Summa cum laude

Engaging Minds - Symposium on engagement, participation and collaboration

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 10:55:00 +0100

On Thursday and Friday of last week (June 10th and 11th), up to 200 people gathered in NUI Galway for the joint Galway Symposium-NAIRTL Conference on student engagement. With 6 keynotes, multiple parallel streams including workshops and 23 Pecha-Kucha style presentations, the programme was jam-packed. For thus of us in the think of things, rushing around behind the scenes, dealing with technical issues, chairing sessions and juggling with the complexities of car-parking, it is difficult to get a clear view of how the event is going, but from participant feedback it seemed to be an overall success with plenty of ideas being shared and debate taking place.

As is tradition with our events, the keynote presentations were recorded and we'll be posting up links to these in due course (after the video/editing team recover!). Amongst the issues raised, however, were the different conceptions and meanings behind the phrase 'student engagement' and what exactly it encompasses not just in practical terms but also its implicit pedagogical, philosophical and indeed political assumptions.

Lesley Gourlay (IoE, London) opened the event by raising such questions. She was followed by Derek Bruff (Vanderbilt) who demonstrated clearly how he and colleagues are able to stimulate student participation through the use of technologies including clickers (each person has one for live demonstration) and twitter. Elisabeth Dunne (Exeter) spoke of students as change agents and how student-led projects in her institution were used to reshape and reform curriculum and approaches to teaching. Mike Neary ended the first day with a rousing championing of a radical left approach that aimed to recapture the spirit of Humboldt's view of an active research-engaged form of learning but one that is driven in cooperation with students harnessing the types of creativity that emerged from activism of 1968 and illustrating with emerging examples in the UK in the past year or two.

On day two, Guy Claxton (Winchester) spoke of the formation of 'habits of mind' and the implicit, often unarticulated, aspects of what it means to be part of a scholarly community and engage in intellectual endeavour through the perspective of particular disciplinary traditions. Paul Kleiman (Lancaster) then reiterated the importance of communication and the development of student-staff relationships and partnership.

Higher Education as a global public good?

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 14:23:00 GMT

Yesterday I attended the DRHEA-supported seminar given by Simon Marginson (Melbourne and great renown) which looked at the possibility of higher education being considered as a public good on a global perspective. It was certainly hugely different to the last HE policy seminar I attended in the Helix (DCU) in tenor, disposition and approach. A measured, considered and informed questioning of some of the assumptions about 'the university' and its relationship to society and the economy, there was plenty to digest in Simon's presentation and I look forward both to the recording and a text version to do it full justice. The panel of respondents was also well chosen and with only a few minutes each, they were put on their toes in trying to home in on a key point each, but did so.

The large audience partly reflects Simon's reputation but also the timeliness of such discussion here in post-Hunt Report Ireland. And of course, not atypical for such seminars within the Pale, there was a hefty turnout from the Department of Education and the HEA. A few brave souls had though glid across Ireland's new arterial motorway from the West, DCU now being so accessible to many of us (turn right at Ikea!).

To the substance of his talk. He started with a history of various intellectually driven institutions in times past in both the western and eastern hemispheres and reminded us of how flourishing institutions which have a seeming permanency can be readily dispatched by a political, financial or military blow from those in power: the dissolution of the monasteries in England, the decline of Alexandria and the Buddhist centres of learning across China, being the examples. Just to sober up any complacent university presidents!

He addressed the issue of private versus public goods, giving a brief overview of perspectives on these concepts, and referred throughout to the example being espoused in English HE at the present time, indicating what it implies about the perceived relative value of particular disciplines and the underlying conception of the purposes of higher education. He also wove in comparisons between the contemporary Western perception of individual gain and the more Confucian model as an alternative that would be more likely to accept a broader conception that perhaps lays a foundation of a notion of education as a 'public good' (or at least more collective than individual).

The self-serving nature of large and powerful organisations, such as universities, was also raised in looking at how complicit much of academia has been to the developments in HE policy, despite their avowed objections. For example, the drive for prestige despite distaste for league tables, the constant over-reaching in terms of mission and opportunistic responses to funding availability, the constant assertion of leadership and ownership of a whole range of activities and subjects and the competitive out-stripping the collaborative.

He called for a new vision, centred around a more global approach to the public good argument and championed the idea of flat networks, collaboration on issues of global concern and each playing a part, in a sense almost to decouple from small-scale local battles and seek (almost a moral) high ground in this global age.

Plenty of points were raised in discussion, not just by the panel but also audience members and although there wasn't sufficient time to go into most of these areas, he did make a brave attempt to respond and expand.

Much to think about and well worth the journey.

Offline education

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 12:57:00 GMT

Yesterday's Irish Independent reports of Hibernia College's rising profits. The private, online training company has been providing courses in education and other professional development areas for some time now, expanding to cover teacher training in England as well as Ireland.

