Today I have come to the end of three and a half years as the co-convenor of the Higher Education Academy's network of Pro-Vice-Chancellors for Learning and Teaching. Some of these tasks seem to have very long names! It has not been a very onerous responsibility, but it has been an interesting one. Members of the network gather twice a year for an overnight meeting, generally in London. On the first evening there is a dinner with a speaker, and on the following day there are a series of discussions, presentations and workshops. Sometimes special interest groups hold sessions and plan activities.
Because we normally get 50 or so participants we have been able to attract excellent after dinner speakers - Sir Alan Langlands (head of HEFCE), David Eastwood (VC of Birmingham who came to talk to us - along with civil service minders - while he was a member of the Browne Review), yesterday evening Les Ebdon, the new head of OFFA. We have also organsied very interesting discussions. My first meeting as co-chair had Phil Willis (chair of the parliamentary select committee that was making accusations about dumbing down), Colin Riordan (chair of a HEFCE sub-group looking into these accusations), and Anthony McLaran (the new head of the Quality Assurance Agency) all sharing a platform.
What has been my role? Along with my co-convenor and colleageus from the Higher Education Academy, I have been involved in planning our meetings, identiofying speakers and themes, and then in chairing the actual events. Convenor pairs have eben deliberately chosen from different parts of the sector. Hence I have worked with PVC colleageus from Salford, Aston (a brief pairing because she went on to another job) and Sunderland. At today's meeting my successor, from Bath, took over fully from me. Notably, all these pairings have involved me and a female colleague. As I have noted before, among senior university posts it is the PVC L/T one that seems nationwide to be most gender-blind in appointment.
Some senior people here may wonder why I find it useful to attend meetings with colleagues from a wide diversity of universities - what do they share with the concerns of the Russell Group? Aren't we very different, and isn't it enough just to talk to universities like us? No. And that's not just a 'no' from me: at today's meeting were colleagues from a number of Ruseell Group universities - UCL, Cardiff, Durham, Manchetser, Glasgow, Edinburgh. In the past Bristol, Warwick and Kings College London have often been there. Innovation and good practice in delivering excellent education to our students can come from many different sources. I came away from today's meeting with good ideas and food for thought gleaned from Winchester, Hertfordshire, Huddersfield - as well as from Glasgow. However divided into mission groups we may be (and that will, I am sure, be problematic for us all in the next comprehensive spending review), we have much more in common in teaching than some care to admit.
I have enjoyed my stint as co-convenor of the HEA network, and I will continue to try to go to its meetings even now that my term of office is over.
(Oh, and I should add that one of the provileges of office has been the chance to determine the invitees. One of the stars of today's meeting was Tom Arnold - last year's Student Union President at Sheffield - talking about the role of the Students Union in strategic leadership of change in learning and teaching.)
No comments:
Post a Comment