HISA played a central role in the recent UHI Learning, Teaching and Student Experience Conference in Inverness on 17th and 18th June.
HISA played a central role in the recent UHI Learning, Teaching and Student Experience Conference in Inverness on 17th and 18th June. This event, held every two years, draws together people from across the UHI partnership to learn and share together, and HISA contributed a number of sessions.
Three of our incoming officer team for 2026-27; President Ollie Sweeney, Vice-President Education Andi Garrity, and Inverness Depute President Chloe Young formed a Student Officer panel on the first day, sharing their experiences on UHI Transformation, the student experience and more.
Andi also co-facilitated a workshop with UHI staff on partnership and our forthcoming Student Partnership Agreement, and presented on the national project he has led; Scotland’s Language Accessibility Promise, which asks institutions to commit to using jargon-free language in communications to students. Andi said “I’m delighted and proud to have presented on how we in HISA are shaping national conversations about learning, and hope to continue doing this in the coming year.”
Elsewhere in the programme, our Faculty Intern for Science, Health and the Environment, Kian McDonald, presented on his research project on student perceptions of the environmental impact of generative AI. HISA staff members Annie Mason, Scarlett Fox and Simon Varwell presented on the implications of UHI’s diverse student population and what this means for how we support and engage with them; the power of questions in critical thinking for staff and students; and the impact and outputs of the Student Voice Rep system.
Ollie said “This conference was a great way of hearing about the wonderful work staff are doing across UHI, and sharing HISA’s own priorities and work. One of our keynotes, Tom Lowe, said that, given the major social changes of the past few years, if you haven’t studied in the last five years you don’t know what it’s like to be a student – and that is what we as a students’ association can bring to discussions about the student experience at UHI.”