Chapter 1: Introduction

If you picture a university campus, what do you see? Neo-classical buildings and faux-renaissance architecture, high-tech classrooms, library shelves with rows of expensive books bound in leather; shiny polished hallways with notices emblazoned on their walls; cafeterias serving a myriad of flavoured iced lattes; well-manicured landscapes with well-ordered borders and uniform trees. Who do you encounter as you venture through those buildings? Who do you meet? Beyond the lecture halls and seminar rooms, countless individuals keep the institution running. The cleaner that arrives before dawn, navigating empty corridors they may never study in, leaving before the first academic arrives, through doors they’ll never use. A research administrator, the first in her family to ever enter such university spaces; she manages a million-pound research project budget but still feels like an outsider, an alien in a chimeric, illusionary world. A porter whose local knowledge frequently goes unrecognised ensures the safety and smooth running of the university and is regularly on hand to protect those within the university walls. A mature student whose practical knowledge and experience often goes unrecognised as they navigate competing challenges between work, home and studying that his contemporaries cannot imagine. These are some of the working-class people and experiences in higher education (HE) narratives that remain largely untold, both hiding in plain sight and obscured by the entrenched cultures that perpetuate our industry.