeded expectations of the course learning outcomes. (For a second example, see Signorini, 2023; Signorini, Abuan, Panakkal et al., 2020.)

CC: An example of co-creation with enrolled students comes from University of Glasgow in Scotland, where one faculty member engaged with all enrolled students in the “co-design of essay and exam marking criteria” that also involved a “student peer-review exercise” and “the summative co-assessment of students’ oral presentations” (Deeley and Brown, 2014, p. 1). This co-creation approach works against one-way delivery models and equally unilateral approaches to assessment in most courses. This professor’s approach “symbolizes a recognition and acknowledgement” that students have “the capacity and responsibility to inform and contribute to their own learning” and is also “conducive to developing graduate attributes and skills useful and transferable to the students’ further study and/ or future workplace” (p. 8). Students who experience this form of assessment through a partnership mindset describe “the opportunity to build a relationship with a teacher in this unique way” as an “invaluable…means to building self-confidence, and self-worth” (p. 8).

2. Interactions with faculty and peers about substantive matters

This key feature of HIPs is typically understood in relation to out-of-class enrichment experiences, including students meeting weekly to attend events or discuss readings and assignments, facilitated by an upper-division peer mentor. The premise is that time outside of the class is necessary to “enrich” what happens inside the classroom. However, even sessions facilitated by peer mentors can reproduce the “banking model” of education (Freire, 1972) if the focus remains on delivery rather than on co-creation.

Through a partnership mindset, the substantive work of developing course practices and resources can be taken on by student partners in a teaching and learning center or within courses. In both cases, students can work as partners with faculty to co-design content and process, thereby shifting who has agency in decision-making and letting the enrichment come from the richness within. The collaborative processes to which both teachers and students actively contribute look different in our two approaches, but both can embrace co-creation by faculty and students in teaching and learning, thereby enacting a partnership mindset.

PP: One example of a pedagogical partnership program that supports the bringing to bear of a partnership mindset comes from Andrews University in Michigan, USA, where the Center for Teaching and Learning leverages student partner support for faculty and staff professional learning sessions. The substance upon which the staff and students collaborate for professional learning and assessment includes designing sessions and training faculty on the use of assessment tools. Students bring unique forms of understanding learning theory, based both on research and on their lived experiences. Regarding scholarship of teaching, students collaborate with center staff members to write about active learning across disciplines (Ade-Oshifogun, Allyn, Coria-Navia et al., 2024). Student partners work over several years to build content and relationships. While students learn from faculty, faculty are learning from their students’ perspectives, understandings, and lived experience. As a result, the materials are more transparent and equitable. Student partner Erica Howell states, “Being a partner to the Center has given me the opportunity to collaborate with faculty in order to create substantive change at the university level, share my perspectives on learning and classroom practices, and improve my own professional skills.”

CC: An example of co-creation with enrolled students took place at Appalachian State University, USA. In response to politically and racially charged incidents on her campus and beyond, a professor who was teaching a first-year seminar class on Arts4Peace “changed the focus of the course to what mattered to the students” (Nave, Aguilar, Barnes et al., 2018, p. 1). She invited students to “help determine the topics” that the course would investigate “as well as the shape of the discussions” (p. 3). Students commented on “the respectful environment and sense of equality” (p. 7) they felt in co-creating both the content and their engagement with it.

3. Experiences with diversity, wherein students are exposed to and must contend with people and circumstances that differ from those with which students are familiar

Like feature 3, the key feature of HIPs that focuses on experiences with diversity is typically conceptualized as forged through relationships with out-of-class contexts and groups. For instance, service-learning field assignments are assumed to be the source of diversity. However, enrolled students could also be conceptualized as “holders and creators of knowledge” (Delgado Bernal, 2002, p. 106) and their lived experiences recognized “as valid, appropriate, and necessary forms of data” (Yosso, Parker, Solórzano et al., 2004, p. 15) for learning how to engage with people and circumstances that differ from those with which other enrolled students are familiar. This assumption about the source of diversity is a good example of Zilvinskis, Kinzie, Daday et al.’s (2022a) reference to Patton, Harper and Harris’ (2015) point that the scholars of HIPs “often share dominant social identities and in turn envision HIPs for students with similar identities” (p. 16).

A partnership mindset brings intersecting identities, previous lived experiences, and resulting perspectives to the fore within a course. Rather than conceptualize subject matter and the spaces within which it is engaged as neutral or objective, a partnership mindset supports faculty and students in learning to draw on differences as resources, inviting students to bring their “funds of knowledge” (Moll, Amanti, Neff et al., 1992) into classrooms and make more connections between their formal education and the world in which it is situated. When instructors draw on these resources, conceiving of the work of teaching and learning as collaborative processes to which both teachers and students actively contribute, they enact a partnership mindset.

