On Wednesday morning I attended a HEPI/HEA Parliamentary Breakfast Seminar at the House of Commons on the issue of value for money in higher education. Apart from the fact that it was, amazingly, my first ever visit to the House of Commons, which was really interesting in itself, the event…
Earlier today the final version of our submission for the Teaching Excellence Framework, year three (TEF3) was submitted to HEFCE. I want, first of all, to publicly thank all those within the University who have contributed to, or helped to draft, this year’s document. A great deal of work has…
Do you make New Year resolutions? As a rule, I don’t. I never find that I keep to them more than a couple of weeks or so anyway. What I have done, however, for many years now, is to use the time over Christmas (as well as the time just…
Over the last couple of weekends, for reasons that are probably best not discussed, I have been catching up on the audition rounds of X Factor. I know there are many things that we can say are not good about the whole phenomena of X Factor; its commercialisation, its glorifying…
Yes, we got a silver award from TEF and that is, in fact, an incredible achievement. The comments from the TEF panel in their response to our submission, are really positive: Very high proportions of students from all backgrounds continue with their studies or progress to highly skilled employment, notably…
Having bumped into Professor Tom Cheeseman yesterday, it reminded me of a wonderful evening spent a few weeks ago at one of the Volcano Fridays events that he is organising. Alongside a very mixed audience from across Swansea and beyond I enjoyed an evening, at the Volcano Theatre, of Arabic,…
Over the last few weeks I have been doing a great deal of research and thinking in the area of higher apprenticeships. Universities UK and HEFCE published a very useful report on Degree Apprenticeships, Realising Opportunities, and the Welsh Government published their own report on Aligning the Apprenticeship Model…
Last week my partner, David, and I visited Zurich and Basel to celebrate our thirtieth anniversary and also to indulge our shared passion for African Art. We visited a number of specialist museums but two, in particular, one in Zurich and one in Basel, set me thinking about issues of…
Over the last couple of weeks I have opened the Roma, Traveler and Gypsy Arts and Culture symposium at the Taliesin and spoken at a University event to mark National Holocaust Memorial Day. These experiences have raised once again the question of inclusivity in our curricular. There are many ways of…
Over the last week my life, and that of three other colleagues, has been dominated by writing and rewriting the TEF submission. I am very grateful to my colleagues, and to the many other people across the University, who have put so much time and effort into this process. It…
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