Collaborating with undergraduate and graduate students in pedagogical research and innovation.
The Student Partners Program (SPP) provides any undergraduate and graduate students with paid opportunities to participate as partners with faculty, instructors and staff on projects that contribute to the enhancement of teaching and learning at McMaster. The SPP runs two project cycles a year (fall/winter and summer). Projects supported by the SPP provide opportunities to contribute to activities such as: design and development of new courses, creation of resources for faculty and students, and collaboration with staff and faculty partners on research projects related to teaching and learning.
The Student Partner’s Program operates on an award-based model. Funds awarded and distributed up to a maximum of $2000 per project (to fund Student Partner hours). Note the Online Course Design stream offers up to $4,000 per project to hire one or more student course-designers for Winter and/or Summer 2026 ($2,000 per student, per term up to a maximum of $4,000 per project across two terms). Project funds are transferred to the project lead and are held in departmental accounts and are to be used solely for student partner pay.
Student hiring is completed by the faculty/staff partner’s department. Student Partners are hired two times a year—typically in May and September.
Thank you all for applying to the Summer 2026 student partners student call. Do a high number of applications, some leads may not be able to unsuccessful candidates. The hiring deadline for project leads is April 27th.
If you have questions about the call or the Student Partner Program in general, please contact mi_sap@mcmaster.ca. Otherwise, please contact the noted project leads in the project description document for project specific questions.
The opportunity to work with a student partner and develop work together was wonderful in terms of expanding my own perspective and better understanding how students learn.
“I have gained so much from being involved in this project. The opportunity to work with a student partner and develop work together was wonderful in terms of expanding my own perspective and better understanding how students learn. I valued the chance to be involved in an important project while also giving the student the opportunity to steer the project, make recommendations, and work together to figure out how to best implement suggestions and ideas.”
This project was truly a partnership between faculty, students, and an alumnus. As such, it allowed rich and insightful contributions from members at different levels of the McMaster community!
“This project was truly a partnership between faculty, students, and an alumnus. As such, it allowed rich and insightful contributions from members at different levels of the McMaster community! Each team member learned something valuable from the other, and it made for a stronger project collaboration.”
Through my involvement in this partnership, I gained valuable project management and professional experience, which I know will serve me well as I enter the professional workforce.
“Through my involvement in this partnership, I gained valuable project management and professional experience, which I know will serve me well as I enter the professional workforce. What I valued the most was the opportunity to engage with the local high school community in a meaningful way, fostering connections and making a tangible impact on students.”
This experience greatly enhanced my communication and interpersonal skills, preparing me for leadership roles in other student-led initiatives and in professional settings.
“As a student partner, I gained valuable experience in recruiting, collaborating with, and leading a diverse team through organizing the event committee. This committee included older adults as well as graduate and post-graduate students, which allowed me to develop skills in facilitating dialogue that was accessible to both demographics, bridging communication gaps and fostering inclusivity. This experience greatly enhanced my communication and interpersonal skills, preparing me for leadership roles in other student-led initiatives and in professional settings.”
As the student partner, I was able to gain excellent experience in education research
“As the student partner, I was able to gain excellent experience in education research. Prior to beginning this project, I had never developed a longitudinal survey or met with focus groups. These are experiences I would not have had in my academic research career.”
Partnerships for us involves the formation of reciprocal relationships between students and academic staff. Everyone involved in the project are engaged in the process of working and learning together and stand to gain from it. We view partnership as a process or a way of doing things rather than the output of some product or artifact. Partnership is, in the end, a more abstract word. How your partnership operates or looks will always come down to preference. Partnership does not take a singular form, however, at its core, all partnerships are built on reciprocity, respect, and transparency between members.
Student partnerships are similar in nature to interpersonal partnerships that you have in life. There are some standards of interactions and behaviour that lead to lasting meaningful partnerships and have lasting impact on students and staff well past end dates.
What are the preferred ways to communicate and work. Be mindful that partnership requires collaboration and not just assigning tasks. The traditional staff/student dynamic should not be expected. Create an environment where students lead and take initiative, express concerns, and let it be known that expectations are not being met.
