Today there is almost constant talk in universities of excellence: excellence of institutions, of staff, and even of students. A quick search of the University of Edinburgh website yields teaching and research excellence (including the Research Excellence Framework), academic excellence, Exemplars of Excellence in Student Education, VLE Excellence, Tercentenary Awards for Excellence, the Centre for …
Few concepts are invoked more confidently in contemporary universities than the student voice. Yet the way the term is framed – and especially the language of championing it – obscures the limits of student judgement while betraying a deeper unease with educational authority. In higher education, what is needed is not greater responsiveness, but the …
Patient: Do you think I have low self-esteem? Therapist: No, it’s about right. How do we know whether our own evaluation of ourselves, and of our lives as a whole, is accurate or justified? How can we tell if we’re genuinely living a good life? MacIntyre (2016, p. 222) makes the bold claim that at …
I spent an hour or so with a student from Vietnam this week. I could tell from her accented English she was likely to be Vietnamese, but she was quick – keen even – to let me know. In fact, she began our tutorial by explaining that she was attending this writing tutorial because English …
It has become commonplace to describe all sorts of phenomena in positive terms. Take the word community. It is often applied to any group of people with something vaguely in common, however thin or ill-defined that thing might be. To call such a group a community immediately suggests coherence, shared recognition, and solidarity. Curiously, the …
Some Personal Reflections on the Pre-Sessional (Phase 2: Induction + Weeks 1–3) A pre-sessional programme is an academic English course designed to help students develop their language and academic skills before starting a university degree. At the University of Edinburgh, the programme is run by English Language Education (ELE); the six-week phase (Phase 2) includes …
In Leisure, the Basis of Culture (first published in 1948), Josef Pieper notes the difference between looking as contemplation and looking as observation. With the first kind of looking – as when we look at a rose – we are ‘passive and receptive’, and ‘our attention is not strained’. We are simply looking, open ‘to …
I recently learned of a paper on The Student Voice (likely capitalised, perhaps bolded) that reportedly recommends mandating end-of-course surveys for every course, with completion required in class. Currently, I conclude my courses by sharing the optional survey link, respecting students’ autonomy as adults to choose whether to comment. In-class mandates would likely increase response …
