There are number of things that we can look into, in fact are looking into, that would bring baout a stronger sense of mutual learning between faculty and students and which would foster student agency greatly.
Negotiated curriculum means a process by which students come to the class and expect to speak to the lecturer in order to have a discusssion in which they say that they would like to get certain things from this course, and then identify them. They should say that they would like to be assessed in a certain way and then identify the criteria by which that happens. This would secure a kind of contractual 'buy in' from the students and faculty alike.
This can be augmented in a number of ways:
1) Employing a broader range of credit options, say 1 or 2 credit classes that students can build up. These might be for attending a program of themed screeings and discussions, a short, focuses, self-identified studio or reading project for example.
2) Thinking about classes in different ways, temporally. For instance, the 3 hr time slot is too constraining. Finding a a way of scheduling 2hr or 4hr classes will help greatly. Also making classes happen in a more intensive way over a period of a week, for example, such as with the study week classes we have seen more and more of. This should be closer to the mainstream of teaching practice. At the same time, thinking of classes that run for an entire academic year.
3) Perhaps most importantly, students should be allowed to negotiate he type of work they submit for different classes. An appropriately conceived and executed film, or performance, or series of paintings, or a designed object as a response to a critical studies course should be an everyday expectation for a University of Art and Design, as should haning in an essay or a text rpoduced through some mixed media or extended writing technique.