University Positions Research Articles

Philosophy in Post-92 Universities

Philosophy in Post-92 Universities

The Expansion of the Prophetic Experience: 'Abdolkarīm Sorūš's New Approach to Qur'ānic Revelation

AbstractIndubitably, Iranian thinker 'Abdolkarīm Sorūš (b. 1945) in the course of the Islamic Republic's history has undergone an impressive change from establishment ideologist to its most prominent dissident. From 1980 on, he was a member of the Council of the Cultural Revolution, an organisation that dismissed oppositional, i.e. secular minded professors from their university posts, and he often appeared on TV as the Islamic Republic's apologist denouncing the left wing's ideology. But in the late 1980s, Sorūš published his epistemological theory of the evolution of religious knowledge in Keyhān-e Farhangī magazine. Controversies between the magazine's state-appointed publisher and the two journalists who had accepted Sorūš's articles for publication inspired the latter to found Kīyān magazine, which was Sorūš's mouthpiece as much as it became the most important platform of the religious newthinkers, and the religious reform's backbone until its proscription in 2001. Sorūš's transition to a post-Islamist thinker began with his theory of what he chose to call theoretical contraction and expansion of the šarī'a and it continued with his theory of religious-democratic government. In all of his later essays, he spoke out against the monopolization of exegesis by one single social class and against tendencies of taking fatwās for religion itself. In 1997, he published his probably most radical theory, which however was not widely noted until 2007, when the English translation of the essay in question was about to be published and Sorūš spoke of it in an interview. In what did finally appear in English under the title “The Expansion of Prophetic Experience” in 2009, he argued that “like a poet, the Prophet transmits the divine inspiration into the language he knows, the styles and images he masters, and the knowledge he possesses”. And this human view of the Qur'ān makes it possible to distinguish between what he calls the 'essential' and the 'accidental' aspects of religion. Some parts of religion are historically and culturally determined and no longer relevant today. At this epistemological revolution, some of Sorūš's critics accused him of having left his faith for good; others see in it a chance to bring about Islam's aggiornamento.

Interprofessional educator ambassadors: An empirical study of motivation and added value

Background: Interprofessional education (IPE) is being led by a driving force of teaches who advocate for the importance of this learning within health and social care professional curriculum. Many of these leaders have additional uni professional teaching responsibilities.Aims: This study aimed to explore the impact of leading an IPE curriculum on teachers, who were at the forefront of establishing a new IPE curriculum in the east midlands, UK.Methods: The prospective study used the principles of grounded theory to analyse the educator's experiences. The study included teachers who work from academic university posts and those who teach from within practice. These IPE leaders were identified through their involvement in the design and delivery of the local IPE initiatives. They were invited to share their experiences at either a mixed-discipline focus group, a one-to-one interview or by completing a postal/e questionnaire. During analysis the views from each data set were triangulated.Results: A total of 58 educators shared their experiences. All benefitted from being part of the planning and teaching teams. They were driven by a strong belief that IPE had the potential to improve patient care and that future healthcare practice would remain team based. Engagement had brought additional benefits to their teaching and career development in particular through forming new relationships with colleagues from other caring professions. They were concerned about educators teaching interprofessional student groups with little prior experience of IPE.Conclusion: The data suggest educators who take on a leading developmental role in designing and delivering an interprofessional curriculum benefit personally and professionally through working relationships with colleagues in other professions and through teaching wider networks of students. These new insights strengthen personal practice and research and in turn have the potential to influence and improve the quality of faculty teaching.

The creative problem solving skills of arts and science students—The two cultures debate revisited

Research, carried out mainly in the period between the 1960s and 1980s, reported significant differences in the thinking styles of science and arts students. At this time university and school teaching was highly specialised and concern was expressed in the ongoing ‘two cultures’ debate ( Snow, 1959).Considerable changes have taken place in the provision of education at all levels since this time, including changes in the role and culture of modern universities with a wider range of interdisciplinary degree modules; and the desire for students to keep their career options open, reflecting their uncertain employment future.In this study problem solving tests were completed by one hundred and sixteen participants recruited from a post-1992 university and equally balanced between arts and science undergraduate students. The tests covered convergent thinking, divergent thinking, preferred learning style and creative problem solving skills using examples of novel and imperfectly defined problems in the fields of management and public policy. This was followed by direct interviews with a selected sample to gain more textured insight into their contemporary educational experiences.The findings of this study were in marked contrast to earlier published results in that no differences were found in the problem solving skills of arts and science students. Differences were found in preferred learning styles but these were much smaller than reported previously. This research indicates that modern graduates are likely to have a more balanced educational profile than their specialised predecessors and examines possible causes.

