Following Participants A and B, I aim to be a compassionate listener, meeting students where they are and suppling information. McGill and Joslin (2021) stress understanding stages of student identity development, their diverse personal circumstances and the importance of making information available and connecting students with expert advice and community networks. I aim to be better informed about available services within and outside UAL, while newly understanding that queer students may see me as a point of contact in the absence of other information, networks or mentors.
Following Participant B’s practical interventions, the recent removal of UAL guidance and the lack of LGBTQ+ student group, I aim to establish and circulate a bank of resources within departments and possibly through the LGBTQ+ staff network. Relevant information about LGBTQ+ sexual/gender identities and wellbeing could also be made available in libraries. I will add queer texts to course reading lists and suggest new acquisitions to the library.
I will continue to include queer lecture content. This corresponds with advice that ‘LGBTQ+ students deserve to see LGBTQ+ people, our families and our histories represented throughout their education’ (Kelly, 2021). This indicates the value of my potentially contributing to LGBTQ+ History Month (UAL: LGBTQ+ History Month). I won’t follow Participant C’s way of centring tutor identity, but following Participant B, I will highlight pronoun use and like Participant A, consider discrete signalling that positions me as approachable.
My ARP has impressed upon me the importance of understanding the specific challenges associated with different identities in the LGBTQ+ spectrum in relation to shifts in culture and law, notably the particular discrimination of trans and gender non-conforming people. I aim to include a greater and more consistent spread of identities and intersectional discussion in course materials. I also aim to decentre cisgendered heteronormativity, highlighting pervasive heterosexual cisgendered assumptions to students and staff.
Participants B and C prompted reflection on the/my privilege of purported identity stability and its social recognition, considering the potential effects/affects of identity flux for staff and students. I was reminded that queer identities might not be visible, making me alive to unexpected needs from unexpected students. This also points to the nature of queer subjectivity, the closet, the open secret and ‘passing’ (Kosofsky Sedgewick, 1994 [1990]). Unlike my participants, my cohorts are not predominantly queer, but I have seen student interest in exploring queer topics. Without making assumptions about their identities, I aim to prompt critical and ethical student reflection.
I will consider circulating findings in the LGBTQ+ staff network as a form of ethical reciprocity, the project ‘giving back’ (Tubaro, 2021). Dissemination is an ethical issue, but participants would be newly contacted and given advanced access to documents before circulation, which would be within a supportive network. I will consider communicating my findings in an academic journal article and/or conference paper. This would maximise the impact of my ARP and add to my portfolio of expertise. However, as an HPL, this is an additional burden characteristic of a neoliberal system in which I feel the pressure to produce academic research which benefits the institution, in what has been termed ‘mission creep’ (Henderson, 2009), while also experiencing employment precarity (Rogler, 2019). To address the lack of sufficient attention to LGBTQ+ identities in PgCcert content, I will offer feedback to influence its future direction in course reapproval.
Bibliography
Henderson, B. B. (2009) ‘Mission creep and teaching at the master’s university’, College Teaching, 57(4) pp. 185-187
Kelly, N. (2021) Foreword. UCAS-Stonewall: Next Steps: What is the experience of LGBT+ students in education?. Accessed 17th Dec 2025 at: <https://www.ucas.com/data-and-analysis/undergraduate-statistics-and-reports/ucas-reports/next-steps-ucas-report-lgbt-students>
Kosofsky Sedgwick, E. (1994 [1990]) Epistemology of the closet. London: Penguin.
McGill, C. M. and Joslin, J. E. (2021) Advising lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer college students. Sterling: Stylus Publishing
Rogler, C. R. (2019) ‘Insatiable greed: performance pressure and precarity in the neoliberalised university’, Social Anthropology: Special Issue on Politics of Precarity: Neoliberal Academia Under Austerity Measures and Authoritarian Threat, 27 pp. 1-117
Tubaro, P. (2021) Whose results are these anyway? Reciprocity and the ethics of “giving back” after social network research, Social Networks, 67, pp. 65-73.
UAL: LGBTQ+ History Month. Last year as an example: Accessed 4th Jan 2026 at <https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/stories/lgbtq-history-month>