{"id":2771,"date":"2013-01-24T08:04:59","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T08:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=2771"},"modified":"2013-01-24T08:04:59","modified_gmt":"2013-01-24T08:04:59","slug":"a-sustainable-higher-education-academy-not-quite-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2013\/01\/24\/a-sustainable-higher-education-academy-not-quite-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sustainable Higher Education Academy?  Not quite yet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Higher Education Academy\u00a0[HEA] has an advisory group on ESD of which I am a member. \u00a0The Academy also has a new Strategic Plan (2012\u20132016). \u00a0Sadly, this is not all it might be. \u00a0It begins ...<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>This is a dynamic strategy that we will regularly review so that we remain flexible and proactive in meeting the needs of the higher education community, and in developing new business at home and internationally. \u00a0As champions of excellence in learning and teaching, and as a national body for enhancing learning and teaching in higher education throughout the UK, our strategic priorities directly reflect that sentiment:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>to inspire and support effective practice in learning and teaching;<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>to recognise, reward and accredit excellent teaching;<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>to influence policy, future thinking and change.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div>Good stuff, obviously; a bit florid perhaps, but, ... .<\/div>\n<div>The HEA's Priority 1 is to\u00a0<em>inspire and support effective practice in learning and teaching<\/em>. \u00a0 In the a<span style=\"font-style: italic\">ddressing challenges <\/span>section of this, the Plan says this:<\/div>\n<div>\n<blockquote><p><em>... supporting the higher education community to rise to contemporary challenges such as satisfying greater expectations with less resource, flexible delivery, equality and diversity, assessment and feedback, education for sustainable development, reward and recognition, employability and internationalisation<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, despite its Advisory Group's best efforts, the HEA sees ESD just as it does <em>assessment and feedback<\/em>, <em>employability, <\/em>or <em>reward and recognition<\/em>, as a \"contemporary challenge\". \u00a0 Whilst it may be politically useful to be in (rather than not in) such a list, it is<em> <\/em><em>changing<\/em><em> <\/em>our reckless global economic system which is the contemporary challenge which both HEA and the wider society faces, not ESD. \u00a0ESD is one response to this very existential predicament, just as there are policy and practice responses to the need for better feedback to students within, and greater equality of access by students to, HE.<\/p>\n<p>Is this just a careless category error, or a more disturbing confusion of ends and means? \u00a0Well, the list is such a conflation of ideas and issues that it's hard to know \u2013 and difficult to believe too much thought went into its compilation.<\/p>\n<p>The HEA's Priority 4 is to <em>develop an effective, sustainable organisation that is relevant to and valued by higher education<\/em>. \u00a0In the <em>securing financial sustainability <\/em>section of this, it says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>... we will seek to secure new sources of revenue, for instance by providing services to international institutions or agencies and expanding our subscription base.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div>This everyday use of <em>sustainable<\/em> and <em>sustainability<\/em> is understandable, as almost everyone else does this, but it's a curse for those who'd encourage greater clarity of thinking and language. \u00a0Understandable, maybe, but is it forgivable? \u00a0I'm left wondering whether the ESD Advisory Group is just not very effective \u2014 or whether the HEA is just intent on not listening. \u00a0And now that the senior manager inside the Academy who championed ESD is off to further enhance quality at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abertay.ac.uk\">Abertay<\/a>, I fear the worst.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Higher Education Academy\u00a0[HEA] has an advisory group on ESD of which I am a member. \u00a0The Academy also has a new Strategic Plan (2012\u20132016). \u00a0Sadly, this is not all it might be. \u00a0It begins ... This is a dynamic...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}