PP: An example of a pedagogical partnership program supporting faculty and students embracing a partnership mindset features a professor at Haverford College, USA. As a mixed-race female in the field of physics, Perez (2016) partnered with a student who was also a mixed-race female. This student partner observed her faculty partner’s course each week and offered her feedback and opportunities to reflect on her teaching, which shifted the faculty member’s mindset from dwelling on procedures to conceptualizing her ideal class environment. This partnership helped both women embrace vulnerability and learn from each other to combat being dissuaded from a career in STEM merely based on gender, ethnicity, and/or socio-economic status. Inspired by her partnership work, Perez held a critical conversation with students enrolled in her class about a case of harassment that had been in the news, which led to high levels of student engagement with her inside and outside of the class. Perez, her student partner, and her enrolled students experienced empowerment through their engagement with diversity amongst themselves and in the discipline. Bringing this partnership mindset to bear allowed enrolled students to learn from the instructor and one another about how to engage with people and circumstances that differ from their own and also to situate those understandings within larger systems and practices of inequity.

CC: An example of co-creation with enrolled students comes from Lafayette College, USA, and demonstrates how instructors invite students’ funds of knowledge into a course setting and use this knowledge to make instructional decisions that lead to a more inclusive course environment. One example is an instructor administering the “Who’s in Class?” form at the beginning of a course (Addy, Mitchell and Dube, 2021). This form gives students a chance to share the diverse attributes that they bring to the course as well as their perspectives on inclusive course environments. Addy, Mitchell and Dube (2021) report that, when examining the responses on the form, one instructor became aware that many students held full-time jobs outside of the course. Initially, the instructor planned to implement a larger assignment where students worked in groups primarily outside of class, but with this new information, the instructor recognized that such an assessment would be logistically challenging for many students. During class, the instructor shared the results from the form in aggregate so that students could see the diversity of the class, and led a whole-class discussion to co-design the assignment with their students in a way that honored students’ differing life circumstances.

4. Public demonstration of competence

This key feature of HIPs typically involves students presenting to their classmates and being evaluated by a faculty or staff member. Faculty decide the criteria for competence testing, and the “public” encompasses faculty members only. Students neither actively contribute to conceptualizing what constitutes competence nor are they included in the “public” to which their peers demonstrate competence. As with feature 1, there is a danger that this feature of HIPs might “still serve students with the most capital” rather than considering students’ competence and feedback from different entry points (Zilvinskis, Kinzie, Daday et al., 2022a, p. 16). It also provides single rather than multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate their competence in public settings.

Rather than adhering to traditional, unidirectional, and single-audience public demonstrations of competence, a partnership mindset supports faculty and students engaging in co-creating criteria and audiences for public displays of competence, promoting shared ownership of how learning is demonstrated. A partnership mindset fosters an environment in which students and faculty view each other as collaborators in the creation and demonstration of competence and encourages multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate their competence in public settings. Publicly showcasing their work beyond an audience of only faculty members not only fosters student agency within hierarchical systems and structures but also helps them develop the skills needed to communicate effectively to different stakeholders.

PP: An example of how a pedagogical partnership program can foster the development of a partnership mindset comes from the Teaching and Learning Institute (TLI) at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, USA. In response to the pandemic-prompted shift to remote and hybrid formats, student partners, faculty, and staff developed trauma-informed, anti-racist approaches to teaching and learning (Ameyaa, Cook-Sather, Ramo et al., 2021). These efforts continued with Pedagogy Circles that provided cross-constituency (faculty, staff, student) dialogue on DEI efforts in and beyond classrooms. In 2021, the TLI introduced the “Pedagogy Circle for BIPOC Faculty,” co-facilitated by two Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) student partners, a counter-space that fosters well-being by encouraging participants to bring their full selves to discussions that emphasize presence and pedagogical growth. Student co-facilitators share and receive feedback from BIPOC faculty, blending professional and personal growth while addressing harms faced by equity-seeking students (de Bie, Marquis, Cook-Sather et al., 2021). Their lived experiences and identities make them valuable resources, fostering trust and creating spaces where higher education becomes more equitable, accessible, and supportive for all.

