I was at ECER in Istanbul with the new ESE Network \u2013 which you will know all about if you've been paying attention.<\/p>\n
The meeting was at BAU, a university I'd not been to before.\u00a0\u00a0 There\u2019s a rumour that it\u2019s given the egregious Sepp Blatter an honorary degree (I think, for services to Sepp Blatter); if so, I'll not be going again. \u00a0It was a fine setting though, on the shore of the Bosphorus.<\/p>\n
I confess that this was as much a culture week as an ECER one, and as such, the star of the show was the Blue Mosque. \u00a0You don't have to be in thrall to the Prophet's pen (p.b. ...) to see this as a wonder of the world. \u00a0A rival, I'd say, to the Tutor splendour of Charlecote Park as the most perfect of perfect buildings. \u00a0Just wonderful in every sense. I am in thrall to the Blue Mosque.<\/p>\n
In more secular terms, the highlight of the ECER meeting for me was a paper by Johann \u00d6hman from \u00d6rebro University who brought together three research studies about sustainable development in educational practice, exploring possibilities and restraints. \u00a0Very well done, and excellent scholarship. Worth the entry price just for this.<\/p>\n
The prize for thoroughness goes, unsurprisingly, to a couple of splendid German academics, Marco Rieckmann (University of Vechta) and Matthias Barth (University of Applied Science Ostwestfalen-Lippe) whose nuanced paper on current trends and approaches in research in HE for sustainable development was as informative as it was detailed and careful.<\/p>\n
At the opposite pole was a report on a\u00a0project around participation for \/ about \/ in \/ under \/ etc sustainability. It was funded through Interreg IV A<\/em> which is an EU fund with \u20ac zillions to aid integration. In this case, to help southern Sweden and the Copenhagen region to understand each other better. \u00a0Ha! \u00a0What a ridiculous idea. \u00a0As boon a doggle as you'd not want to find. \u00a0 This programme was surely designed for Belfast, Bosnia, Berlin, the Basques, Beiruit, and even Berwick, maybe, but not two countries who get on together just fine. \u00a0The EU just has too much German taxpayers tax cash to dish out if it funds nonsense like this. \u00a0It's enough to bring out the inner Eurosceptic.<\/p>\n The hotel bar was full of square-jawed, silent Americans, with their thin-lipped, carefully-thin spouses, who all looked as if they'd just stepped off the flight deck of the USS Charlton Heston to put some backbone into the locals. \u00a0They did not seem to be enjoying themselves.<\/p>\n This is a city where commerce never seems to sleep, and it is hard not to be urged to buy something. \u00a0It's certainly where Milton's dictum applies with force: they also serve who only\u00a0stand and wait around on the streets by their stalls<\/em>. As it was, \u00a0I lost count of the number of would be sellers who approached me with the opening line: \"You from Australia?\". There is, of course, no surer way to turn me off consumption altogether. \u00a0I did buy some fine Turkish socks, though, at a price which made me wonder where the profit (p.b. ...) was.<\/p>\n So; Enjoyable? \u00a0Certainly. \u00a0Culturally ab fab? \u00a0Yes! \u00a0A good start to the ESE network? \u00a0A qualified maybe. \u00a0All will depend on how clear and tight the guidelines for the network's functionings are. \u00a0Will the self-indulgent, descriptive and confused be kept out. \u00a0Well, I do hope so ... .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was at ECER in Istanbul with the new ESE Network \u2013 which you will know all about if you've been paying attention. The meeting was at BAU, a university I'd not been to before.\u00a0\u00a0 There\u2019s a rumour that it\u2019s...<\/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":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","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\/4633","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=4633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}