I recall the controversy when they first started offering teacher-training courses. I had just arrived in Ireland and there were protests by students in traditional teacher training establishments, disgruntlement amongst the faculty of same, about not just the notion of a private provider (a standpoint with which I would have some sympathy, as would many others, indeed even the US congress has taken note of the risks of such 'outsourcing' of education when dealing with large profit-seeking companies, such as the Apollo group, that can access state and federal funding) but the very idea that such subjects can be covered online.

In one case, I was asked to give a keynote talk at a conference held in Galway as part of Ireland's European Presidency (2004) and in the questions section afterwards a student from an Education department raised the issue of Hibernia, again not focusing on the private but rather the online dimension. What was frustrating for me was that I felt an empathy for the questioner, but couldn't possibly agree with the contention that this subject, unlike many others, could not be dealt with using online tools. In my immediately previous post prior to coming to Ireland, I had been in a Scottish university which had embarked on a significant project to provide online courses for school-teachers as a partnership with the main teaching union in Scotland (the EIS) and I had been successfully running a module on this programme using online lessons, video, reading lists, reflective journals, 'live' online tutorials and the like.

Evaluations recorded, unsurprisingly, that participants appreciated the flexibility as a practical alternative to traditional classes, but also that they felt that the courses were at an appropriate intellectual depth for postgraduate work (as validated by accreditation and support of the Teaching Council, the university quality frameworks, etc), that they had developed a close relationship with their tutor (despite never meeting face-to-face) and that their journal allowed them scope to reflect on implementing new ideas in their teaching practice.

For me, then, the whole angle of attack centering on supposed limitations of technology and distance education was misjudged and the fact that the traditional education providers (in this country) were not in the forefront of using technologies and supporting the unmet demand from those who couldn't possibly attend full-time classes but yet who had the skills and the passion for teaching, seemed a terrible shame.

Adding to the irony, this was also the time in which Irish higher education institutions were committing to Learning Management Systems (Blackboard, WebCT at that time) and many other disciplines were engaging in expanding distance and blended learning course provision. The numbers and range of such courses has expanded dramatically over the years and there are still plenty of opportunities for continuing professional development programmes. Fortunately, also, most institutional managers now realise that high-quality online education requires resources, not least of which are skilled and committed tutors, and cannot be delivered on the cheap. In my own institution, complete blended or fully-online programmes in Nursing, IT, Irish Studies, Medicine, Business, Biomedical science and a whole host of others are now available and popular amongst students and employers.

As for education and teacher training? Well, Hibernia is now continuing to expand, growing its profits. I know nothing about the courses themselves, the quality of the student experience or the details of the technology used, but they've had 10 years of the market for such provision left to themselves.

Teaching Awards.

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 11:27:00 GMT

Yesterday morning, in the shelter of the Coach-house of Dublin Castle, over a hundred people shook off the rain and gathered to celebrate teaching in higher education. The National Teaching Excellence Awards (coordinated by NAIRTL) are an annual event now and although only 5 people are recipients of the prizes and honours they are indicative of the levels of commitment and enthusiasm that are on display every hour of every day in lecture theatres, tutorial classes and laboratories across the country. The convenient (for some politicians and journalists) myth of 'lazy' academics, droning incoherently as they dream of a life of pure research and ignore their students was never more soundly cast aside than by hearing the voices of the students and peers who had nominated these award winners (and indeed the other candidates in both national and local schemes).

Despite the challenges that Bruce Macfarlane draws attention to in a recent paper on the disaggregation or 'unbundling' of academic practice (to which I referred in my short presentation yesterday) -i.e. the increasing difficulty of succeeding in all three original domains of academic practice (viz, teaching, research and contributions to their community)- many of these recipients and their colleagues are examples of those who are bucking such a trend. Although, this is not to deny that the pressures and the developments that Bruce refers to are very real, nor is it meant to imply that such staff have found it easy to juggle these various roles, after all their working hours are excessive and only achievable because of deep wells of energy and the support of family.

For a more sustainable approach we need to look seriously at expectations of institutions and how they distribute their resources. But more than this, we also need to be clear about the ethos or values on which higher education institutions are based. Are we to be driven inexorably towards the rainbow's end of high international league table positions or take a more realistic perspective and recognise the riches that we already possess? Are the needs of our students, our society and our disciplines best met by subsidising multinational publishing empires with our labour, or spinning the latest grant award as a further step towards the curing of all major illness? Or perhaps there's more to be gained in nourishing what we have, in nurturing our local talent and building a solid, sustainable future, taking pride in a reputation gleaned from teaching of the highest quality, integrated with research and scholarship and with a long term vision.

Well done to all of you, winners and contenders. We know you're doing tremendous work, your students know that and hopefully the policy-makers will come to realise such also.