CC: An example of co-creation with enrolled students demonstrates how a partnership mindset can disrupt traditional power dynamics in a course, empower students with agency, and acknowledge their expertise. At the University of Cape Town, South Africa, instructors collaborated with students to co-create an open textbook as part of their course. This initiative not only made students feel valued but also enabled them to collectively develop an open educational resource that promoted more equitable engagement with the course material (Cox and Masuku, 2023). The process of publishing the textbook—presenting it to a wider public—highlights students’ competence by positioning them as co-creators, rather than mere consumers, of knowledge. This approach demonstrates their ability to contribute meaningfully to the creation and representation of knowledge while fostering a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

5. Periodic, structured opportunities to reflect and integrate learning

This key feature of HIPs typically focuses on faculty inviting students to reflect on their learning and growth. This reflection creates opportunities to align individual student aspirations with course objectives. Both the structures for reflection and the criteria for assessing whether learning has been integrated are generated by faculty.

A partnership mindset, in contrast, draws on Freire’s (1972) argument for teachers as teacher-learners and students as learner-teachers working through dialogue throughout the learning experience, and hooks’ (1994) advocacy for teachers and students “hearing one another’s voices” to build engaged and inclusive learning communities (p. 8). Such an approach fosters deeper engagement and supports faculty and students participating in ongoing dialogue, rather than students reflecting alone. In addition, it affords an opportunity to align individual student goals with meaningful impacts on their learning experience, thereby making learning more meaningful, personalized, and impactful.

PP: An example of how a pedagogical partnership program can foster the development of a partnership mindset comes from Syracuse University’s Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence, USA. The Students Consulting on Teaching (SCOT) requires that students participate regularly in weekly meetings in which they share the progress about their learning on the assigned feedback method they specialize on, their progress on issues encountered in their partnerships, and the possible solutions they are trying out. In their partnerships, students and faculty engage in frequent communication, collaboratively designing questionnaires and other data collection strategies that in turn inform how enrolled students are invited into dialogue with faculty about their learning.

CC: An example of co-creation with enrolled students highlights an initiative from the Scottish higher-education sector. Lubicz-Nawrocka (2018) examines the benefits of co-creating curricula across four Scottish universities and multiple disciplines, focusing on its impact on both faculty and students. The study explores connections between the benefits of co-creation and theoretical work on self-authorship, which encompasses cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal abilities that help individuals adapt to a rapidly changing, complex world. Both student and staff participants appear to have gained interpersonal self-authorship through working in partnership, respecting each other’s contributions, cognitive development relating to learning and teaching, and ability to challenge authority in the classroom and the wider world. This development of self-authorship and critical “being” can help both students and staff to adapt to an ever-changing, supercomplex world.

Conclusion: Bringing a partnership mindset to key features of HIPs

The current educational landscape increasingly requires attention to equity and inclusion, even in the face of attacks on this work. It is evident that good teaching, even when it embraces and enacts high-impact practices, is insufficient to address the systemic inequities and power imbalances that persist in higher education. Current conceptualizations and implementation of the key features of HIPs, while valuable in engaging students through research, experiential learning, and collaboration, often maintain traditional hierarchies and privilege dominant identities in ways that limit the full participation of marginalized groups. A partnership mindset allows faculty and students to move beyond these boundaries, embracing a relational approach through which students are co-creators of the key features of the high-impact practices they experience. Central to this mindset is the focus on robust student-faculty relationships, which are proven to enhance student outcomes, including academic success, motivation, and a sense of belonging (Bovill, 2020b; Felten and Lambert, 2020). Furthermore, a partnership mindset incorporates care and trust as foundational principles, creating equitable spaces where students can thrive.

A partnership mindset expands our conceptualization of who gets to define, contextualize, and implement the key features of HIPs, querying the positioning of faculty/staff and students and their responsibilities in the broader higher education ecosystem. Embracing this mindset makes learning a shared journey that values diverse perspectives, supports mutual growth, and promotes inclusivity. The examples provided—from pedagogical partnership programs and from co-creation with enrolled students—demonstrate the profound impact of this mindset on educational experiences, highlighting its capacity to empower individuals, challenge established norms, and cultivate democratic engagement. By integrating a partnership ethos into their practices, institutions can create adaptive, equitable, and transformative learning environments that equip students and faculty to thrive in a dynamic and interconnected world.

