It is surprising that an HEA sponsored conference is to be held abroad in the
USA.
The fact that the conference is now international and billed as the '2nd
conference' imply that the first two which took place at the University of
Westminster and York St John respectively are now disregarded despite the
excellent work presented (I attended both).
Is the reason perhaps the involvement of NACADA? If so it is a pity that what
started as a promising resource for HE lecturers and tutors has now been
appropriated by the USA and a 'private' organisation.
Rania
Rania Hafez
Director of Post Compulsory Education & Training
School of Education
University of East London
Stratford Campus, Romford Road, London E15 4LZ
T: 020 8223 2220 ? F: 020 8223 2882 ?
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________________________________
From: A list to facilitate discussion between personal tutors on behalf of
Paul Hubert
Sent: Mon 12/11/2007 6:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: FW: Second International Conference on Personal Tutoring and
Academic Advising
It seems the HEA's work on Personal Tutoring has left the country! Last
(calendar) year my colleague and I travelled to York for the conference and
found it fruitful. Last (academic) year it was held in Edinburgh in
conjunction with NACADA. As someone whose job-share role is to do this kind
of work and nothing else, I pointed out the difficulty involved in having to
travel approx 475 miles and therefore take an extra day each end of the
conference for people low down the food chain like us. This academic year it
seems from Helen's posting the option is to travel to Pittsburgh for a 3-day
event, and it is not apparent from the HEA personal tutoring web-page that it
is currently planning anything else!
The purpose for the conferences apparently was to "allow academics and others
to discuss key points such as:
what personal tutors are and what they do
what makes them effective and how they work
their relationship to the University and student services more generally
the history of personal tutoring in the UK."
I guess there was always a tension between role support and the
academicisation of the conferences. Arguably publication is needed for status
reasons in HE. However even if I wanted to fly to another continent or submit
myself to US security clearance, which I don't, I suspect the best I could
hope for if I asked to go to this conference (3 days plus time to travel
between continents plus travel costs plus hotel costs plus conference fee
[not specified]) would be laughter.
We certainly need some training and support for people carrying out this work
as a main or freestanding role - I have a new colleague starting out next
week. If it it exists I would like to know what and where it is. This list is
barely active and the conference seems to be for something else. Please can
someone tell me what I'm missing?!
Paul
Dr Paul Hubert
Student Advisor (job-share)
Kent Law School
Eliot College
University of Kent
http://www.kent.ac.uk/law/currentug/lawadvisors/index.html
<http://www.kent.ac.uk/law/currentug/lawadvisors/index.html>
<http://www.kent.ac.uk/law/advisors/index.htm>
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