It is a complicated thing: leaders' conceptions of students as partners in the neoliberal university

Students as partners (SaP) is gaining momentum as both a practice and as a subject of analytic inquiry. This study draws on interviews to explore how formal, senior leaders responsible for teaching and learning conceptualise and imagine the implementation of SaP. While leaders saw SaP as occurring within a range of activities, the concept was typically discussed in terms of quality assurance activities, seldom conceived outside of a neoliberal discourse, and often at odds with theorising of SaP in the literature. Three, overlapping themes emerged from our analysis: (1) where partnership happens; (2) how partnership happens; and (3) benefits of partnership, which we interpreted through the lens of neoliberal rationalism. The findings have important implications for the compatibility of partnership practices with the neoliberal university and the role that formal leaders can play in shaping SaP practices.