I spent the morning getting ready for teaching my final year option - the first class of which will be on the Friday afternoon at the end of the first week of the semester.  I have to leave it relatively late before actually setting the week-by-week schedule because there are so many other things that come into my diary.  This year it looks as if I will be able to teach every session bar one - and that will be on a day when I will be viting CITY College in Thessaloniki and, appropriately, a Greek member of staff will take over with the class for that afternoon.

Already I am relishing seeing the effects of changes I will make as a result of lessons learned (by me) last session.  For instance, last year I experimented with running a formal debate on a particular issue - stating that the European parliament was considering legislating on ethnic equality rights. But that did not work because I held the assumption that students would have some notion of how a formal debate (such as in the House of Commons) worked - in reality they had no idea whatsoever of procedure, and no confidence in role playing within the structure I had set up.   This year I am changing the topic of that afternoon a little and will ask groups of students to make a pitch on their suggested policies for promoting community cohesion in the UK, based on their reading and evaluation of policies in other European countries.  And I have persuaded a recent Masters student who works in a policy consultancy to come to listen to the student groups and to give her reactions to them to give a flavour of how it is to make a pitch to an audience that has decision-making powers over whether to implement something or not.  There will also be changes to other sessions within the module - but one will remain as it has been over recent years, and that is the session on the break-up of former Yugoslavia where I get pairs or small groups of students to role play each of the main protagonist groups to explain to a new European Commissioner what happened and what the unfinished business still is.

What often disappoints me is that students are reluctant to move outside the comfort zone of the teaching and learning methods they have experienced to date - and these are third years.  There seems to me often to be both a strong element of risk aversion in our students, and a lack of self-confidence to project themselves as individuals who can stand out in the crowd.  I expect final year students to be preparing to enter the labour market and to try their hand at new things - and I am prepared to challenge them with a variety of learning methods.  In most years they thank me afterwards for having goaded them to think more than they have often done before, but they also complain that because my classes are different week by week and generally involve them in very active roles they end up with fewer notes than they feel comfortable with.  They need reassurance that they can learn by doing rather than by being talked to by me. I wonder if my reactions are shared by lecturers in other departments.

I shall report in a month or two on how it is going with this year's group of 27 students.

I went to a funeral today.  No: please don't stop reading.

Jill Halpern arrived at the University of Sheffield from Bristol as a postdoctoral research assistant in the late 1950s to work in George Porter's research team in Chemistry - indeed her name appears in the citation for the Nobel Prize that Porter won.  Here  she met David Grigg, a lecturer in Geography who had recently arrived from Cambridge.  They married; she gave up her career; they raised three children; David rose to become professor and a leading authority on world food production and consumption.  He died in 2004: she died last week at the age of 74. A simple and (apart from the Nobel Prize work) a relatively 'ordinary' academic life story for a woman of her period.

But what was thought-provoking about today's funeral was the massive representation from a whole range of departments from across the university.  There were chemists, of course, but I counted friends of Jill (and David, her late husband) from Mechanical Engineering, French, Psychology, Germanic Studies, Law, the Library, Mathematics, Education, Molecular Biology and a whole range of other disciplines.

I doubt that any funeral of an ex-University employee in 20 years time will have such a broad representation from across the institution.  When Jill started work at Sheffield it was a university of a couple of thousand students and fewer than 200 academic staff.  There were few female lecturers, and it was the custom for new male lecturers, on arrival, to take a tutorship or assistant wardenship in a Hall of Residence.  It was thus a university staff world where almost everybody knew almost everyone else, and where disciplinary affiliations played a much less significant role as a personal identifier than they do today.  Inter-disciplinary conversations in senior common rooms were the norm, and close friendships were formed across the university.

Today we talk much about the need for inter-disciplinary research.  But I suspect that the truth is that the majority of academics, certainly those who are relatively young in their career, know few other academic staff outside their own department - and then only those who have a direct connection with their own research field.  The growth in size of the institution has led us all to retreat into our own disciplinary worlds, and much of that wider community feeling of earlier times has been lost. I suspect that is also reflected in the perceptions of who we all work (or worked) for: for many of the septuagenarians at Jill's funeral today their answer to the question of where they had worked would be 'The University of Sheffield': whilst for many younger staff today their answer to a similar question would be 'I work in the Department of X at the University of Sheffield' with the disciplinary affiliation rather than the university taking precedence.  Those who work across the disciplines today, and who work primarily for the University, are very often colleagues from the professional services.

Martin Williams this morning, at the Russell Group PVCs meeting, proved very interesting (see yesterday's blog) ... but unfortunately I can't say much about it because we govern ourselves via the Chatham House rule.  So in this case I can't say what he said, but it's quite easy to find a lot of it because he quoted extensively from David Willetts' speech to UUK on 9 September, a speech that it was clear he had a hand in writing.

