HEPI produce a survey every year, the Student Academic Experience Survey. This year for the first time, they reported student perceptions broken down under sexual orientation, well, LGB. There weren’t enough responses to make ‘T’ responses robust enough. I hope this will change next year as more and more schools and colleges are providing trans* pupils and students with support and consequently, they will have higher expectations of their university experience. However, even with just LGB responses reported, the level of wellbeing reported is significantly lower than for non-LGB students (see section 12.1). Given this, I guess I was a bit disappointed with the mildness of recommendation 8 at the end of the report: ‘.. it seems there is a need for additional support for students in minority groups – as well as room for further research on how different groups..’. However, HEPI deserve praise for doing it at all.
The briefing, was an all-to-brief 90 minute breakfast session to launch the report to over a 100 participants including MPs, vice-chancellors, registrars and associated charities. There were three speakers and questions afterwards.