New start

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Mon, 8 Nov 2010 11:14:00 GMT

Well, it has been a while! Now we've restarted our commitment to blog on HE issues, despite the fact that there is a deluge of postings, comment site and new blogs chattering away about the crisis, or crises hitting our sector across the globe! Our aim though is to select a few issues/items and reflect on them from our own perspective as well as draw your attention to interesting papers and events.

The intention is to post something each week, so let's see how we go. In the meantime thanks for your patience and welcome back!

Culture as a Critical Ingredient in Innovation

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Thu, 8 Jul 2010 18:00:00 +0100

What's the role of culture in innovation? As I hinted in my previous posting on the TEDxGalway event, I firmly believe that we often underplay the importance on place within higher education. Whilst universities understandably struggle to position themselves according to league tables or to government priorities and funding regimes are they in danger of becoming more and more like each other and consequently less and less distinctively representative of their geographical, national and culture contexts? As a student or staff member wandering from lecture theatre to tutorial class how can you tell in which country you are based? Are we in danger of suffering from airport syndrome where all the world looks the same except for the bits beyond the runway and outside the terminal? In our practices and in our courses what distinguishes one from another? Is a Bologna-fied degree in Ulan Bator identical to one in Vienna?

Finbarr Bradley, one of the keynotes at the Symposium touched on similar issues in his lively closing presentation. For international readers the introductory few sentences are in Irish.

Galway- City of Ideas

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Sat, 3 Jul 2010 11:57:00 +0100

I've always believed that one of the areas in which many universities could improve is in greater recognition of the fact that they are essentially cities of ideas. What I mean is that the phrase 'scholarly community' is rarely realised in practice other than within individual academic disciplines. How many staff and students are aware of the interests and work of their colleagues in different disciplines? How many attend seminars and colloquia in different colleges or faculties? That's why I was pleased to attempt a small contribution towards this using the TEDx format recently. Sure, the audience at the event was limited and there were perhaps more people external to the university (also a good thing) than from around the schools and colleges, but the talks have been recorded and are gradually appearing on the TEDx youtube site. As each is viewed and links are passed on the idea is spreading and more and more people are talking to me about events of this nature, the focus on sharing and accessibility of ideas (rather than the traditional long lecture format) and (and this is what I think is important) the sense of celebration of passion and of enjoyment.

See what I mean, perhaps, in these first three to go online:

Louis de Paor, Director of the Centre for Irish Studies, in partnership with Ronan Browne and Naisrin Elsafty.

Lionel Pilkington, Head of the School of Humanities, on 'Performance, Performing and Ireland'

Abhay Pandit, biomedical engineer/scientist on 'Biomimicry' and biomaterials.

Journal of Education Policy- 25th anniversary seminar

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 13:33:00 +0100

Had a very enjoyable experience in room 828 of the IoE in London on Thursday at the gathering convened to mark the JEP's 25th year of publication with the discussion centred around responses to Andrew Gamble's book 'The Spectre at the Feast: Capitalist Crisis and the Politics of Recession' . Despite the baking heat of central London and a struggling air-conditioning unit, attendance was well worth while and provided if not a feast at least a series of intellectual tapas (less bloating, different flavours and textures, etc) from well-established members of the academic commentariat. Andrew's opening presentation (softly spoken, a challenge against that air-conditioner at times!) gave an overview of the political and economic context, before the others each made their own contributions all on the theme of multiple potential crises: existential, structural, political, and not just economic. The challenges of developing an alternative narrative against the dominant neo-liberal discourse are of course not underestimated, but suggestions regarding the exploration of understandings of 'crisis', of the disconnect from politics or at least the reframing of how political action is manifest, the rhetorics of regulation (particularly in education), the manufacture of public complicity ("how will you take ownership of the cuts you agree we have to make?') and the concept of the 'refraction' of neo-liberal ideas and the variation in responses by different national cultures (with some sad reflection emerging from broad European studies that show a dispirited detachment by English teachers, for example, when questioned about their beliefs about their work reply 'It's just a job, I'm waiting for retirement' contrasted with other countries where the ideas have either not being fully incorporated into national policies or where the local culture disregards policy statements as a matter of course) - these and many more ideas all floated through the room and triggered thoughtful reflection.

A particularly warm welcome was given to 'an accountant' (modest understatement) Pamela Stapleton who had forensically dissected the complexity of PFI in the English school building programme -the corpse laid bare with entrails attached to multinational corporations, shady think tanks, corrupt (only in the moral and not legal sense, you understand, but which counts most to you?) authorities and agencies, consultants and government - an all too illustrative example of the extent to which this fatal disease is eating away at language, logic and society.

Now we just have to wait until the papers themselves are published for the proper feast. As to where the barricades are to be set up, who's prepared to raise the flag first and when the precarious stuctures finally tumble Jenga-like? Ah, those are the eternal questions!

