Reflections on that-has-been: Snapshots from the students-as-partners movement

The idea for this multipart reflective essay emerged from first author Christel Brost’s reflections on her experience of striving to develop a students-as-partners approach within the context of a summer institute and then back at her home institution. To aid reflection on these experiences, Christel used Roland Barthe’s construct of that-has-been, which she explains below, to examine several “mental snapshots” of her experiences and what those mean for her personally and for students-as-partners work. Inspired by the vivid, emotion filled representation of Christel’s “snapshots,” we (co-editors of reflective essays for the journal, Anita Ntem and Alison Cook-Sather) invited participants from two other venues to share their reflections within the same frame. Authors of each section of this essay use Barthes’ construct to “zoom in” on different moments and lived experiences of partnership, creating mental snapshots from three students-as-partners venues. The first venue is the Change Institute at the May 2017 International Summer Institute on Students as Partners held at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The second is the May 2017 Pedagogic Partnership Conference held at Lafayette College in, Easton, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The third is the June 2017 RAISE International Partnership Colloquium held at Birmingham City University in Birmingham, England.