Reworking Template Letters at Edinburgh Napier University
Author
STEPHEN LOGIE
Director of Student Services & Academic Registrar
Edinburgh Napier University
Summary
Edinburgh Napier University wanted to move beyond talking about compassionate communication by reviewing its hundreds of template letters. Through a time-bound working group, staff and students collaboratively rewrote the highest risk letters and created a toolkit to support compassionate communications across the institution.
The challenge
After supporting the Academic Registrars’ Council’s adoption of the sector-wide Compassionate Communication commitment, Edinburgh Napier University started to implement practical change. As a large institution, the university relied on hundreds of template letters used across many professional services teams. The challenge was to rework these letters in a way that would build a genuine culture of compassion across the institution, rather than simply implementing a top-down directive.
The approach
The project was instigated by the Director of Student Services and secured staff buy-in through the Education and Student Experience Committee. From there, the team designed a short, focused project intended to run over six to eight months within a single academic year, with the working group meeting once a month. Being time-bounded was a deliberate choice to create momentum and keep the focus on practical, tangible outcomes.
Professional Services was chosen as the starting point, partly because it offered a more controlled environment and partly because it was possible to identify clear areas of highest risk: letters relating to results, appeals, visas, and finances, where the stakes for students are significant and the tone of communication matters most.
Rather than beginning with abstract principles, the working group took a practical approach. Staff from the relevant teams were invited to bring along the letters they were using, which became the basis for honest, grounded conversations about what was working and what could be enhanced. Colleagues engaged constructively and everyone was supported in feeling safe taking feedback from others. Crucially, student partnership was central to the conversation, as the working group included representatives from the students' association, ensuring that those most affected by these communications had a voice in shaping how they were improved.
The impact
After six months, the project reached its target of improving the highest-risk letters through this collaborative process. It also produced a practical toolkit designed to help spread the approach more widely across the institution. Because the members of the working group had shaped the work themselves, they have continued to champion the approach within their own teams, leading to ongoing discussions and improvements.
To sustain momentum, the Director of Student Services sends follow-up emails every few months, sharing examples of good practice. He also checks in regularly with working group members to hear how things are developing in their teams.