As for the Journal, itself, well going from strength to strength, the publishers have released their top ten downloaded paper list for free access for the rest of the year.

HE Academy conference day 2

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 10:21:00 +0100

Some interesting sessions on the second day of the conference in a baking hot Hatfield Business Park. I attended presentations on the use of twitter by journalism students to establish professional connections, undertake fact-checking etc. Somewhat inevitably I suppose, the room was full of people staring at screens of various sizes and tapping away on virtual or real keyboards whilst the speaker tried to engage us. His presentation was good but I wonder, whilst twitter has its strengths whether the level of disengagement of the audience is not problematic. Yes, if a presenter is slow and repetitive, there's plenty of scope for taking some 'time out' to broadcast a summary of the main points, but when the speaker is good and attempting to engage with the audience there's a real sense of discourtesy and a likelihood, I would have thought, that the tweets being sent are quick transmissions of a somewhat superficial nature. Discuss.

The panel session, which was recorded and no doubt will appear on the HE Academy website, was interesting. One of the panel didn't show up (Bahram Bekhradnia). I take it there was a particularly serious reason and not as one attendee suggested that he must have got himself in a fankle (good Scots word that) with one of this bow ties . Mike Baker did an excellent job of chairing, but there were some scary comments on the future of the sector from the recently enobled Phil Willis.

Afterwards, yet again, I was in a session in which the presenter failed to turn up, this time from Reading. But subsequent presentations on the Learning Landscapes project and on student engagement in curricular design were excellent and provided considerable food for though, not just at the intellectual level but on a really practical basis and which can be translated into our local context here in Galway.

The conference fizzled out shortly before 3pm as many of the participants headed off to watch the World Cup match and I took that as an opportunity to travel into Central London in advance of my next meeting, the subject of which I'll post about shortly.

Higher Education Academy - Annual conference

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:44:00 +0100

Day 1 at the de Havilland campus of the University of Hertfordshire. The opening keynote was delivered by the VC of Hull, Calie Pretorius, and in keeping with the standard set of talks new VCs seem to be provided with in their leadership training his theme was 'innovate or die'. He did deliver smoothly with anecdotes, analogies and occasional jokes but with little real content of any substance, despite the promising abstract. His slides were well done from a PowerPoint-of-view but curiously had a string of book covers to make his point - all of which were the sort of management trash you pick up at airports, you know the kind of thing 'Think Big not Small - how to outsmart your competitors before they outsmart you'. Clearly he does a lot of travelling. They weren't being used in any sort of ironic sense, sadly. Main message is that universities need to innovate, innovation means not just having ideas but delivering them (in fact in his presentation he extolled the virtue of stealing ideas from others and exploiting them - something that the concurrent conference on Plagiarism shouldn't hear about!), and we need to continually change, continually adapt, faster and faster (analogy of zebra on motorbike keeping ahead of a lion got a laugh from some of the audience and an inner scream from others). Anyway, his slides were quickly popped online by the Academy, but you had to be there...

The conference then broke into parallel sessions and when you see it fork into up to 13 simultaneous presentations, then you realise there has to be a better way. Many of the talks were related to one another but in direct competition for an audience. I know the numbers of participants are large, but it would be nice if perhaps talks could be shorter, clustered under a theme and then given scope for discussion. It might mean stricter selection or perhaps a more innovative (see I did learn) approach might be to showcase lots of the interesting practical work people are doing in something like a Pecha Kucha (20x20) session followed by panel discussion?

Anyway, the speaker for the session I (and a relatively big crowd of others) picked didn't turn up, despite being from Hertfordshire itself. No show, no explanation, so we all slowly filtered away.

The afternoon sessions I attended were very good. One by Elisabeth Dunne of Exeter University talking about some great work she has done with students as change agents in teaching and learning (really impressive scale of activity). After that Paul Kleiman spoke about some intensive discussion/focus group type analysis of HE from student perspectives centred around an awayday session. It was good, in both cases, to hear of student active engagement and indeed a real desire for such. We also heard that students really resent being treated as (and in some cases labelled as) 'customers'. (So if you want to cheese off not just your academic staff, but also your students, keep mentioning 'customer.')

The dinner was preceded by awards to students from the various subject centres and the dinner itself was the setting for national volunteering awards.

That's it. I could say more, but probably shouldn't. Hopefully an update tomorrow provided internet access available wherever I'll be en route to the Journal of Education Policy 25th anniversary meeting.

Creative Thinking - Doctors can Dance

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 21:00:00 +0100

I'm delighted to say that the videos from the Galway Symposium 2010 and TEDxGalway are beginning to appear off the production line and as they do so, we'll link to them here as per our annual tradition.

The first recording is the keynote given on Friday morning by Anna Newell who has worked in Queen's Belfast in the Centre for Excellence in the Creative and Performing Arts (NI). Anna collaborated with Melissa McCullough in Medical Education on a fascinating project that brought together medical and drama students and explored issues in medical ethics, in this first case that of body donation. The performance they developed was called 'Dead Man Talking.'