For those who are interested see: http://www.bis.gov.uk/news/speeches/david-willetts-uuk-conference

Something that surprised me at the end of our PVCs meeting was that I found myself chosen by the others to be the new convenor of the group and therefore the chief link for Russell Group head office to issues and opinions about learning and teaching.  This could actually turn out to be quite a tricky task over the coming months. There is a complicated diary that we teased out this morning and which goes something like the following. It is worth noting that some of the scheduling does not happen in a logical order.  I am also putting in my own interpretation of how things may pan out.

Early October 2010.  Lord Browne reports on the work of his group and recommends a change in student fee and loan arrangements to take effect from October 2012, which will need parliamentary legislation to get through.
20 October 2010.  The Comprehensive Spending Review is published, cutting BIS's budget significantly.
21 October 2010. BIS announces a deep cut in the teaching funding allocation to universities, with the expectation that the cut will be made up, in aggregate (note those two words), by increased student contributions.  The cut is actually postponed until 2012-13 - but we should note that the CSR is intended to deliver its full range of cuts by fiscal year 2014-15, so the savings have to be delivered in three fiscal years rather than 4 if they had taken effect for 2011-12.  This postponement becomes known as 'Browne's bridge'.
March 2011.  Universities put the prospectuses for 2012 entry to press without any firm indications of what the student finance arrangements will be, since opposition to the Browne review recommendations is considerable.
Spring 2011.  The Bill to change student funding is rejected by Parliament.  (I won't go so far as to suggest that the coalition falls apart - but it is notable that in 2004 the then Labour government came closer to losing its majority over tuition fees than it did over the war in Iraq: student funding is an emotive issue).
Summer-Autumn 2011. The 2011-12 admissions round (for 2012 entry) starts without any agreed change to student financing, such that candidates have incomplete information on which to base decisions.
December 2011.  A watered down student funding proposal is passed by parliament, which results in a much lower reduction of the cost to government of fee and maintenance support.  Universities are enabled to declare increased fee levels, up to a cap.
February 2012.  The Treasury announces that the savings mapped out for BIS and the university sector on 20 October 2010 must still be made, even though there is no longer going to be a £1 for £1 rise in student contributons to offest the cut in government spending.  Ignoring the fact that the current admissions cycle is half way through, BIS therefore announces that the number of funded places available will be significantly cut for 2012 entry - part of the justification being that applications have been lower anyway (but that is the result of a lack of clarity about student funding, such that many potentrial applicants have held back from applying until late in the cycle).
August 2012.  The most chaotic admissions season of recent times.

I very much hope I'm wrong with this timetable.

Twice a year the Pro-Vice-Chancellors of the Russell Group universities meet up for 24 hours of discussions around issues of common concern to all of us.  We now go around each other's university cities, although originally (I was in on the very first meeting exactly 6 years ago) we met in a small hotel on the outskirts of Swindon.  Today we are in Leeds, staying and meeting in the Weetwood Hall conference centre that is owned by the University.  Our speakers to date have been Phil Jones from Sheffield Hallam (who chairs the sectors's Quality Assurance in Higher Education group), Craig Mahoney (the new Chief Executive of the Higher Education Academy) and Michael Arthur (VC of Leeds and chair of the Russell Group). We have Martin Williams, head of HE strategy at DBIS to come.

Something that inevitably dominates our discussions is the dual issue of the outcome of the forthcoming Browne Review and of the Comprehensive Spending Review - both to report within a month.  The effect of the latter on the financing of DBIS looks pretty certain - although how that will translate into HEFCE action is rather more unknown and an obvious cause for speculation.  On the other hand, even at this late stage there still seem to be innumerable views, leaks and rumours on what Browne will recommend. It is certain that students will have to pay a higher contribution towards the costs of their education, but how that is to be achieved is still up for grabs, and what that payment might be is still open.

However, something that seems to me to be becoming clearer is what the universities will have to do in response.  The quid pro quo for any change in funding is likely to be the publication of a defined set of data for candidates, verifiable indpendently from outside an institution, covering not only levels of student satisfaction but also issues around graduate employment, contact hours, who students will be taught by (for example, are postgraduate students delivering first year tutorials and seminars), the costs of accommodation, and satisfaction with the local Students' Union.   I asked last month that we should look to see the extent such information was already available in departments here in Sheffield and found that a lot of the 16 points we are likely to be asked for are not currently covered by materials available to candidates in any way.  We are going to have an interesting time compiling some of these data and reflecting on them in relation to the messages about us that they convey to interested candidates.