As the examples in this discussion illustrate, a partnership mindset can inform work faculty do with student partners who are not enrolled in their courses and work they do with their enrolled students. Cultivating a partnership mindset requires faculty to embrace their role as collaborators who prioritize mutual respect and shared responsibility (Cook-Sather and Kaur, 2022). This shift invites students to bring their full selves into academic spaces, fostering a sense of agency and belonging that empowers them to navigate higher education with confidence (Cook-Sather, Cott, Seay et al., 2023). By disrupting traditional power dynamics, including who is responsible for conceptualizing key features of HIPs and how to assess student engagement in those, a partnership mindset can support faculty and students in taking steps toward redressing the harms caused by the inequalities that equity-seeking students experience, ensuring that higher education becomes more accessible and inclusive. Through co-created environments, students and faculty collaborate to reimagine academic spaces as equitable, transformative, and humanizing. Embracing a partnership mindset allows us to transcend unidirectional and transactional teaching, inviting all participants to engage fully, learn deeply, and experience a higher education that fosters not just knowledge, but also personal and institutional transformation for historically minoritized groups.

ORCiDs

Alison Cook-Sather: 0000-0002-0116-7158

Adriana Signorini: 0000-0003-4817-6737

Tracie Marcella Addy: 0000-0003-0061-2595

Aimee Fleming: N/A

Anneris Coria-Navia: 0000-0002-2258-9712

Jacques Safari Mwayaona: 0000-0002-1965-5184

Anna Santucci: 0000-0002-8168-8569

Biography

Alison Cook-Sather, Ph.D., is the Mary Katharine Woodworth Professor of Education at Bryn Mawr College and Director of the Teaching and Learning Institute at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges. She has developed internationally recognized student-faculty pedagogical partnership programs, authored or co-authored over 200 articles and chapters and 12 books, consulted on 6 continents, and received the Alumni Excellence in Education Award from the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. Learn more at https://www.alisoncooksather.com/

Adriana Signorini, Ed.D., leads the Student Assessing Teaching and Learning (SATAL) program, a student-faculty partnership program grounded in the co-creation of teaching and learning. Through SATAL, she supports faculty in implementing formative assessment practices that center student perspectives and foster collaborative and equity-oriented course design. Her research explores the impact of pedagogical partnership on both students and faculty, with a particular focus on student voice, relational pedagogy, and the process of co-authoring scholarship with student partners. Check out our research: https://teach.ucmerced.edu/satal

Tracie Marcella Addy, Ph.D., M.Phil., is the Founding Director of the Institute for Teaching, Innovation, & Inclusive Pedagogy and Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Learning & Teaching, Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. An experienced educator, published scholar, and educational developer, her efforts on effective teaching are widely recognized within higher education. As a visionary leader and a pragmatic executor, she has successfully implemented numerous successful projects and initiatives.

Aimee Fleming is the Associate Director for the Center of Teaching and Learning Excellence at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. She holds two master’s degrees and brings over 19 years of experience in the field of education. Over the past three years, Aimee has launched and led the university’s innovative Students-as-Partners Program, fostering collaboration between students and faculty to enhance teaching and learning. Her work reflects a deep commitment to empowering learners and advancing educational excellence through partnership, innovation, and inclusive practice.

Anneris Coria-Navia is associate director of education at the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists where she supports 30 higher education institutions across the world on quality and missional alignment. She recently transitioned to this position from being the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning and Chief Learning Officer at Andrews University, where she championed partnership models in course design and in the work of the Center for Teaching and Learning which she directed for nine years.

Jacques Safari Mwayaona was most recently a faculty development fellow at the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence at Syracuse University where he co-led the students consulting on teaching (SCOT), a student-as-partners program through which faculty and students collaborate to collect and respond to students’ feedback. He is the POD network 2023–24 Donald H. Wulff Diversity Fellow and the 2020 Open Society Foundations 2020 Civil Society Leadership Awards (CSLA) scholar for his inclusive work in higher education.

Anna Santucci, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Associate Director in the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Virginia. Her transdisciplinary work promotes interculturality, equity, and justice in higher education via participatory arts, critical reflection, and dialogically relational co-creation. She has pioneered student-staff pedagogical partnerships at University College Cork (Ireland), contributed over 100 publications and presentations across 10 countries, and served professional leadership roles for several national and international organizations. Learn more at https://www.linkedin.com/in/annasantucci/

Note

The authors are founding and newer members of the Co-creation through Partnership special interest group from the Professional Organizational Development (POD) network. We are HIPs allies/advocates, driven by our connection to student-faculty partnership. We firmly believe that bringing a partnership mindset to the conceptualization and enactment of key features of HIPs, as presented, is a realistic approach to supporting historically minoritized students’ success and can lead to equity and inclusiveness in higher education.

Acknowledgments

We thank Tia McNair for suggestion that we write about bringing a partnership mindset to HIPs, and we thank Natalie McArthur for her efforts on formatting our list of references.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors have no conflict of interest.

References

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