Hanover and Göttingen,1837

1837, the death of King William IV brought the personal union between the United Kingdom and Hanover (1714-1837) to an end. The practice of one dynasty ruling over two separate states was not uncommon in medieval and early modern European history, and eighteenth-century Great Britain was no exception, as it established personal unions with Ireland ( 17071801 ) and with Hanover, following the accession of George I to the British throne in 1 7 14. Following Salic law and its requirement of male rulership, however, Guelph dynastic custom barred Queen Victoria from ascending to Hanover's throne, thus concluding the 123 -year monarchical link between the two kingdoms. The impact of this complex relationship remains understudied. Whether examining Britain's relations with continental powers, its alignments during the Years War, its strategy in the Napoleonic wars, or its policies toward Metternichian Germany, Britain's personal union with a central European kingdom (situated in the larger political framework of the Holy Roman Empire and the German Confederation) complicated its geopolitical strategies. A superb recent reassessment of the dimension in British political life should reconfigure current discussions about Britain's empire, national identity, and political culture.1 But one might equally ask how the personal union an institutional and cultural instance of British rule beyond its shores affected Hanover and the political world of the German Confederation, within which Hanoverian politics operated. Given its status as an outpost of English civilization, how did Hanover's personal union with the United Kingdom affect its public affairs (Biskup 128)? To examine this large question, this brief essay examines the last years of the union. In particular, it examines the political crisis surrounding King William IV's constitution of 1833. When his successor, King Ernst August, dissolved the constitution four years later, seven professors of University protested the king's decision and refused to take a new oath. In response, Ernst August dismissed them from their university posts, an action that became a political sensation. In 1837, the cause celebre of the Gottingen Seven unleashed a four-year constitutional crisis in Hanover, strengthened Germany's public sphere as an autonomous force in civil society, and constituted a signal moment in forming moderate constitutional liberalism as an oppositional front in German politics. In 1833, King William IV, the last of the Hanoverian line, promulgated a new constitution in the Kingdom of Hanover, replacing a royal patent from 1819 that allowed an anti-constitutional aristocratic party to govern through provincial diets and an absentee foreign chancellery in London (Huber, Deutsche 86). By contrast, the constitution of 1833 provided the kingdom with a bicameral

The Impact of Degree Class on the First Destinations of Graduates: A Regression Discontinuity Approach

This paper uses a regression-discontinuity design to identify the causal impact of degree class on the first destinations of UK graduates. We exploit the discontinuous relationship between degree class and the mean grade achieved by graduates in their last year at university, which is induced by the administrative rules used for the determination of degree class. More specifically, we compare the average first-destination outcome of graduates with a mean grade that just allowed them to get a given class of degree with the average first-destination outcome of those with a mean grade that made them just miss the chance of achieving the same class of degree. Our empirical analysis focuses on graduates who graduated from a post-1992 university in the period January-July 2008. The results are consistent with the view that degree class does not truly affect the first destinations of graduates, but it picks up the effect of other ability indicators that are typically not observed by researchers. Hence this finding questions the signaling role of degree class.

Realisable or Thwarted Ambitions?: ‘Access to Social Work’ Students’ Post-Compulsory Education and Career Choices

Based upon research undertaken by the author and her professional concerns as a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at a post-1992 university in England, this paper explores an aspect of post-compulsory education where challenges and barriers to higher education entry may be experienced; namely, for black minority ethnic students enrolled on further education ‘Access to Social Work’courses in England. Underpinned by principles of social justice, Access Courses endeavour to promote widening participation to higher education to students who have previously underachieved academically and who are generally from less privileged social backgrounds. Drawing upon theoretical ideas relating to social reproduction, critical race theory, feminist theory and life span development principles, the paper examines the education and career choices open to ‘Access to Social Work’ students, exploring whether their decision-making is influenced by any key ‘turning points’ linked to ideas and factors ideas. The paper ultimately identifies whether these students ambitions are realisable or are being thwarted by more stringent entry requirements for social work education introduced in 2003, and concomitantly the increased emphasis placed upon key skills development by Government and the social work profession’s regulatory body. The paper also briefly explores the influence of learning cultures and gender on education and career decision-making and, manifestly, examines issues of intersectionality in the aforementioned areas with regards to race, gender and social class.

