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Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER)

Events Archive: pre 2010

EVENTS

December 2009

CHEER presented a symposium at the 2009 SRHE Conference at the Celtic Manor, Wales 'Caught Between the Inertia of Archaism and the Frenzy of Hypermodernisation: Exploring a Cultural Sociology of Higher Education' [Pdf 125Kb].

November 2009

CHEER seminar series. Mairead Dunne and Russell King gave a seminar on 'Applying for Higher Education Abroad: Motivations and Experiences of UK School Leavers'.


27 October 2009

CHEER seminar series: Jocey Quinn gave a seminar on 'Subjects and Subjectives in Higher Education'.


August 2009

Louise Morley gave a keynote presentation 'Imagining the University of the Future' at the 6th European Conference on Gender Equality in Higher Education, University of Stockholm, Sweden.

February 2009

Louise Morley delivered 2 keynote presentations on 'Momentum and Melancholia: Gender Equity and Higher Education' at the Gender and Academic Change Conference at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and at the Caledonian Academy Learning Communities Forum, Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland.

29 January 2009

Valerie Hey and Gert Biesta addressed the topic 'The Place of Theory in Higher Education Scholarship' at a joint event hosted by the SRHE Higher Policy Network and BERA Higher Education Special Interest Group.

December 2008

CHEER organised a symposium on 'Re-imaging the University: Theory, Design, Practice and Possibilities for Higher Education Futures' at the SRHE Conference in Liverpool. The following papers from the symposium are available for download:

6 November 2008

Louise Morley gave the keynote address to the Annual Seminar for the Society for Educational Studies in London: An Academic Life: 10 years On. Her talk was entitled 'Imagining the University of the Future'.

 

NEWS

November 2008

Louise Morley has been awarded the title of Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences in recognition of her contribution to the social sciences.

21 July 2008

Valerie Hey and Louise Morley were successful in the ERSC Seminar Series Competition. The series is entitled 'Re-Imagining the University'. It will consist of 6 high- profile, seminars staged over the next two years, commencing in January 2009. Each seminar will have at least one international keynote speaker. 5 seminars will be hosted at Sussex and one hosted at Leeds Metropolitan University. Each seminar will be framed by a questions about the dimensions and power dynamics structuring and confronting Higher Education. The seminars will be:

  • Who Desires and Aims (for) Higher Education?
  • What are the Disqualified Discourses in the Knowledge Society?
  • Who can Inhabit the New Academic Identities of a Digital Age?
  • Spaced Out? Examines The University in terms of the significance of building design on pedagogy and power relations
  • Assessing New Times in HE
  • Re-Imagining The University - Minding the Gaps: The session will coordinate and systematise the different readings of the equity, policy and practical questions opened out in the preceding 5 dialogues

21 July 2008

The Society for Research into Higher Education 2008 annual prize for Newer Researchers has recently been jointly awarded to Dr Barbara Crossouard, a member of CHEER. Barbara completed her doctorate in 2006 at Sussex after working on an EU-funded project exploring formative assessment with doctoral students, directed by Dr John Pryor. The SRHE prize will fund a pilot study of the career trajectories of newly qualified researchers.

14 January 2008

From January 2008, Barbara Crossouard and John Pryor are joint convenors, with Paul Ashworth (Lancaster), of the Higher Education Special Interest Group of the British Education Research Association.

CHEER at the SRHE Conference in Brighton: 11-13th December 2007

 

15 November 2007

Louise Morley has been elected by the Governing Council of the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) as a Fellow of the Society. This is an honour which is bestowed by the Society in recognition of the very highest achievements in the field of research into higher education.

Launch of the New Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER)

CHEER brings together higher education researchers at different stages of their careers who share interest in the socio cultural and interdisciplinary aspects of higher education. Over 70 people attended the launch of the new centre [Pdf 382Kb] on the 15th November, hosted by the Sussex School of Education. National and local higher education scholars, policymakers and practitioners were welcomed by Professor Louise Morley, the Director of CHEER. The event was introduced by (former) Vice Chancellor Professor Michael Farthing and closed by Pro Vice Chancellor Professor Bob Allison.

CHEER was launched on 15 Nov 2007. (former) Vice Chancellor Professor Michael Farthing opened the Centre at which Sir David Watson gave a keynote presentation: CHEER launch david watson [PPS 1.13MB]. Louise Morley also gave a presentation at the opening of the new research centre: CHEER launch louise morley [PPS 74.00KB].

Media Files are available for the following events:

Professor Louise Morley's opening address inaugurating CHEER [Mp3 4.4Mb]

Professor David Watson's key note address on The Struggle for Fairness in HE : Universities Behaving Badly [Mp3 39.5Mb]

 

 

Seminar Series - 2008-2009

18 May 2009 'The Doctoral Experiences of (early) Career Academics' Speaker - Diana Leonard, Emeritus Professor of the Sociology of Gender & Education, Institute of Education, University of London We may have got away from the basic stereotype of the doctoral student as someone who is young, with little labour market experience, and who hopes to go on to an HE teaching or research job experience i.e. at least outside HEFCE and Research Council circles, it is now more recognised that many research students are over 25, with work experience and study part-time. But this paper will argue the need to go further and to explore the particular needs of different groups of older students, by looking at those who do their doctorates when they already have posts in higher education. Are there differences in what motivates them? What are their sources of support? What do they hope to get from their University and Supervisor? And what use do they subsequently make of their qualification and research findings?

