The Regional and Remote students we listened to had all drawn upon and used significant strengths and competencies in actively creating their own distinctive social worlds at university. However, it was noteworthy that students who had not had the advantage of SmoothStart, university accommodation or courses with significant numbers of other Regional and Remote students in them had struggled for long periods to form friendships. This underscores the importance of tertiary institutions providing appropriate contexts for peer interaction and engagement for students in this equity group. This should not be seen as catering to the 'deficits' of students but as providing contexts in which students' strengths — their socio- cultural competencies — can be deployed and expressed. SmoothStart has proven to be one such context. As the co-ordinating university staff have progressively taken more of a 'back seat' role and encouraged previous participants — now experienced university students — to conceive, structure and deliver sessions and activities, SmoothStart has evolved as an exemplary instance of a 'joint venture' (Devlin, 2011) between the institution and non-traditional student groups.
This study also points to the need for universities to go further in addressing issues of 'social inclusion' for all students, and suggests that local school leavers may be the ones particularly challenged in 'opening out' to the increasing diversity of the student population. This calls for 'joint ventures' between universities and both their traditional and non-traditional student bodies.
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