Mini case study
The frequency of meetings, and their format, has also been approached flexibly by all universities, responding both to the preferences of members and evolving priorities. When the JAGs were in their early stages, it was useful to meet regularly to establish the group appropriately and educate members about the TESCEA project. For example, Gulu University held a “Transforming Communities stakeholder engagement and learning evening” to develop a greater sense of community around the TESCEA project at the university. You can read more about the event here: Transforming learning and connecting communities to support higher education, by David Monk. However, over time this changed, and universities convened their JAGs quarterly or to coincide with key activities:
“They began as a very engaged team …we did some initial workshops with them, facilitating sessions about skills that are needed for employability and they participated in community engagement activities to connect with lecturers, and they also participated in another workshop around gender and employment… [However, later on, they] requested to be more of an advisory committee”
Dr David Monk, Gulu University
As Monk suggests, JAG meetings can be run like workshops, with group work and activities, but they can also take the form of a classically facilitated meeting or even a networking session between the university and stakeholders.
“The meetings are structured as workshops with short presentations, group work, plenary sessions and mainly participatory… gender representation was always considered.”
Professor Flora Fabian, UDOM.