An inclusive campus culture rests on three key pillars: infrastructure, services and support beyond academic matters.
First, it is important to provide students with the resources they need to thrive within a digital environment. For example, we extend communication channels beyond formal emails to Telegram, Instagram, TikTok and other social media platforms, in order to speak students’ language. We also provide a space where students can interact with their peers through social media, so we can learn more from them.
- Reimagining the student experience using tips from start-up culture
- ‘Support is not remedial. It is pedagogy’
- Greeting first-year university students with ‘structured serendipity’
Second, provide students with a variety of clubs that enable them to develop the leadership skills, social responsibility and self-organisation that they’ll need later in life.
Third, make sure that everyone is heard regardless of their social background, origin or other differences, by focusing on what minority groups need and offering targeted support. For example, at our university, students from socially vulnerable groups are provided with targeted financial support in terms of meals and accommodation. Organising different events dedicated to a specific culture each week also helps international students feel a sense of belonging.
Building a successful inclusive environment is closely linked with giving students the opportunity to shape it together with administration and staff through shared governance. Here’s how.
Students as co-architects of inclusion
Allowing students to participate in shared governance benefits both the administration and students by allowing their views to be gathered and used in policy development. We experimented by giving students official representation and voting rights in the highest directive university-level committees.
Another practice that we have implemented is inviting student government representatives on to hiring panels for senior leaders. This proved how effective students can be in decision-making bodies because they provide perspective in ways staff cannot anticipate.
We have realised that not only are the practices themselves crucial but the way the student organisations themselves operate. Our student government, for example, is founded on the principles of horizontal leadership, integrity and peer-to-peer support. Those values are clearly embedded and exercised through various events and projects they organise, such as tutoring, mental health campaigns and academic guidebooks.
We believe that the student government should not be seen as the provider of all solutions but rather a partner in co-architecting the inclusive environment.
How to get past challenges
In our view, universities can achieve an inclusive environment through collective leadership. While staff and academic units can provide the infrastructure, students can bring inclusion to life in their day-to-day experiences.
Challenges might still arise. One is what we call “invisible isolation” – when students feel disconnected despite engaging in social and extracurricular activities. Another difficulty could be the development of concrete measures of inclusion. In our case, aligning evaluation tools with existing international standards (such as the equity, inclusion and social justice standards of student personnel unions ACPA and NASPA) helped us move toward more reliable metrics.
We have observed several helpful practices. For instance, regular climate surveys adapted from the campus climate assessment model, the map of student services and feedback channels, and peer-to-peer initiatives. Those measures ensured transparency, accessibility and the building of communities, increasing students’ overall sense of belonging.
Our key insight is that inclusion should be treated as a culture, built through the joint efforts of all key stakeholders at the university. Students become genuinely engaged when their voices are considered in decision-making processes and when staff remain open to a collaborative approach.
We believe that other institutions, regardless of differences in structures, can benefit from similar measures. Our key advice would be to start with small structures that make students’ participation visible, and view inclusion as a continuous practice rather than a fixed programme.
Dana Abiltayeva is general manager of the department of student services and Ayana Batyrbayeva is president of the student government for 2024–2025, both at Nazarbayev University.
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