A view from the other side: interpretations of widening participation by a post-1992 university

The role of the academic in interpreting the complex and confused concept of widening participation is central to the practice of widening participation within higher education. These interpretations are bound up within the context of what it means to be an academic, and external constraints on that role. Government policy has insufficiently challenged perceptions of that role to bring about a transformation to academic practice. This research, through the use of semi-structured interviews, illuminates the perspectives of academics, in a range of roles, to the widening participation agenda and outlines the alternative priorities of those academics. Ultimately, the impetus for transformation is not one which will occur internally to the university and it is argued that stakeholders, in the absence of realistic government pressure, must play a part in bringing about a university culture which places teaching and learning and not subject disciplines at the centre of its practice.

Double-entry journals: developing an embedded programme of writing development for first year Early Childhood Studies degree students

AbstractIn recent years students have been entering higher education (HE) with a diverse range of writing experiences, especially where they come through nontraditional or vocational routes that require different kinds of writing than in many HE courses (Lillis and Turner, 2001). For the past three years a team of researchers at a school of education in a large, urban, post-1992 university has been working on a CETL (Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning) research project which focuses on developing secure writing identities in first-year Early Years students (Ivanic, 1998). Although this is still a work in progress, it is clear from the data so far collected that the project provides suggestions for how lecturers can embed writing activities into subject-specific modules. At the same time, the importance of writing development to the whole learning process has been positively highlighted for staff and students alike.

Student engagement and blended learning: Portraits of risk

The widening participation agenda was instigated by a government seeking to develop skilled workers in the global economy, yet it has consistently refused to fund the burgeoning student population adequately. Managers and academics within the HE sector have to reconcile requirements for the implementation of policies with an increasing ‘audit’ culture and a mass education system. For these stakeholders, perceptions of the benefits of moving aspects of learning online can be attractive. But does this help the widening participation student, struggling to adjust to University life, juggling working to minimise debt and family commitments? A model has been developed through cross case analysis of students’ learning experiences at a post-1992 University to illustrate how students are creating new and innovative ways to negotiate their engagement with Higher Education. The negotiation involves their individual expectations of: • Their ability to control technology. • Their forthcoming educational experience. • Expectations of managing their ‘learning space. The model provides a way of mapping aspects of course design to different portraits of students, enabling students to be mapped as high, medium and low risk in terms of retention. The use of this model to design and analyse courses, in order to identify such risks for students, will then be demonstrated.

Time, Work, and Chronic Illness

[1] I'd like to discuss some ways in which our academic lives are advantageous to us, and how lucky many of us are; but I would also like to point out that we have much work to do if we are to preserve our (relatively) lucky status.[2] My own connection to disability is tenuous, and some might say dubious. As a long-term survivor of AIDS (now for more than twenty years), I wrote a chapter for the Lerner & Straus collection (Attinello 2006, 13-22) on fatigue and chronic illness in connection with music. As I stressed in that paper, I know that not everyone considers a long-term illness to be a disability, and I don't think of them as being quite the same, myself; nevertheless many governments (including that of the United Kingdom) define AIDS and other illnesses as disabilities in awarding benefits. So, at least in legal and political terms, there is something to talk about here.[3] In that context, I'd like to represent a point of view not just on AIDS, but all chronic illnesses-I'm thinking of multiple sclerosis and other conditions that create intermittent fatigue, as well as diseases like cancer, where both the disease and the treatment can create ongoing weakness and depression. I'd also include psychological conditions, such as bipolar and depressive disorders. What these very different conditions have in common is that they may-with the emphasis on may-make it difficult for people to fulfill normal workplace expectations: such difficulty may be intermittent, or permanent, or progressive, or static; but that difficulty can have a significant effect on working lives and careers.Let me make some cuts into the problem.Cut I: From Oxford to Community College[4] Because we are academics, we are heir to a tradition of exceptionally flexible work situations: as a lecturer at a British research university, I don't have to show up at a particular time each day, I don't have to do all of my work in the office, and there are days when I'm not even expected to come in. Of course I have the scattered, complex burdens of preparing and teaching lectures and supervising students, of keeping my research going on several fronts, and of administering various programs and procedures (in fact, British academics often have far more administration than most North Americans-unfortunately). But flexible times and circumstances, not to mention vast stretches of time around Christmas, Easter, and in the summer months, make the whole very unlike wage slavery. I can strongly attest to the difference, as between 1977 and 1997 I worked at various forty-hour-a-weekjobs; and the difference has become deeply important to me-I think that, even without a chronic illness, I would never again let a boss insist that I show up every day at 8:30.[5] Our habits reflect an earlier version of the intellectual vocation, when an Oxford don would potter through old buildings among beautiful lawns, chatting with colleagues, occasionally lecturing, and thinking vaguely about his three-volume masterwork on the boll weevil. Of course, we live very differently than that don, with much more pressure and many more demands-but, at least in a research university, we do manage to defend ourselves against the restructuring of those demands into the equivalent of full-time office work. Unfortunately, not all universities are equal in this: in Britain, there is a huge difference between what are called pre-1992 and post-1992 universities-the latter were once called polytechnics. Post-92 schools are generally much more rigid in their demands; my friend Patrick, who teaches mathematics at the post-92 university next to my pre-92 one, has much longer contact hours than I do, and is required to be in his office for thirty-eight specified hours a week, for all but six weeks a year-and then is not allowed to go into his office at all for those six weeks.[6] Now, aside from the fact that I hate the idea of having to work that way, I know that it would have been impossible for me to function on that basis over the past twenty years. …