Re-thinking Universities? ideas still being sought

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:42:00 +0100

I attended the DCU/ASU conference on Re-thinking the University the other day and found it an interesting experience. I should first point out that I'm pleased that Ferdinand organised and hosted this event in an attempt to bring to a head some of the issues pertaining, in particular, to the remit of the Strategic Review of Higher Education. It's only a pity that the publication of this review has been so delayed that it wasn't available in time for this event and that also constrained what the review group's chairman, Colin Hunt could say. Similarly, it means there is still considerable uncertainty and a certain sense of trepidation within the sector.

Inviting a distinguished group of presenters, such as were listed on the programme, however still promised to lead to some interesting perspectives and discussion and a group of us from Galway travelled over to participate.

The first main keynote presentation was by Michael Crow, the President of Arizona State University (ASU) and I have to confess that his style clashed somewhat with my (perhaps over-wraught) sense of empathy for academic staff and that clouded my first impressions of him. Clearly he has achieved a lot, clearly he has significantly reshaped that institution and in times of financial stress it is always relevant to hear how others have adapted to harsher climates. The problem was, for me, in the tone and in the throw-away examples or remarks which I suspect would not have gone down terribly well with many academic staff not involved in institutional management. In retrospect of course one can see the point he might have been trying to make about the lack of flexibility and imagination as well as the intransigence of many traditional academic structures, but the approach sounded too much like a berating of 'academics' themselves rather than the structures and institutional cultures within which they are situated. Furthermore, he didn't detail the financial and policy environment of the university particularly but rather talked about closing down departments, sacking staff, etc, in a manner which was too offhand for those of us who spend a lot of time dealing with overworked colleagues many of whom are under considerable stress and despite which have deep commitment to their students and their institution. Yes, it is possible to recognise that not all staff in any organisation are putting in their full effort, but it is not recognised enough just quite how many are contributing way in excess of what would be a typical workload outside the sector. Contracts, the individual private negotiation of salary levels, uncertainty over long term prospects and the reshaping of research priorities might well be visions of a possible future for Ireland, but other futures are possible of course and the lack of a counter-balance was a shame. It would have been fascinating, for example, to have paired Michael with Kathleen Lynch for example. Then both sets of approaches would be contrasted and challenge one another, somewhat robust debate would no doubt have ensued and it is often from a clash of ideas and perspectives that new ideas can emerge.

Of course the fact that he used 'cosmologists' in his examples of not particularly 'use-inspired' research had no bearing on my opinion- it is after all many years since I worked in that field. ;-)

Most of the other presentations (with perhaps one particular exception) were relatively less provocative, though a common thread of support for fees was pretty evident throughout the day. Tom Boland spoke of his own views on the issues facing Irish Higher Education, echoing some of his earlier words in recent meetings. Colin Hunt spoke of some of the topics which the strategy group have been considering, raising questions about the number of providers in the sector, workload models, funding, etc. Though of course he avoided revealing in advance any of the recommendations emerging from the process and so we are still none the wiser on that level of detail.

Colm Harmon gave a clear and well structured presentation (using his new iPad) on some of the economic aspects of the current situation in Irish Higher Education and outlined some of the flawed thinking in recent public debate. At one point whilst elaborating on a potential combination of fees plus various bursaries for students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds he did imply that such could achieve similar outcomes to a fully progressive tax system ensuring that the poor were supported and the rich paid proportionately - this of course begging the question as to why the argument then shouldn't be for this progressive taxation structure in the first place. But, then that's politics...

Bill Harris, previously of SFI now with SF Arizona, gave an interesting personal perspective on how far Ireland has come in terms of research and held out hope for the future. His tone was slightly in the vein of a motivational speaker and there was a lot of focus on a recurring phrase of 'use-inspired research' since clearly people feel this has more cachet than 'applied research'.

John Hegarty spoke of the importance of the idea of the 'community of scholars' and illustrated how arts and technology are being brought together in an initiative focusing on aspects of performance and the creative media in work at TCD.

Debra Friedman, VP of ASU spoke of links with community, but again perhaps suffered from the trans-Atlantic translation deficit in which different presentation styles and nuances of terminology may cause some difficulty. Taking an example of a hispanic student from a faith-based organisation and working with him and eventually in partnership with the organisation was her narrative thread to outline their involvement with city districts and communities. Quite a different social landscape from that in Ireland of course, certainly also when one considers that the City of Phoenix gave the university over $200million to set up a city centre building/campus. Clearly, though the university still has some considerable work to do if their hispanic student population is as disproportionately low as she implied.