23 March 2009 'What Matters?' Generating value from respect, ugly feelings and 'just talk' Speaker - Bev Skeggs, Professor of Sociology, Goldsmiths College, University of London Drawing on three different groups (male ex-offenders on a widening participation scheme, older women and men in community groups and young women from different working-class areas of London and the north east of England), this paper draws on a research project that began as an exploration of the Government's 'Respect Agenda' (now quietly withdrawn) which led to the question of 'what matters?' to people who are positioned outside of the dominant symbolic systems of exchange-value that promote the development of individualised, culturally acquisitive, enterprising selves. Issues of friendship, family, loyalty, dignity, respect and respectability are explored. As are critiques of greed, selfishness and ugly feelings. The generation of moral and use-value are examined as different perspectives on and orientations to social relations.

9 February 2009 'University is not for me': why young people with Level 3 vocational qualifications are choosing not to progress to Higher Education Speakers - Sarah Aynsley and Barbara Crossouard, CHEER, ÅÝܽ¶ÌÊÓƵ This seminar is based on data gathered through a British Academy funded research project. For many, predominantly. middle class young people, who choose to follow the academic pathway, progression to HE is well understood and expected. A more fractured transition is often experienced by the 'vocational choosers'. In our study, students attending a further education college were asked via questionnaires and interviews about their educational history and career plans. High amongst the reasons given for not continuing to HE included concerns about the costs of HE; the perception that HE qualifications would not provide employment advantages and a preference for learning in work contexts. This seminar paper will provide insights into factors shaping respondents' educational and career trajectories and will argue against the 'deficit model' of non-progression to HE.

Download Sarah Aynsley and Barbara Crossouard's  Making Choices Paper [PDF 137.69KB]

2 December 2008 The Research Imagination in a World on the Move: What is it, who has it, and how might you get it? Speaker - Jane Kenway, Monash University, Australia What does the notion of the imagination mean in the everyday world of university research? Is all research an act of imagination? What might it mean to globalise the research imagination? In this talk, I will illustrate the ways in which the imagination is mobilised in (globalising) research practice by sharing with you the thought of highly imaginative scholars from philosophy, sociology, anthropology, geography, literature, education and politics. These are Arjun Appadurai, Raewyn Connell, Doreen Massey, Aihwa Ong, Fazal Rizvi and Saskia Sassen. These scholars' thinking on globalisation is influential and inspirational. They provide compelling and creative insights into what it might mean to globalise the research imagination.

1 December 2008 The Idea of the University Today Speaker - Gerard Delanty, ÅÝܽ¶ÌÊÓƵ Universities are undergoing major change today and we need to rethink quite fundamentally the very idea of the university in a world that is very different from earlier periods when the university as an institution emerged. The emergence of global public culture is a new context in which to understand the contemporary significance of the university, an institution that can play a key role in shaping social and human development in a global age. Although universities no longer dominate the field of knowledge production, they have a central role to play in linking knowledge with citizenship. This is more than simply being knowledge producers; it is also a question of social and human development and challenges that are as much socio-cognitive as technical. Universities have the potential to play a leading role in shaping the social and cultural horizons of the knowledge society.

Download Gerard Delanty's seminar presentation 2008 [PPT 62.00KB]

10 November 2008 Constructing the Higher Education Student of the 21st Century: A Feminine Subject Speaker - Carole Leathwood, London Metropolitan University In a context in which women students are now outnumbering men at undergraduate level in many countries, including the UK, this presentation will consider the extent to which the higher education student might now be seen as a feminised subject. I have previously argued that the student, constructed as an 'independent learner', is a masculine construct. Mary Evans, however, has suggested that recent changes in higher education has resulted in 'the socialization of undergraduates into those skills traditionally associated with women, and women employees' (Evans 2005, p. 68). In this paper I draw on a forthcoming book, co-authored with Barbara Read (Roehampton University), to examine the ways in which these and other constructions of today's higher education student are gendered, classed and racialised.

19th May 2008: "The Challenges of Diversity and Equality for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: A Critical Perspective on Research Practices and Pedagogies". Miriam E. David, Institute of Education, University of London  

28th April 2008: "The First Year in UK Higher Education: Experiences and Departures" Mantz Yorke, Visiting Professor, Lancaster University.

18th February 2008: 'Taming the Beast - Higher Education and the Market' Roger Brown, Co-Director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Development, Liverpool Hope University

A recording of Roger Brown's presentation [Mp3 80Mb].