HE Midlands Policy Network Debate - 30 October 2019

Hosted by the Education Observatory

Booking via Eventbrite

4 - 6pm, Wednesday 30 October 2019, City Campus

You are warmly invited to join this open debate on Higher Education Policy Network in the Midlands. Intended to extend and develop activities already taking place in Midlands universities, speakers will invite debate on how greater collaboration - and a stronger voice from our region - might influence national Higher Education policy making and funding.

Speakers include:

Marion West: "I'm worried" "I'm confused": Who owns the "worry" and "confusion" in undergraduate supervision?

Marion West is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and Sociology at the University of Wolverhampton, where she teaches Research Methods, Conversation Analysis, Semantics and accredited Volunteering. Her research explores dialogues between undergraduates and their supervisors, focusing on how tutors handle the twin strategies of fostering autonomy while managing resistance to their advice.

Her latest article is 'Script Proposals in Undergraduate Supervision' available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324589217_Script_Proposals_in_Undergraduate_Supervision 

Dr Mary Mahoney: Is policy-based evidence making winning? Considering two examples and their potential impacts

Dr Mary Mahoney is the Head of Lifelong Learning at the University of Wolverhampton. She has established the Centre for Lifelong Learning and leads on a range of strategic initiatives focused on the role of learning in economic and social development through flexible, distributed, lifelong and life-wide learning in key locations. She has established the model for distributed learning resulting in the creation of three Regional Learning Centres, University Centre Telford, University of Wolverhampton in Stafford and the new Black Country Studies Centre (based at/in partnership with the BC Living Museum). She has also driven the development of the Wolverhampton Region Learning City initiative to gain UNESCO learning city status and is the lead for the new Community Engagement strategy and NCOP Adult Outreach initiative.

Mary's research and background focus on the structural barriers and enablers to inclusion in society, particularly the role of policy and political contexts and their impacts on population health and wellbeing. The current application of this work is through access to learning. Mary has an extensive research and consultancy track record and has worked in HE in Australia, England and Wales.

Rosalyn Collings: Disillusionment and shattered assumptions in UK HE

Rosalyn Collings is a Principal Lecturer and Head of Department (Curriculum) for the University of Wolverhampton. She has a substantial background of teaching research methods, statistics and ethics in Psychology and allied disciplines. Roz completed her PhD on the Impact of Peer Mentoring in UK Higher Education and continues to research Higher Education Policy, Pedagogy and student experience. Roz has led on curriculum reviews and course design for the last three years and chaired several ethics panels nationally.