Discuss how and if the project’s findings will be disseminated. Whose name will go first on articles and other publications. Discuss how and where documents and other information will be saved and stored. What can be included on each team member’s CV and what can be done to bolster each other.
Discuss the short and long-term goals of the project as a group and personal objectives. What exactly do both sides want to get out of the partnership. Create a mutual and shared set of expectations, protect them, and revisit them if need be.
Traditionally, educators position faculty as experts who impart knowledge to students. The student partner approach, however, promotes a collaborative relationship where faculty and students work together. This method challenges the traditional hierarchy, sharing decision-making responsibilities in pedagogy. It encourages students to take an active role, fostering greater engagement, responsibility, and ownership of their learning.
The advantages of partnerships in higher education have been extensively documented (Barnes, Goldring, Bestwick, & Wood, 2010; Healey, Flint & Harrington, 2014; Jarvis, Dickerson & Stockwell, 2013). For instance, collaborations in teaching and learning can build research capacity through joint inquiry, enhance engagement with teaching and learning, and develop the knowledge and skills of both students and staff. Additionally, these partnerships foster a sense of personal and social responsibility, boost personal and professional confidence, and create a stronger sense of belonging and community within the university.
Working with students provides a more contextualized and precise understanding of student collected data, feedback and assessment and it thus far more likely to result in sustainable and mutually beneficial changes to teaching and learning practices.
Encouraging genuine collaboration, we foster a collective effort where students, faculty, and staff collaborate to co-create meaningful contributions to teaching and learning projects. Recognizing the importance of diverse perspectives, skills, and experiences, we firmly believe that collaboration enriches the quality of the work undertaken.
Our program is committed to cultivating an inclusive environment. Actively promoting participation from individuals of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and identities—including students, faculty, and staff—we emphasize the significance of equity and diversity in shaping educational practices.
Our objective is to empower all participants—students, faculty, and staff—to actively participate in the teaching and learning process. Through purposeful partnerships, we strive to give students the agency to contribute to the intellectual direction of projects, fostering a sense of ownership and empowerment.
We are dedicated to maintaining a commitment to excellence in teaching and learning. The program seeks projects that have the potential to make meaningful contributions to enhancing educational practices and knowledge. We prioritize rigorous scholarship, innovation, and an ongoing commitment to improvement.
Ensuring transparency in all processes and procedures, we prioritize clear communication. From the selection of projects to reporting outcomes, our focus is on making expectations, goals, and timelines easily understandable for all stakeholders, fostering trust and accountability.
The Student Partner Program is designed to support a diverse range of disciplines and unique projects. To ensure each project is evaluated appropriately, the program has partnered with other bodies at the university to create multiple award streams. Each stream focuses on a specific area and is overseen by its own dedicated stream chair, who leads the review and approval process. This structure allows for fair, consistent, and specialized assessment, ensuring that every project is reviewed by individuals best equipped to understand its impact. The following streams have partnered with the Students as Partners Program to focus unique projects and opportunities for students. Partnered streams are in addition to the main stream and may not run each project cycle.
Open Education Resources (OER) Stream – The creation, adaptation and use of OER is aimed at reducing barriers to learning materials, while also providing instructors greater autonomy in contextualizing course materials to better reflect their teaching and learning goals. The OER stream offers instructors the opportunity to hire students as collaborators on projects dedicated to the creation and/or adaptation of openly licensed learning materials.
Online Course Design (OCD) stream – Provides up to $4,000 per project to hire one or more student course-designers for Summer and/or Fall ($2,000 per student, per term up to a maximum of $4,000 per project across two terms which must be used for online course design/redesign). Faculty and student partners will receive dedicated online course design, teaching technologies, and accessible teaching practices support through a learning community composed of the Digital Learning and educational developers from the MacPherson Institute. Only McMaster undergraduate or graduate credit courses are eligible. Proof of chair/Associate-Dean acknowledgement is mandatory.
Course Consultant Partnership Program (CCPP) stream – The CCPP stream operates according to a particular model, which is described on the following page: https://mi.mcmaster.ca/course-consultant-partnership-program/. This stream pairs instructors with a student whose role is to contribute to and provide feedback on course development. This allows partners to collaborate throughout the Spring/Summer term on their course; this stream can be used to develop a brand new course or re-design an existing one.