Other presenters included an offering from Graham May, a futurologist, who just said that the education system is an industrial model and needs to be changed - a point made many times by many speakers over the past several (at least) years, ironically. The spokesperson from IBEC argued that universities needed to meet the needs of business and that industry should have a role in determining course content and structure.

Prof. Sir Alan Wilson of UCL and the AHRC in England gave an interesting, brief talk initially about complexity of organisations with nice mentions of Boltzmann, entropy and other concepts that would appeal to the odd physicist in the audience (there were at least four of us, and I don't mean 'odd' in that sense!), but was a bit like a synopsis of a higher education management tutorial. There was a hint of inconsistency when asked to come up with an example of a university which perhaps was doing well in his terms he mentioned his own which has a 'fairly chaotic' structure.

The final presentation was by Steven Conlon a student who launched a bit of a diatribe against student leaders and representatives in Ireland, criticised those who were leaving the country to seek employment, argued for fees and for the abolition of the minimum wage. He also promoted the idea that tutorials in university should be given by unemployed graduates who would be required to work for their benefits (yes, he did use the word 'volunteer'). Bit of a far cry from the students of ‘68 perhaps.

So, all in all an interesting day and worth attending, but not necessarily if one was seeking to be heartened or enthused about future prospects. There was a lack of opportunity for discussion throughout, with a tight timescale, and the final session curiously was a breakfast panel the next day at 7:30-9:30 am. I'm not sure how many attended that particular slot, but would have been interesting to see how this late '80s early '90s corporate technique translated into HE.

Go raibh maith agaibh

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:56:00 +0100

Phew!! That was an epic few days at the Symposium and TEDxGalway, but hopefully really enjoyable and stimulating for those in attendance. I got a huge buzz out of it and am now in recovery mode. Thanks to all the team here for organising and running the show(s) on both days. Specifically, Michelle, Sharon, Kelly, Aurélie, Fiona, Paul, Gráinne, Pat, Kevin, Bernie, Mary and the support team at the events including Owen, Steve, James and the gang.

Photos available at:

(1) Symposium http://www.flickr.com/photos/celt/

(2) TEDxGalway http://www.flickr.com/photos/tedxgalway/

Week of the Symposium

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Mon, 7 Jun 2010 16:44:00 +0100

It might be raining in Galway at the moment, but that's just because it's a bank holiday Monday! The sun is predicted to reappear as the 8th Galway Symposium on Higher Education begins on Thursday. This event sees an action-packed programme of keynotes, workshops and, importantly, huddled chattering on the stairs, in the foyer, bar and restaurant. Over 200 participants have registered, filling the venue and using up all the conference packs we could muster. Great to see such interest and I hope that all will find it worthwhile. We have a fascinating mix of speakers from near and far, with visual artists, theatre producers, business consultants, educational researchers and psychologists adding to the academic milieu.

On Thursday evening, once again the Symposium dinner is in honour of those colleagues who have been nominated for the President's Award for Teaching Excellence and we are delighted that so many have accepted our invitation.

We've tried to introduce a number of moderately innovative approaches this year with, for example, more Pecha Kucha (20 slides x 20 seconds) and an 'unconference', which is basically a room set aside for self-organised discussions based around some key questions on the theme of creativity. The keynotes will be recorded both in video and by means of our 'visual scribe'. An 'ideas board' will start off blank - but we expect it to fill as the days progress! And we'll be using the latest of technologies to beam in live discussion from across the Atlantic.

So, if you've booked your ticket, come along and join in and if you haven't, don't worry, we'll let you know how things went via this blog.

Oh, and by the way, whilst we were organising the symposium we also decided to host TEDxGalway (http://www.tedxgalway.ie) on the Friday afternoon!

Time is ticking....

Humboldt and Bologna: two great European ideas?

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Wed, 26 May 2010 13:13:00 +0100

The latest issue of the journal Higher Education Policy explores the relationship between what the editors call 'two great European ideas': Bologna and Humboldt. If you are interested in the papers, they have been made available for free online by the publishers during the month of May. Available here:

Higher Education Policy (2010) Vol. 23 Issue 2.

You will see there is a modest contribution to this volume from CELT (Frolich, Coate et al). It has been a challenge to think about the Irish context in relation to both Bologna and Humboldt. In many countries in Europe it is becoming clearer that the Bologna process is being used as a form of leverage for quite radical reforms in higher education systems. In Ireland it seems to be mainly associated with issues to do with teaching and learning rather than changes in, for example, the way universities are funded. And I'm not sure whether Irish academics on the whole would feel that Bologna is a 'great European idea', so it is fascinating to see it linked to Humboldt in this way.

conversations

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Tue, 25 May 2010 23:51:00 +0100

Now that Ning has gone all fee-paying and google wave has opened to the public, guess which platform has been suggested for conference related discussions? Yup, you can find it starting on the wave entitled "Creative Thinking - re-imagining the university". See if you can find it and feel free to join in, it's an empty canvas, fill it!

