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Location: the event will take place at the Ambassadors Hotel Bloomsbuy. The hotel is a short walk from Euston station, see the hotel website for more details: http://www.ambassadors.co.uk/

Event Description

Universities and the higher education sector are entering a rapid period of change. Shifts are occurring in terms of our relationships with students, parents, enhancement, assurance, funding bodies and government the very nature and importance of a university experience is being questioned. We invite you to join us at an open symposium to discuss the themes of power, principles and pressure in Higher Education. Presentations will be made by Clare Fox, Director of the Institute of Ideas, Mike Boxall, Senior Management Consultant, PA Consulting Group.

Mike Boxall has been providing business and strategy advice to the HE sector for over 20 years, the past ten leading PA Consulting Group's higher education practice. He has worked with many individual institutions, of all sizes, across the UK and overseas, as well as working extensively with HEFCE and other funding bodies and with Government policy makers. His insights from this experience have been reflected in his extensive publications and conference presentations, including regular features in Times Higher Education and other sector journals. His most recent paper, entitled Escaping the Red Queen Effect - succeeding in the new economics of higher education, has attracted considerable interest across the HE sector and has been used by many institutions as a stimulus to their thinking about the changing environment and power balances in the HE environment and what this will mean for institutions planning their future development.

Pressure

Within this wider landscape, academic staff are under pressure from different avenues - to excel as teachers, succeed in recruiting students, to enhance the student learning experience, meet performance targets, win awards, secure grants and progress. These pressures can impact our personal as well as professional lives, as we are increasingly asked for the relevance of the theories and values we teach. The analytical reflexivity that underlies social science disciplines can be hard to reconcile with the pressures exerted by institutions and governments that on the one hand wish to grant freedom for intellectual curiosity, yet on the other hand wield power that can punish, reject or require changes in focus and direction.

Principles

In a changing and pressured academic world of increasing marketisation, cuts and redundancies, how do academics, social scientists and students hold on to the values that ensure an 'education for education sake'? How do academics retain the educational principles of teaching and learning that allow for critical thinking, that raise social justice issues, of equal opportunity; gender, 'racialised ' differences, disability and sexual differences?

Power

Universities face a constant challenge to reinvigorate and renew their learning and teaching mission in response to the changing landscape of a more competitive higher education sector. Existing and emerging themes of employability, digital fluency, widening access, an internationalised learning environment, and continuous quality enhancement of the student experience reflect the different sites of authority and control which now shape the roles and functions of the academy. A creative and intellectual response to these increasingly empowered actors and institutions, both inside and outside our universities, delivers a wide range of challenges (and opportunities) for academics and students alike.

Booking

Due to the limited number of places only delegates who have registered online will be admitted: booking link.

If you require any other information please contact Frances Worrall by email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or telephone: 0121 414 2995