Arts Leadership and Mentoring to address social and artistic isolation: a reflective case study.

<p>Following  several  months  of  lockdown  and  online  learning,  collated  anecdotal evidence   suggested   that   Dance   students   at   the   University   of   Lincoln   were experiencing negative consequences of both social and artistic isolation. To address this, the dance department created the extra-curricular Arts Leadership and Mentoring Programme (ALMP) in September 2020. The programme was heavily influenced by a Student  as  Producer  ethos,  a  model  of  teaching  and  learning  developed  at  the University  of  Lincoln  in  2010  by  Professor  Mike  Neary.  This  concept  promotes students as collaborators and producers of their own knowledge (Neary, 2014). </p> <p><br></p> <p>The  programme  was  aimed  at  undergraduate  students  on the BA  (Hons)  Dance course,  and  postgraduate  students  on  the  MA  Choreography  and  Performance Practices  course.  The  ALMP  followed  a  natural  progression  whereby  postgraduate students  were  offered  mentoring  from  academic  staff,  which then supportedthe development of the peer mentoring sessions between undergraduate students. Both schemes were  designed  to  support  students  and  staff  to  help  other individuals “address the major transitions or thresholds that the individual is facing and to deal with them in a developmental way” (Megginson, 1994, p.165).</p> <p><br></p> <p>To address the different needs  of  undergraduate  and  postgraduate  students,  the  ALMP  consisted  of  two strands; this paper discusses the impact and effectiveness of each strand. Outlined below are the two strands of the programme and a description of how each strand targeted the needs of each cohort. The ALMP was an unfunded project which aimed to reconsider existing resources and relationships between students and staff, to  provide  additional  support  tailored  to  the  needs  of  students  during  the  Covid-19 pandemic.</p>