I was immensely impressed with the range of projects that were displayed and this a real credit to everybody involved in the project but also the wider work on the BME attainment Gap.

I agree with Tracy in the student voice could have been more powerful. That said, I do think we need to avoid slipping into a 'consumerist' way of thinking and simply reacting to whatever students might say. If I were to go to hospital, just as I would want to express pain and discomfort and be informed of the basic produce, I would want to defer to the professional judgement of the surgeon with regards to the specialist aspects of her craft.

I felt we saw some of the 'craft' of the academic in Professor Paul Gilroy's presentation. It contained, for me all the ingredients of what a university educator should be, namely, knowledgeable, human, humorous, reflective, dialogical and brave.

Last, I must comment on the ice breaker, which I personally found extremely moving and I am still reflecting on the many different insights it offered for understanding human relations and human pedagogy on so many different levels, some of which I did outline at the conference.

Dr Gurnam Singh

Principal Lecturer in Social Work,  Coventy University

_{Due to technical problems comments are currently unavailable but if you would like to contribute to this discussion please email D.Cureton@wlv.ac.uk} 

It was a stimulating and challenging event. What struck me was that despite our widely held pragmatic view that there is little we (the HE sector) alone can achieve in addressing underlying societal inequalities, nevertheless there is felt a value in incremental small changes and the promotion of on-going dialogue and action. Coming away from the conference I felt there were still many more actions each project team wanted to try and further data to be gathered and analysed. How can we work together/collaborate to try out these different actions in other contexts/institutions?

I was disappointed that we had not brought many students (beyond people studying towards PhDs) to the conference; the primary student voice seemed absent. How might we better raise student's awareness of the work we are doing in this area and our energy and commitment towards seeking ways of addressing the disparity? Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, how can we better involve students in the journey to improve the situation?

Tracy McCoy – Action researcher
University of Wolverhampton

_{Due to technical problems comments are currently unavailable but if you would like to contribute to this discussion please email D.Cureton@wlv.ac.uk}