Spinning plates

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Tue, 18 May 2010 18:57:00 +0100

I know, I know...the more you try to do at the same time, the greater the chance things go awry, but what the heck.... Not only will our Symposium be running on June 10th and 11th (and many thanks to all those who have registered - great to see such interest) but as soon as it ends, the same venue is transformed for a different manifestation of creativity - the first ever TEDxGalway. Long promised, postponed, rescheduled, it finally is happening as a first attempt on the afternoon of Friday 11th June between 2:00pm and 6:00pm. So, if you are around in Galway at the time and want to join in the fun, feel free to sign up. According to the requirements of our licence, though we can only provide tickets for 100 people, so book now!

Online event registration for TEDxGalway

Autonomy, accountability and neoliberal subjects

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Tue, 4 May 2010 13:41:00 +0100

Ferdinand von Prondzynski has sparked a lively debate on his blog here and here which I have enjoyed following. The crux of the matter is whether academic life and its intellectual pursuits are being eroded by the managers who wish to ensure that academics can justify how they spend their time. Is it really the case, as some seem to suggest, that the 'bean counters' have taken over the establishment and have imposed an unprecedented system of accountability and control which has destroyed the capability of academics to pursue knowledge autonomously?

While Ferdinand points to the important work of Mary Henkel on autonomy and accountability, there is a more recent article by Louise Archer in the Journal of Education Policy which sheds light on the different perspectives between generations of academics. Titled 'The new neoliberal subject?', she interviewed younger academics who started their careers in UK universities where, as we know, the neoliberal agenda has become fully entrenched (unlike in Ireland, where it seems to be creeping in quite tentatively in comparison). Archer suggests that younger academics understand the 'game' they are meant to play, and even enjoy certain aspects of it. They are also able to remain critical of those aspects of managerialism which can damage morale and which they find pernicious. Archer remains cautiously positive that enough spaces for critical resistance are possible so that academics can negotiate the contradictions of 'doing neoliberalism' without 'becoming neoliberal' in the process.

An older generation of academics managed to escape these contraditions and it is understandable why many of them lament the changes. But it seems important to point out that for new academics, the rules have changed and therefore the challenges are different.

Louise Archer (2008) The new neoliberal subjects? Journal of Education Policy 23(3).

missing voice?

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Fri, 9 Apr 2010 08:41:00 +0100

Duna Sabri has a fascinating paper in the latest edition of the Journal of Education Policy, which probes the role of (or, rather, lack thereof) academics in the developing policy discourse in higher education in England. In particular, the paper demonstrates (on the basis of interviews and document analysis) that there has been a move towards 'genericism' whereby academics are conceived of as 'practitioners' and who require training in their role in delivering teaching in order to provide a high quality 'student learning experience'. The notion of the 'academic' as a role is undermined.

"The effect is to deny any special features of being an academic, an expert in a discipline or cross-disciplinary field, a researcher and a teacher."

Combined with the increasing assumption that students are either consumers or 'technical learners,' policy is being developed in the absence of a voice for academics and there is little sympathy for the historical notion of 'professing' one's subject (in the sense of making 'explicit one's beliefs and to leave it to others to critique them').

The author though also raises a question about some other studies of academics' sense of identity that are based on interview which may often read as ' attempts to perpetuate a sense of affinity and shared values within an imagined community.' So, plenty of food for thought and topics for discussion in the context (perhaps) of our Symposium.

Reference:

Duna Sabri* , "Absence of the academic from higher education policy", Journal of Education Policy, Vol. 25, No. 2, March 2010, 191–205

What should everyone know?

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:33:00 +0100

The RSA recently asked a bunch of famous folk and others hanging around in their building in London what they think 'everyone should know' and should be included in a common curriculum. What do you think?

SRHE Policy Network Meeting

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:59:00 GMT

Yesterday I attended an event organized by the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) in London. The topic was 'Higher Education in Recessionary Times' and the format of the day was that a panel of speakers made brief presentations, the audience broke into small group discussions, and then questions were fed back to the panel in a plenary session. This process worked particularly well and the quality of the discussion was very good. I'll just provide a few points that were made by each speaker.

Professor Mary Evans from the LSE (you can watch her giving a keynote at a CELT conference here) argued that the recession will be experienced differently by different institutions. Some universities are well resourced and will ride out the recession, whereas others will be pushed into concentrating on providing 'value' for the economy which may be difficult to undo in future years.

Professor Louise Morley, director of CHEER at the University of Sussex, talked about the shift in blame from the private to the public sector and the narrative of underperformance which is currently bombarding those of us in universities. She asked us to do some creative imagining of the universities of the future (nicely linking in with the theme of our upcoming CELT Symposium) in order to change some of the 'tired' discourses that are circulating around the problems in higher education.

