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Maisha is the Student Engagement Research and Projects Officer within the Department of Student Engagement and Employability. This sees Maisha supporting and researching strategic projects relating to student engagement, student experience, student employability and other strategic matters. For example. looking at disaggregating Winchester's Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) degree awarding gap by researching the 'Asian' student experience. Alongside working at the University, Maisha is studying for an EdD where she hopes to further research areas related to BAME and Muslim student experience.
Maisha has a keen research interest related to the above areas and has published and presented within the field. This has included: Muslim student sense of belonging at university and representativeness of diversity within institutions. Recently, Maisha has secured a Good Practice Grant from AdvanceHE to work on a 'What works?' case study which will aim to provide guidance to universities about fostering a sense of belonging for Muslim students.
Internally, Maisha is the secretary for the university's BAME Network and is a member of the Race Equality Action Group. She has also undertaken hourly-paid and guest lecturing work within Student Engagement and Childhood Studies programmes.
Externally, Maisha is an Executive Committee Member for the Gender and Education Association and member of the Office for Students' Student Panel. She has also sat on a UUK-AdvanceHE staff panel looking at guidance for universities to tackle racial harrasment and has been involved in work with the Changing Mindsets project, an Office for Students funded project focused on closing attainment gaps in higher education.
She is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Publications
Islam, M. (2021) Disaggregating the BAME Degree-Awarding Gap: Understanding and Exploring the 'Asian' Student Experience. University of Winchester. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19843.63525
Islam, M. (2019) Reflection note: confessions of a Muslim researcher considering identity in research, International Journal of Social Research Methodology 23:5, pp. 509-515, DOI: 10.1080/13645579.2019.1700726.
Mercer-Mapstone, L., Islam, M. & Reid, T. (2019) Are we just engaging ‘the usual suspects?’: Challenges in and practical strategies for supporting equity and diversity in student-staff partnership initiatives. Teaching in Higher Education. DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2019.1655396
Islam, M. (2019) To BAME or not to BAME? A critical reflection on the place of race and religion within ‘student engagement’. Journal of Educational Innovation, Partnership and Change, 5(1), 90-92. http://dx.doi.org/10.21100/jeipc.v5i1.934.
Islam, M., Lowe, T. and Jones, G. (2019). A ‘satisfied settling’? Investigating a sense of belonging for Muslim students in a UK small-medium Higher Education Institution. Student Engagement in Higher Education, 2(2), 79-104.
Conferences
Islam, M. & Morris, K. Encouraging ‘Racially Literate’ Graduates for the Future – Embedding Diversity and Cultural Awareness into Undergraduate Programmes – University of Winchester Annual Learning and Teaching Week – Embedding Employability in the Curriculum (MS Teams, 2nd June 2020).
Islam, M., Reid, T. & Mercer-Mapstone, L. Reflecting on the Inclusion of a Diversity of Students and Staff in UK Student-Staff Partnership Schemes – RAISE Annual Conference - Exploring the Impact of Student Engagement (Newcastle, 4th Septmeber 2019).
Panel member – Gagnon, J., Green, P., Hill, V., Hoskins, S., Islam, M., Layer, A., Mahmud, A., Okobi, E. & Watson, L. - Changing Mindsets: Reducing stereotype threat and implicit bias as barriers to student success – 18th Annual Gender and Education Association International Conference – About face: Identities, In/visibilities, Inequalities, and Intersections in Education (Portsmouth, 27th June 2019).
Islam, M. Exploring the validity of 'Satisfied Settling' through investigating Muslim student experience – Change Agents’ Network Conference – ‘The evolving landscape of staff-student partnership’ (Milton Keynes, 30th May 2019).
Islam, M. & Shepherd, C., ‘Silent Voices’ – Exploring Minority Student Experiences – sparqs Conference 2019 – Student Engagement for All (Edinburgh, 28th March 2019).
Panel facilitator - What should “working in partnership” look like in practice? – Changing Mindsets – Eliminating Inequalities: Staff and students working in partnership to tackle differential outcomes (London, 13th February 2019).
Lowe, T. & Islam, M., Putting the Student Participation Map into Practice: A report from the University of Winchester’s Get Involved project to holistically increase student engagement across departments – RAISE Annual Conference - Working better together: collaborations in student engagement (Sheffield, 7th September 2018).
Panel member – At the Intersections: Race and Class in Higher Education – Changing Mindsets Mid-Project Conference (Portsmouth, 28th June 2018)
Lowe, T., Islam, M., Mellor, T., A ‘One-Stop-Shop’ to enhance the Student Experience through active communication of extra-curricular and co-curricular opportunities – SEDA Spring Learning and Teaching Conference – Understanding and improving the student experience: making a real difference in the new age of metrics (Leeds, 10th May 2018).
Islam, M., Lowe, T., Jones, G., Exploring ‘Sense of Belonging’ – Muslim Students at the University of Winchester – Change Agents’ Network Conference – Championing Student-Staff Partnerships in an Age of Change (Winchester, 20th April 2018).