We would like to sincerely thank the following people for reviewing the Summer 2026 Student Partner Project Applications:
Ian Steinberg, Lydia Chen, Emily Hector, Mike Welland, Sharonna Greenberg, Ben Mazin, Katie Harding, Alexia Cipriani, Josh Nederveen, Robin Enns, Heather O’Reilly, Lexie Milmine, Rebecca Seymour, Sarah Seymour, Susan McCracken, Jeffery Low, Jim Ghoshdastidar, Karleen Duck, Eamonn Corrigan, Rubab Masaba, Raphaela Pavlakos, Erica Thomson and Zaineb Hamoodi.
If you would like to serve as a reviewer for a future round of applications, please email mi_sap@mcmaster.ca.
Nicole Knibb and Victoria Bui
Karen Bird, Christina Baade, Adrienne Davidson, Terry Flynn, Andrea Lawlor, Selina Mudavanhu and Joanna Massie
Sandy Yeung, Shuoyang Wang, Jim Ghoshdastidar and Sharonna Greenberg
Valerii Chuiko
Freya Terry
Jack Bone
Valeria Flores Zambrano
Isabella Benko
Tina Ismail
Nitin Kumar Mudgal
Yaqi Wang
Simranpreet Sandal
David Shen
Karina Tavernese
Nishaad Sheth
Raeesah Mohammed
Samarah Maqbool
Victoria Bui
Marfy Abousifein
Sofya Ermolina
James Mirabelli
Ryan Phan
Amanda Jarvis
Kiran Oberai
Isabelle Son
Laura Cooper
Rhae Mukerjee
Ben Mazin
Emiliana Arrieche d’Empaire
Kyle Jackson
Shuoyang Wang
Sandy Yeung
Samantha Tobia
Daniel Gweme
Mahek Minhas
Ana Stanciu
Partners’ Names
Project Title
MacPherson Institute publishes articles reflecting on the successes of past and present student partner projects.
SPP: Student Partner Projects
The Student Partner Program (SPP) was first created in 2013-2014 as a way to provide opportunities for students interested in pedagogical research and innovation to collaborate with staff and faculty working on teaching and learning projects at McMaster. Since its inception, hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students have participated in the SPP, and Student Partners have participated in projects ranging from creating resources for staff/faculty to designing and developing new curricula.
Students can participate in the SPP in two ways: they can propose a project or they can be hired to a faculty/staff-proposed project. Projects run in either the Fall/Winter term (September-April) or the Spring/Summer term (May-August). The hours that students will be expected to contribute vary from project to project, but will generally fall between 5-10 hours a week. Students are paid for their work throughout the duration of their project (see Admin and Compensation section for details regarding pay).
Any McMaster student is eligible to submit their own teaching and learning project for inclusion in the Student Partner Program. Please note that while students are able and encouraged to take the lead on projects they submit, for administrative reasons students submitting projects for consideration must do so in collaboration with a faculty or staff member. If you need assistance identifying a faculty or staff partners, MacPherson Institute staff may be able to help (see the Admin and Compensation section for details).
Any McMaster student is eligible to be a Student Partner. Undergraduate students who graduate in April are eligible to work on projects funded in the Spring-Summer terms (May-August). Students who worked on a project previous can extend their contract on the same project even if they graduated. If you are interested in applying as a Student Partner, ensure to read project descriptions carefully as some projects indicate preferences for students with specific backgrounds, skills, and/or education levels. For more detailed information, see FAQ: Student Partner applications.
Students may also submit projects in collaboration with a faculty/staff member at McMaster University. The SPP cannot advertise student-proposed projects to potential faculty partners. Instead, interested students might consider approaching a faculty/staff member and seeing if that they member would be interested in working with them on the project should it be accepted for the SPP. If you are a student with a project idea and are unsure to whom you should reach out, please connect with SPP staff (mi_sap@mcmaster.ca) who may be able to suggest faculty and staff who would be a good fit for your project idea.
Some undergraduate students who are hired on as student partners may also be eligible to participate in the Humanities Internship Program.
