Colloquium Discussion Area

This area has been set aside for you to exchange comments concerning the colloquium issues or the papers as they are up.
Please send any comments you have for this page to LilianWinkist-Noble at Lilian.Winkvist-Noble@solent.ac.uk| and she will arrange for them to be put up on this site.

Comments

Post Colloquium
Five easy pieces - Graham Badley|.   Posted 04.05.07

Possible Next Steps - George Gordon Posted on 23.04.2007
These might include: . further dialogues . a scenario(s) meeting/event . a position paper . meetings with policy-makers . dissemination via conferences such as SRHE and ISSOTL . distribution of the proceedings . production of a book . research projects, both cross-national and national . stock taking from work that is taking place e.g. R-T links QE projects in Scotland All of these would need to be timed carefully. For example the outputs from the Scottish project should be available around this time in 2008. I would urge varied strategies to address multiple audiences. Regards George Gordon

Sue Clegg paper
Point of clarification by Sue Clegg in response to Lewis Elton’s posting. Posted on 27.03.07
Note on Gadamer - I was referring to the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer to make the point that I don’t mean prejudiced in the pejorative sense, but rather the way the concept is used by Gadamer. He discusses the ways we approach the world with our pre-judgements, and argues that these pre-judgements are a necessary part of the ways we inhabit a culture and an essential moment in the hermeneutic circle which can lead to the fusion of horizons that comes with real understanding. (see Gadamer Truth and Method)
Lewis Elton comment on Sue Clegg paper |posted 27.03.2007
Sue Middleton's response to Sue Clegg's paper| posted on 27.03.2007

Miriam Davis paper
George Gordon comment on Miriam Davis paper posted on 13.04.2007. Miriam's stimulating and wide-ranging treatment raises many issues and challenges about trends in higher education in the UK over the past three decades. In particular it raised three thoughts in my mind. Firstly are the trends cumulative, as Coffield might be taken to imply, or complex, even at times, contradictory? Secondly would different findings emerge now if there was follow-up research on Mary Henkel's study of academic identities? Indeed if we had an in-depth up-to-date large scale survey of academic identities would differentiated pictures emerge? Finally, given that the US system of higher education was the first to attain the state of mass higher education in Trow's terminology, how do trends there differ from those in the UK and with what implications (allowing for the different nature of direct Government influence on policies and practice in higher education)?
Graham Badley's response to Miriam David's paper| posted 02.04.07

Theda Skocpol paper
Alan Jenkins comment on Skocpol paper| posted 11.04.07
Mick McManus comment on Skocpol paper| posted 11.04.07

Rachel Spronken-Smith paper
Graham Badley comment on Rachel Spronken-Smith paper| posted on 13.04.2007
Lewis Elton comment on Rachel Spronken-Smith paper| posted on 27.03.2007

Mick McManus paper
George Gordon comment on Mick McManus paper posted on 13.04.2007.  Understandably Michael McManus focuses upon the challenges to institutions in reaching a sensible, and principled, balance between four pillars of activity. He identifies tensions, even conflicts, which can exist amongst staff, a theme which has attracted comment from Sue Middleton. More thought may need to be given both to Kirp's suggestion that the prevailing academic state is progressively one of the free agency and to the implications of two or more academic states co-existing within an institution or a department. A rather different set of questions might arise for a consideration of student perceptions of each of the four pillars, and of their potential for complementarity and functional conflict.
Sue Middleton's response to Mike McManus's paper| posted 27.03.2007 

Other papers
Graham Badley comments on Stephen Rowland's paper| posted 11.04.07
Mick McManus comment on Elaine Seymour paper| posted 11.04.07
Mick Healey comment on Trowler and Wareham paper and Krause paper| posted 26.03.2007