Prospective Students' Perceptions of University Brands: An Empirical Study

A model of the elements of a university brand was developed together with an instrument for measuring how favorably each of these elements was perceived by a sample of young people who were considering entering university. One hundred and ninety-eight students undertaking pre-university courses in two further education colleges in East London completed a questionnaire designed to assess their evaluations of two out of three post-1992 universities covered by the study. The questionnaire contained sections that explored the promises suggested by a university brand, the objective circumstances of an institution, and its symbolic and external representation. Linkages between the favorability of the sample members' perceptions of the main components of a university's brand and the participants' conative, affective, and cognitive responses (including those related to a university's reputation) were also examined. The model involved a mixture of constructs with formative or reflective indicators and thus was estimated using the technique of partial least squares.

Studies on the Hospitallers after 1306: Rhodes and the West

Variorum Collected Studies is a very useful series. Its volumes contain photocopied articles, which have often been published in obscure journals and conference proceedings, reproduced in their original format. Whether it really deserves the accolade bestowed upon it recently by the council of The Israel Academy, which in a report on Historical Research at Israel's Universities treated its publications as evidence of peer review, is another matter, but it is obviously valuable in cases such as that of Anthony Luttrell, who is the nearest thing to a committed scholar one could hope to find. In a career of more than fifty years he has held comparatively few university teaching posts, but has dedicated himself to research on the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in all periods of its history, but particularly the two hundred years of its occupation of Rhodes and the Dodecanese. No one knows the rich archives on Malta and the material scattered throughout the world as well as he does. He has published one research book as sole author, although he has edited several others; but he is one of those historians who are most at home writing research papers. A bibliography in a Festschrift dedicated to him in 2007 itemised no fewer than 230 articles, many of which are hard to find in British libraries. He is, in fact, easily the most prolific and authoritative historian working today on the history of the Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem.

Whose interests count? The university under pressure to keep abreast of national developments in technology-enhanced learning

AbstractThis paper explores whose interests count and whose interests should be considered in the adoption of technology-enhanced or e-learning in higher education (HE). We look at three key actors in the UK context, which we perceive as a policy-driven system. First, we examine the HE sector and the influential reports by UCISA, JISC and Becta. Second, we look at the response from a post-92 university in relation to its key corporate objectives, mission statements and the outcome of its HEA technology-enhanced learning benchmarking exercise and resulting targets. Third, we report on findings from our research, involving a focus group and online surveys, on staff and students’ actual experience of technology-enhanced learning. The findings challenge the university’s and the government’s policy targets.

Undergraduate students' perceptions the role and utility of written assessment feedback

Student dissatisfaction in higher education with written feedback on their assessed work is a topical issue given the publicised findings of the National Student Survey. This paper presents excerpts from interviews with students about their experience with written feedback together with analytical and interpretive commentary. The context of the research was a post-92 university with a wide range of higher education provision and a commitment to widening participation and student retention. The paper begins with an overview of feedback studies in higher education and a summary of current agenda. The data and analysis are presented in three sections. A final discussion section outlines some salient findings from the research.