Undergraduate students who are hired for a minimum of 12-weeks to support a Student Partner Project can apply to have their position count as an internship with our office. Visit our website for more information.
To participate in the Humanities Internship Program, students must meet the following criteria:
Returning to McMaster University to complete full-time study after completion of an internship work term (Full-Time Internships Only)
Any McMaster student, faculty, or staff member can apply for an SPP grant. Please note that student project leads will require funds to be transferred through their faculty or staff partner’s departmental account.
Once projects have been reviewed and successful applicants have been notified, applications for Student Partners will open on the MacPherson website (in March for the Summer term and July for the fall/winter term). A brief description of each project will be listed, and students will be able to apply for up to three projects using a form linked on the Student Partner Program website.
Student Partner applications will be sent to the corresponding project teams, and they will arrange interviews or further meetings as they see fit. Project teams will hire student partners directly. Successful Student Partner applicants will be notified by the end of April (for the summer term) and the end of August (for the fall/winter term).
Once students are selected through the program, it is the responsibility of the faculty or staff partner’s department to issue offer letters and register payroll through MOSAIC, as well as to conduct other relevant administrative duties.
Current rates of compensation for student partners are as follows:
Student partners should be expected to be paid on a biweekly basis (once every two weeks).
For students interested in applying for an SPP grant with their own project, please be advised that due to administrative reasons, grant money may only be transferred to a faculty or staff member. For this reason, students are required to apply with a faculty or staff partner to assist in manage finances.
If students have trouble finding a faculty or staff lead, the MacPherson Institute may be able to assist. Please contact us via email at mi_sap@mcmaster.ca if you require assistance with finding a faculty/staff partner.
Student partnerships in education are broad, but here are some selected project types. For guidance or questions, reach out to our team at mi_sap@mcmaster.ca
The SPP continues to offer specific support for funded projects, such as program information sessions, cohort orientation sessions, mind-way project check-ins, SPP Symposium, the Innovations in Education Conference, and the Students as Partners Community Forum.
Explore these valuable resources to kickstart your Student Partner Project. These materials are designed to guide you through every step, providing essential tips, tools, and insights to ensure your project’s success.
This document is intended as a guide to follow during the first meeting of your partnership. The points listed are not exhaustive but are intended to get you started.
First Meeting Checklist
Dr. Antonio Dos Santos of the MacPherson Institute has conversations with student, staff, and faculty guests about the “Students as Partners” model for pedagogical research. Each episode features a special guest interview accompanied by a SaP project profile.
Listen on Spotify here
Navigating power dynamics in a student partnership represents a real challenge. While efforts are made to prevent staff and faculty from dominating partnerships, it’s crucial to balance guidance with giving students the autonomy to direct their efforts. Establishing effective, collaborative relationships with well-defined roles and responsibilities is essential, enabling members to seek guidance comfortably when needed.
If you seeking to make your partnership and work more equitable, please visit the McMaster Equity and Inclusion Office for more information.
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Interested in learning more about partnership? Feel free to explore these curated resources.
Cook-Sather, A., Bahti, M., & Ntem, A. (2019). Pedagogical partnerships: A how-to guide for faculty, students and academic developers in higher education.
Diallo, Carol L. “How Participating in Pedagogical Partnership Helped Me Grow as a Person and as a Student,” Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education: Iss. 26 (2019), https://repository.brynmawr.edu/tlthe/vol1/iss26/7
Elon University Center for Engaged Learning. (2013). Best Practices for Integrating Student Voices in SoTL. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11OuxzmTGso
Gourlay, G., & Korpan, C. (2018). Genuine students as partners: How a Teaching Assistant Consultant program put students as partners into practice. International Journal for Students As Partners, 2(2), 106-114. https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v2i2.3567
MacPherson Institute. (2017) Perceptions of Student Partnerships – Experiences [web video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aC3yv6RFOM
Mejia, Yeidaly “Carrying Partnership Skills Beyond Formal Partnerships: When Conflicts Grow into Connections,” Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education: Iss. 26 (2019), https://repository.brynmawr.edu/tlthe/vol1/iss26/6
Mercer-Mapstone, L. & Abbot, S. (2020). The Power of partnership: Students, staff and faculty revolutionizing higher education.