Thursday 28th February 2013 - 24 Hour Inspire

I didn't know Tim Richardson well.  I sat near him at a dinner a year or so ago, but I knew of his great reputation as an inspirational teacher in his department - Physics. And I also knew that his enthusiasm drew his students into sharing his particular research interests.  I also knew of the view that here was someone who had a lot to contribute in the future to the wider university.  When I heard that Tim had been diagnosed with terminal cancer I suggested to colleagues in his department that a case might be made for him to receive a Senate Award for Excellence in Teaching. They agreed and we took his nomination through the full evaluation process, although out of the normal timetable - in which it was successful.  I am delighted that we were able to make that award at a degree ceremony last month - even though Tim was too ill to be present.

This evening I went to what has now, since Tim's death earlier in the month, become something of a memorial lecture series, raising money for the charity Tim created in his last months.  But this is not a series being played out over a number of weeks at a steady pace.  Following Tim's own example (he once gave 24 back-to-back lectures to raise money for charity), it is a series of over 35 lectures crammed into a 24 hour period, with timings of 30 or 60 minutes each.  I could only get to the first such lecture this evening - given as a double act by two of my Pro-Vice-Chancellor colleagues, Richard Jones and Tony Ryan.  It was a model of its kind - reaching out to a wide audience from across the University, delivered with humour but also with profound material ruminating on the course of scientific explanation and advance over the centuries.  I had another engagement this evening so I was unable to attend more - and with a busy day tomorrow I do not intend to return overnight - I will be interested to hear what the audience is like in the small hours.  But I shall seek to go back tomorrow for further sessions, although unfortunately I have a meeting at 0900 which will prevent me listening to the Vice Chancellor explaining how we are all living in a Bose-Einstein Condensate made of Higgs Bosuns in 30 minutes. As even the title means very little to me I am sure I would learn a lot. 

The range of the lectures is amazing.  There are speakers from every Sheffield faculty on the programme, as well as from the Institute for Lifelong Learning and ther National Fairground Archive (and from Oxford).  I have counted 17 different departments represented, from Maths to Journalism, History and Dentistry in a double act on kissing, Civil Engineering, Law in a lecture on EU actions relating to cancer, Clinical Psychology to English.  Those small hours slots have generally gone to physicists, presumably in the expectation that stduents will bring their sleeping bags to hear their lecturers on topics such as how to make a good cuppa and the science of drumming (the latter from the Head of Department).

The audience for the session I was at was substantial and from all parts of the University.  Retired staff had come in; there were undergraduates and professors; heads of professional services departments and secretaries; at least one family.  Outside was a stall selling cakes and discusits made by students for sale to keep participants going but also to raise money for the charity fund.

This is the whole university coming together.  It makes me and, I know, many others proud that we are here. 

Tuesday 26th February 2013 - Still no female Student Union President

Clearly it is up to students how they run the Union. But associated with the University can make observations about what goes on there.

A walk around the campus shows that the elections are curently taking place for the eight sabbatical officers who will run the Union through the academic session 2013-14.  Eight positions are up for grabs.

I have been Pro-Vice-Chancellor for a long time, and these elections will bring in the eleventh set of officers I have worked with.  In my last blog post I drew attention to a gender issue in University Challenge teams.  In terms of the Union elections it is interesting to observe that the gender of next year's President is alerady known - male.  There are only two candidates and both are male.  This means that, including 2013-14, I will not yet have worked with a female president.  All the other posts (bar one) have moved from time to time between male and female occupants. At one time the Welfare post was a preserve of women, but that mould was broken some years ago (and there is a male incumbent this year).  The Finance post (now called 'Development') used to be associated with men, but once again we have now a track record of women in that role (as this year).  Amongst Presidents there have been no women - but there have been two international students (one a postgraduate), and one (this year's) from a BME background.  But all have been male.

I have talked with the current President about the lack of female Presidents. He has pointed out that across the sector as a whole there are currently a remarkable number of BME Presidents, and he attributes that to an 'Obama' effect bringing new confidence to ethnic minority students.  I hope we don't have to await the possible election of President Hillary Clinton befroe we see a flush of femal Union Presidents across British universities.

But I did point out that all the non-President posts bar one had been occupied by both males and females.  The exception has been, perhaps inevitably, the women's officer role - which has always been occupied by a woman.

It is not my place to suggest a change to the Union constitution.  But were I to do so I would suggest creating a specific post to represent postgraduate students.  And I would also suggest transforming the Women's Officer post into one with responsibility for eqality and diversity issues affecting all students.  It may be that politically ambitious women in the Union see that role as the one for them rather than the Presidency.  Such a transformation might mean a male being elected to the equalities post - and free up women to stand for President.  And that would stand on its head the possibility of recurrence of something that happened for several years in the mid 2000s - for several years male Presidents developed close personal relationships with the female Women's Officers.    

