From this whole day of debating and informing, there have been a number of things to be taken from it, there were some key main topics, some conforming ideas and concerns and contraversy between groups. One thing that remained the same was the opinion and ideas of what a university is, a place of excellence and distinction. Somewhere where the individual is able to expand their mind whilst following a curriculum to gain a degree to better their future. Common also was the concept of faith, some took it on the religious perspective as being a drive, or a commune to turn to or keep them going, and others looked at it in the way of integration, tolerance and tentitiveness. The Bishop himself quoted faith as the study into the truth, in a educational perspective he seems to be referring to knowledge mentioning the fact that the University was made as a christian institution as have many other universities. There were however common concerns between students and faculty as the vision statement, 'distinctiveness and quality' mainly that of the first word. Students held concerns about the adaptiveness of their courses, some felt that the theories they were using were regurgitated and outdated, one student mentioned that a lecturers slides were dated a few years back... commonly the staff mentioned that they felt that their was a risk of regurgitation of degrees, worrying that this emphasis of getting the grades down and getting the degrees are not allowing students to expand but simply to answer.
Another common theme was the value for money, indeed we are not talking about asda price or tesco value, we are talking about an experience and an evaluation of merits, students said that if they are paying such a large amount they want all they can get for their money, they want lecturers time and attention, links to placements and access to resources, and equally staff say the same, they think that students should get all they can from their degree but also have mentioned responsibility, something not mentioned by students, stating that many students need to take responsibility of their degree and indeed that some students do work hard and get involved in their studies and research but that a fair few don't, and that it should not be up to lecturers to have to take all responsibility. Another issue that fell across the board was the concept of the Commodification of Learning and Degrees, all three debates touched on this idea of the ownership of degrees as a commodity rather than what it is. Other issues were Growth and the wider society.
In light of all of this, some of the remedies that were suggested were conforming, every group said the university needs to act with some form of synergy with each of the factoring groups that make it up. Equally it was also suggested by all that partnerships in the community need to be a focus for the university for a variety of reasons from placements to the good of the wider society something the stakeholders think that is definately not done enough, with the economic climate turning to hurricane like weather and the cuts that are in place all three have mentioned that the university needs to be more economical in its spending.
One thing that I have taken from this was from one of the audience of the stakeholders 'why are we asking whether the university is a public good, when we should be asking whether it is a public great!'
No comments:
Post a Comment