Academic Identities in Flux: Ambivalent Articulations in a Post-1992 University

The discourse of power and agency in higher education (HE) is strongly linked to political notions of autonomy and ‘academic freedom’. Recently, however, such notions have been impacted by sustained and ongoing sector-wide reform. With various checks and balances of accountability, surveillance and new forms of regulation, this has led to a reformulation of the academic habitus, creating turbulent sites of struggle and contestation. The intrusion of new targets and technologies has in turn challenged the intellectual freedoms of academics, promoting new vistas of empowerment and constraint. Changing academic identities and social and pedagogical relations have produced somewhat ‘ambivalent articulations’, in Morley's words, around the future relationship of teaching, research and administration in HE. In this article, we draw attention to some of these pressures in a case study of a post-1992 university where, in spite of more recent calls for it to succeed, research has traditionally emerged a poor second to the delivery of taught programmes. The article discusses the attitudes of academics towards the context of changing values and conditions and further considers the contested freedoms that are part of the evolving landscape of contemporary HE.

Determination of academic pay in universities and colleges in UK under the new pay framework: the policy and practice

Academic pay was uniform across universities and colleges below the level of professors till 2004 in UK. Following the global trend, UK has moved away from the nationally determined scales of pay. Since 2004, the broad Pay Framework Agreement which allows for flexibility in pay based on a flexible structure has been adopted and used by universities in UK. The new framework provides for salary and career progression to attract, retain and motivate staff, rewarding appropriately their knowledge, experience and contribution. The national pay spine consists of 51 points and universities negotiate with local union representatives to establish grading structures for academic staff that map onto the national spine. The 51 pay points comprises of ten overlapping grades with a minimum and maximum for all staff below the level of professors. The study reveals that the individual sample universities selected from pre- and post-1992 universities are now adapting into a decentralised institutional based pay determination mechanisms.

University marketing directors’ views on the components of a university brand

Marketing and communications directors and managers in 25 universities in London and the south east of England were interviewed to establish their opinions regarding the major components of a university brand that they deemed to be relevant to student recruitment. The respondents described ten main elements of a university brand that they believed prospective students take into account when evaluating institutions. These included a university’s educational identity (notably vis-a-vis whether it pursued a widening participation agenda and the degree of diversity of its student body), the institution’s location, the employability of its graduates, its visual imagery and its general ‘ambience’ (as being ‘friendly’, ‘welcoming’, etc.). Reputation, sports and social facilities, learning environment, courses offered and community links were also assumed to represent important factors of a university’s brand, looked at from a potential student’s point of view. Interviewees from post-1992 (i.e. mass market) universities voiced concerns regarding the need to transmit certain forms of marketing message about the non-traditional natures of their student intakes (in order to defend their core markets) and the negative impact this might have on a post-1992 institution’s capacity to recruit in other market segments.

‘Going the extra mile’, ‘fire-fighting’, or laissez-faire? Re-evaluating personal tutoring relationships within mass higher education1

In highlighting a gulf between inclusive policy intentions inherent in the advent of mass higher education in the UK and the lived experiences of students and staff, this paper aims to stimulate critical debate about the impact of this changed environment upon traditional personal tutoring relationships. In drawing upon qualitative research with a sample of students and personal tutors from one school in a post-92 university, this paper explores their respective experiences, expectations, needs and concerns. Although some students and tutors reported clear satisfaction with their personal tutoring relationships, this paper highlights the detrimental impact of the mass system upon the ability of many staff and students to engender such connectedness.

Training Methods With Clinicians and Students—A Personal Story and Change: Narrative Therapy for Stuttering

Abstract Educating students and informing clinicians regarding developments in therapy approaches and in evidence-based practice are important elements of the responsibility of specialist academic posts in universities. In this article, the development of narrative therapy and its theoretical background are outlined (preceded by a general outline of how the topic of fluency disorders is introduced to students at an Irish university). An example of implementing narrative therapy with a 12-year-old boy is presented. The brief case description demonstrates how narrative therapy facilitated this 12-year-old make sense of his dysfluency and his phonological disorder, leading to his improved understanding and management of the problems, fostering a sense of control that led ultimately to their resolution.