A growing body of research demonstrates the benefits of engaging students as partners to improve tertiary education. Yet, more research is needed to understand how students can support critical transformations outside of the classroom context. In this qualitative study, we explored how a networked improvement community (NIC) engaged students as partners toward critically transforming introductory tertiary mathematics courses in spring 2023. Using an open coding process, we analyzed field notes, interviews, and journals from NIC members to develop themes describing the NIC’s positioning of students. We compared these themes to Holen et al.’s (2021) framework on student-institutional partnerships. Findings reveal four positions students may adopt in critical transformation efforts: democratic participant, apprentice, consultant, and beneficiary. This study contributes to the field’s understanding of ways students can influence larger structural and cultural systems that impact student success, as well as challenges inherent in this work.

This qualitative, longitudinal study explores how student members’ sense of belonging changed over time in a Networked Improvement Community (NIC). Co-authored by researchers and student participants, this study uses the “students as partners” framework and four constructs of belonging (motivation, competencies, opportunities, and perceptions) to examine how sense of belonging manifested and developed for five student NIC members across their first and final semesters of participation in the NIC. Retrospective analysis of journal entries and interview data collected over two years revealed: student motivations shifted from individual goals to a collective investment in the NIC’s systemic improvement goals; students developed competencies in leadership, data-informed decision-making, and equity based on their lived experiences; and intentional NIC structures supported a shift in the student members’ opportunities for belonging from relationship-building and anonymous decision-making to taking on more responsibilities in NIC initiatives. As a result, student perceptions evolved from uncertainty about their roles to having a strong sense of agency, influence, and community within the department. The findings from this study offer evidence that intentionally structured NICs can function as spaces where motivations, competencies, opportunities, and perceptions grow together and position student members as contributors to inclusive systemic change in undergraduate STEM education.