Monday 18th February 2013 - University Challenge teams

For many people in this country, their only regular contact with university students is via University Challenge. I don't know what the audience numbers are, but they must be in the millions since BBC2 continues to show it in a prime-time evening slot.  I am certainly a follower (partly, I guess, because I took part when I was a student - we won both the rehearsals and then lost narrowly when it came to the real thing so that was the end of that).

I would argue that the image of the students on the teams is important for the general audience watching.  What I am about to say should not be taken as applying to tonght's teams - it's a more generic point.  Many teams now include postgrad students, and indeed mature students who are studying at undergraduate level.  That is good. The representation of women is less good: many teams are exclusively male: teams with more than one female are rare. For some universities the subject mix is well balanced, for others it seems as if the team chose itself on the basis of personal friendship. I know that teams are chosen by the Student Unions of the relevant universities, so clearly they have to be left to their own devices on how they choose.  But more teams are put together at the start of the season than ever appear on air, since the BBC weeds out - through a process of preliminary evaluation - teams that are not good enough.

But the issue that does make me anxious sometimes is the social mix of the students.  I accept that one cannot be 100% certain in ascribing the social class background of student contestants simply from their accent, deportment (and possibly their subject - 'Classics' os probably a give-away for someone who has attended an independent school).  But it does seem to me that the teams that come forward to University Challenge sometimes convey an image of coming from a very narrow sector of society, and not representative of stduents as a whole - or perhaps even of the stduents in the relevant institution. Of course, they may have been chosen because they are the best at quizzes.  But universities might like to add in other considerations.

Oxford and Cambridge Universities both struggle with an image of being full of 'toffs' who went to public schools.  It is an image that is conveyed to millions of people around the UK via the composition of some of the teams that the Oxbridge colleges put forward on University Challenge.  Perhaps the cause of widening participation at Oxbridge could be furthered by more teams with a 'boy or girl next door' feel to them.

Tonight I was interested to see a team exclusively of medical students (there are no other at St George's) victorious - and the captain was a woman.  But befroe anyone points it out I recognise that the Sheffield team that got to the final a couple of years ago was an all-male team, although it did include a mature postgrad student.  However, they did convey the spirit of being ordinary guys.

Oh, by the way, I'm not the only member of the University Executive Board who was on University Challenge as a student. 

Wednesday 6th February 2013 - Staff induction

I have written before on my views on student induction.  Too often what new students get in their first week or two are talks on how to find books in the library, how to search on-line databases, how to avoid plagiarism, how to operate safely in laboratory settings, and so on.  In other words, they get the operational detail for their time here.  What they often don't get is inspiration. They don't get a big picture view of what their subject is about, of the intellectual challenges within it, of the latest applications of subject knowledge outside the university world.  I would like students, as part of their induction, to be excited by what they will be doing, and to see something of the wider context in which their own studies and intellectual development will take place.

A parallel set of issues potentially affect new staff.  There is the round of visits to Human Resources, Corporate Information and Computer Services, the Library; there is attendance on the fire safety course; there is registration for the Certificate in Learning and Teaching and the programme encouraging reflection that should lead to new colleagues having the confidence to teach in varied settings and to develop their own curricula in the future.  Certainly the Vice-Chancellor holds welcome sessions for all new staff, focusing on the ethos and valeus of the Unviersity as a whole.  But until now I doubt that many new colleagues have really got the feel of the overall context of teaching within the University.

Today we have tried to change that.  Around 60 recently-appointed staff came together for a workshop day at which we discussed the University's approach to teaching, the strategic priorities we have and the distinctiveness we are trying to offer.  There were separate sessions for each Faculty on their approaches to student development.  Apart from a general introduction and question and answer session on the Unviersity's overall learning and teaching strategy, there were also separate sessions on topics such as internationalisation, employability, and widening participation. These all involve key aspects of what the University is seeking to achieve, but discussion of such strategies is normally confined to departmental and faculty teaching committees and to Senate - fora in which newly-appointed staff are unlikely to be present.

So it will be interesting to see the evaluations from the end of the day.  Will those who attended now feel that they have a handle on the big picture contexts for what we do (particularly the national and competitive environments)?  Will they have some appreciation of the route the university is trying to pursue?  Will they feel that they now have an understanding of key areas that will enable them quickly to see how their own teaching practice can contribute to wider goals - for example in outreach and diversity, or in internationalisation?  Perhaps it's going too far - but will they feel a little bit more inspiration about the contribution they can make to the teaching mission of the university?