The buzz is back.  The new students are here.  All is back to normal. I don't like the atmosphere of the quiet months of July (except for graduation week) and August as much as the feeling on campus today. And I know that feeling will grow stronger over the coming days as more second, third and fourth year undergraduates arrive back for the re-start of teaching next Monday.  A university without students is like a concert-hall without the audience.  The orchestra may be there to rehearse and play, and even to be recorded, but there is no one to hear them directly.

Today, along with Andrew West from Student Services and Josh Forstenzer from the Union of Students, I spoke to four groups of our new undergraduates - totalling over 5000 students.   They are setting out on what should be an incredible voyage of discovery - about their subjects, about other people, but also about themselves.  I think we put that message across strongly to them - perhaps more strongly than we have in previous years.  They will graduate into a more difficult labour market than did the students of ten years ago. The global challenges they will face in their working lives are arguably growing year by year.  What we tried to do today was to present to the new students a vision of our university as a place that will support their endeavours to become different, that will give them the opportunities to explore and to grow, and that will present them with challenges but not in such a way as to leave them without advice and guidance.

Only time will tell whether we did a good job today.  I speak to a lot of big audiences, and as anyone who does so knows, one develops certain ways of detecting the mood of the group.  Today I sensed that this year's new entrants are perhaps more serious and attentive than those of some recent years.  They perhaps recognise some of the difficulties that the country is facing, and that beset the wider world at large.  There seemed to be a different mood around, and I will be interested in the coming months to see whether I have actually totally mis-read them, or whether this cohort has a more reflective and determined approach to making the most of its time with us.

I found a similar level of seriousness last Friday evening at what is always, to me, one of the highlights of my year - the dinner that rounds off the orientation week for international students.  In my blog for the end of graduation week in July I wrote of the privilege of working amongst gifted and idealistic young people.  The dinner on Friday also gives me a kick because of the way in which it brings together students from every continent of the world: as I go round the tables and talk to many of those present I reflect that nowhere else can I have conversations, within a very few minutes, with students from India (from the city where my father was stationed during the second world war), Germany (including a student who told me she is a distant relative of the pope), Finland (with a student who corrected me on my pronunciation of 'welcome' in Finnish in my opening remarks), Australia (a student who told me about life in the most isolated big city in the world - Perth), and the Netherlands (a student who told me about his enthusiasm for the postgraduate programme he is to take in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities).  But on Friday evening, just as today, I found a serious, diligent, committed and responsible attitude prevalent in the company at large.

It is a privilege to have the students back with us, and it is going to be an enthralling year if this spirit of commitment that I have detected so far actually continues throughout the  coming months and years that the new cohort will be with us.

Lest readers might get the erroneous idea that PVCs never take a break, I should point out that I have been away on holiday for part of the time since my last blog entry. I had a break in France - partly in the Medoc wine region north of Bordeaux, and partly in the French Basque country, very close to the Spanish border - and that location also provided the opportunity for a drive to Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim.

The Pope's visit to the UK has led to a surge in interest in Cardinal John Henry Newman. Some of this has revolved around his role in creating the modern unviersity - his 'The Idea of a University' has been cited quite a lot.  I'm afraid I am in a very different camp.  I much prefer the thinking of the German Wilhelm von Humboldt - and it is notable that we are in the 200th year since the founding of the institution that bears his name, on Unter den Linden in Berlin.

Newman's university, were it to be functioning today, would be almost exclusively concermed with the teaching of the Catholic faith, with English linguistics, and with Latin.  It would be solely a teaching institution, with no research activity, no science, and no consideration of society or human beings beyond their understanding of one religious position.

Humboldt's university in contrast (and it is an idea that pre-dates that of Newman) would provide the dual functions of research and teaching. Research would be built around the scientific paradigm of empirical-positivist investigation.  Teaching would be informed by research.  And the reach would cover the breadth of subjects that we today regard as worthy of university study - natural science, society, medicine, cultures, and the practical application of knowledge (Humboldt was writing before the concept of Engineering came to the fore).  And while Wilhelm von Humboldt is rightly credited as the founder of the university, his brother Alexander (whose statue is paired with Wilhelm's at the entrance to the Humboldt University) brought a strongly international feel to the whole enterprise. Alexander spent a good proportion of his life as an explorer, geographer and anthropologist, and realised that global and comparative dimensions to study needed to be provided in universities that might otherwise become purely national and inward-looking institutions.

Much of the Humboldtian view of universities therefore resonates with higher education today: to my mind, Newman's views do not.  But there is one other Humboldtian element that I rather like - although not directly connected with the founding brothers.  On entering the lobby of the main building in Berlin, the visitor is met with a frieze carrying, in gold letters, a quotation that I again think has great relevance to what we should be doing in higher education.  My translation from the German goes like this: "It is the job of the thinkers not just to understand the world, but also to seek to change it".  That's another aspect of what we are about - using knowledge to improve human conditions. The quotation is from Karl Marx.