Wes Streeting, the President of the National Union of Students, noted that there are many different (and sometimes contradictory) voices speaking up for HE at the moment, and he called for a more united front between some of the organizations which speak on behalf of universities.

Finally, Professor Sir David Watson from the Institute of Education, London, remarked that although universities in the UK have enjoyed a relatively large amount of academic freedom, they had been suffering lately from a spell of 'initiative-itis' during which time they were busy responding to a range of initiatives with earmarked funding. He wondered whether there might be even greater autonomy of universities when the recession is over, or perhaps when the problems in higher education are seen by the government as too hard to solve.

Some lively discussions took place afterward, particularly when someone asked whether, if there is a crisis in higher education, the 'blame' should rest squarely on the managers of universities. The divided opinion in the room was rather evident at that point. There were some key questions raised during the day which would be usefully aired in a similar forum in Ireland. Let's hope we have provocative discussions around some of these issues here in Galway in June.

Seasonal shift

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 10:53:00 GMT

Now with the passing of the vernal equinox, the daylight hours begin their stretch and the sun shines more kindly on the land, with flowers budding, leaves re-covering the trees, growth, hope and optimism building towards the peak on June 10th and 11th - the Creativity Solstice where at 9am the rays of the sun shine directly through the open doorway of Aras Moyola here in the west of Ireland, a place of pilgrimage and inspiration since 2003 when the faithful first gathered to.....OK, enough of that! You get the picture, I'm sure. Progress towards the symposium moves up a gear with the review and selection of submitted abstracts, the finalisation of the programme and the launch of our podcast series and pre-event discussions later this coming week.

In the meantime, enjoy the equinox, clear all that winter fug from your brain and get those neurons ready to fire like crazy in June.

Publication

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:17:00 GMT

The latest edition of Arts & Humanities in Higher Education is a special edition containing a number of papers by keynote speakers at the 2008 Galway Symposium. These papers were developed from their presentations. It's great to see that we can share our discussions and debates with a wider audience and in such a fascinating journal.

Kelly Coate: Forum Critical Thinking: Symposium on the Future of Universities: Introduction
Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 2010 9: 9-12. [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]

Mary Evans: The Universities and the Challenge of Realism
Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 2010 9: 13-21. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]

Michael Shattock: Managing Mass Higher Education in a Period of Austerity
Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 2010 9: 22-30. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]

Ronaldo Munck: Civic Engagement and Global Citizenship in a University Context: Core business or desirable add-on?
Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 2010 9: 31-41. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]

Alison Phipps: Drawing Breath: Creative elements and their exile from higher education
Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 2010 9: 42-53. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]

Kathleen Lynch: Carelessness: A hidden doxa of higher education
Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 2010 9: 54-67. [Abstract] [PDF] [References] [Request Permission]

discuss, debate, pontificate

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:32:00 GMT

If you would like to discuss aspects of creativity in education then feel free to sign-up for our new ning-based social network and start posting!

Galway Symposium - First call for papers

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:48:00 GMT

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the 8th Galway Symposium on Higher Education which will be held on the 10th and 11th June, 2010. This year’s theme is “Creativity in Higher Education” and our conception is broad, encompassing creative approaches to teaching, curricular design and the nurturing of students’ creativity. Our notion of creativity is not one which is just concerned with what are traditionally known as the ‘creative arts,’ but rather creativity in its many forms across the sciences, engineering, arts, humanities, medicine, social sciences and commerce.

We have an exciting line-up of keynote speakers and workshop facilitators from the US, UK and Ireland and will be in a position to confirm the final listing in the coming weeks. In the meantime we would like to invite submissions of papers, posters or other forms of presentation. In addition, suggestions of workshops or other facilitated sessions are also welcome. Given the theme of the event, we are also open to innovative approaches to presentations, provided of course, such address relevant topics and are appropriate to the participants (academic and support staff in higher education).

Topics for submissions may include:

· novel approaches to curricular design

· constraints and opportunities in developing new curricula and structures

· innovative approaches to teaching and the fostering of active learning

· the role of creativity in teaching, learning and research

· nurturing creativity in students

· imaginative approaches to the student learning experience

· creativity myths and reality

For those who want to tell their story or present a paper in an innovative and fun way we will also be organising a ‘Pecha-Kucha’ style session. In this, presenters are allowed 20 slides, each of which displays for only 20 seconds. Presenting in this way can be particularly effective, ensures a large number of contributions and presents a challenge to authors to come up with imaginative and attention grabbing images or designs. Practice is essential though because the timing is automated! However, those who have participate in such sessions in the past have found them to be very enjoyable and there is a camaraderie shared with the others in the session. So if you want to be bold, please consider also this option!

Registration and further details regarding the event are at:

http://creativegalway.eventbrite.com/?ref=ebtn

You can submit your proposal online at

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFRXUHVLMmxMVlpBcnFEc1JrX2JnTUE6MA