This post argues that true inclusion in universities is enacted in the everyday practice of teaching, not in organisational bolt-ons or policy manuals.
What a Klingon can teach us about inclusion (for academics navigating inclusion in practice)
I recently watched the first episode of Star Trek: Academy, expecting little more than nostalgia and light entertainment. What I encountered instead was an unexpectedly effective provocation for thinking about inclusion in higher education.
The episode oscillates between awkward American college O-Week humour and moments of genuine emotional insight. While the writing occasionally leans into conspicuous non-stereotyping, it succeeds in exposing a deeper truth: inclusion is not achieved by declaring difference acceptable, but by remaining genuinely open to how difference actually shows up.
The metaphor is telling. A Klingon who does not exhibit warrior values is not “less Klingon”. A hologram student challenges not only institutional categories, but the comfort zones of those tasked with educating them. Science fiction works precisely because it creates enough distance for us to see ourselves more clearly.
The quietly forgotten privilege of teaching
This episode left me reflecting on something many academics once held close, but increasingly struggle to articulate:
- Teaching is not merely a workload category. It is a privilege, and it carries ethical and relational responsibility.
- Educational theorists such as Parker Palmer have long argued that teaching is fundamentally an identity practice, not a technical one.
- Yet in contemporary universities, teaching is often framed through compliance architectures: student satisfaction metrics, risk registers, workload models, and performance indicators.
What is missing in this framing is the recognition that teaching is one of the few institutional practices where values are not simply articulated but enacted. It is where inclusion either becomes real, or quietly unravels.
The seduction of “understanding” our students
Consider international postgraduate students, particularly those from China. Many academics will recognise the familiar arc:
- Initial unfamiliarity with learning styles and classroom norms
- Gradual confidence as patterns begin to emerge
- A subtle satisfaction in feeling that one now “gets” this cohort
Cross-cultural education research warns us about this moment. Cultural frameworks are starting points, not explanatory endpoints. When we believe we understand a group, curiosity closes and individual difference disappears.
As Monty Python famously put it: “We are all individuals.” Inclusion does not require mastery of student categories. It requires sustained openness to being surprised.
Inclusion as a bolt-on: an institutional pattern
Universities—particularly those operating within conservative governance structures—often experience real tension between justice-oriented aspirations and risk-averse operating models.
The organisational response is familiar:
- Inclusion becomes policy
- Wellbeing becomes referral
- Mental health becomes the responsibility of specialist units
This mirrors what organisational scholars describe as functional separation: values are acknowledged, but responsibility is structurally displaced. What results is a support team supporting another support team, while the people who actually teach remain positioned as delivery agents rather than moral actors. Research on student belonging consistently shows that the most influential factors are not services, but relationships—especially with teaching staff.
A comparative insight from Norway
Time spent observing everyday life in Norway offered a useful contrast. Without romanticising the system, certain patterns were striking: lower emphasis on individualism, stronger expectations of shared responsibility, and a widespread willingness to act as active community citizens.
Cross-cultural researchers have long noted that societies with lower individualism tend to distribute responsibility more broadly across social roles. In such contexts, inclusion is less frequently treated as a specialist function and more often understood as a shared civic obligation.
The lesson for universities is not to import Nordic models wholesale, but to recognise that inclusion flourishes where trust and shared ownership are culturally reinforced. Without those conditions, inclusion is easily reduced to something that can be added on, rather than lived. The hologram student reminds us that when institutions build around a presumed ‘normal’ student and then retrofit support, difference is tolerated—but never fully included.
Why bolt-ons rarely produce enduring change
After many years working in and around change management, one lesson remains remarkably consistent: enduring change does not arrive through manuals alone. Scholars such as Edgar Schein and Chris Argyris have shown that values only shape behaviour when they are enacted through everyday practice.
Universities are highly skilled at documenting intent. They are less effective at cultivating conditions where inclusive behaviour emerges naturally. Inclusion is rarely found in handbooks or escalation pathways. It is found in quieter places —
see practical Week 1 ways to signal belonging in the classroom:
- How Week 1 is framed
- How uncertainty is handled
- How assessment language signals trust or suspicion
- How difference is approached with curiosity rather than correction
These practices cannot be mandated. They must be modelled.
Recentring teaching as a value, not a function
Research on student belonging, motivation, and persistence is remarkably consistent: teaching staff matter more than any single support intervention.
- Justice becomes visible
- Power is exercised ethically—or not
- Belonging is fostered or foreclosed
Recentring teaching requires a shift:
- From “supporting teaching” to trusting teachers
- From procedural compliance to professional judgement
- From risk mitigation to relational competence
This is not a call for heroics. It is a call to recognise teaching as ethical practice.
Three ways to recognise unseen journeys in Week 1
What made the captain’s address in Star Trek: Academy unusually effective was not encouragement, nor reassurance, but recognition. She spoke not only to students, but to the families, expectations, sacrifices, and anxieties that travelled with them into the room.
- Acknowledge that students arrive carrying more than transcripts
Many students carry family expectations, financial pressure, or the quiet fear of being the one who “fails the sacrifice”. Naming this signals that achievement is relational, not purely individual. - Normalise anxiety as a rational response, not a personal deficit
Anxiety is often an understandable response to transition and expectation. Reframing it as shared human experience can be profoundly disarming. - Resist the temptation to promise sameness through uniformity
Equity is not about flattening difference, but making room for unevenness without judgement.
Taken together, these gestures reposition the classroom as a place where ambition and vulnerability are allowed to coexist.
Closing reflection
Universities speak often of values. Teaching is where those values either take form or quietly dissipate. In an era of mounting pressure, it may be precisely the quiet work of teaching that deserves renewed attention.
References
Palmer, P. (1998). The Courage to Teach
Schein, E. (2010). Organizational Culture and Leadership
Argyris, C. (1991). Teaching smart people how to learn
Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s Consequences (with critical caveats)
Kahu, E. & Nelson, K. (2018). Student engagement in the educational interface