AUA Blog

AUA Regional Coordinator Vacancies

We are looking for three new Regional Coordinators to take over in Anglia, Midlands-East and North-East Regions.

This is an ideal opportunity for any member wanting to become more involved in the AUA at a national level. The Regional Coordinators’ Steering Group is strategically placed to represent the views and opinions of all members.

With the recent appointment of a dedicated membership services coordinator at the AUA National Office, and the rolling out of a new programme of services and support for the regions, this is an ideal opportunity to contribute to the development and growth of the association.

Please see the RC Remit, and Appointments process for more details. For informal queries about the positions, contact Sara Dixon (RC Steering Group chair) or Felix Mussell (Membership Services Coordinator).

Please submit expressions of  interest to by  23^rd October 2007.

Felix Mussell

AUA Executive Director

The Executive Director post has now been advertised, with a closing date of 21 September.  You can find details of this through AUA's new jobs noticeboard at http://www.aua.ac.uk/jobs/.

If you have a vacancy to you want to advertise there contact Felix Mussell on (0161) 275 8061 to find out how you can do so.

Bruce Nelson
Chair       

 

AUA Strategy Review

At the AGM in Nottingham, the members agreed that 10 strategic objectives, put forward for discussion by the Executive Committee, fitted well with the Association's mission and should form the basis of a revised strategy and supporting action plans for this year and beyond.  Executive Committee has now signed off the actions supporting the objectives, and these have been posted in the members only part of the website (the place where you need a date of birth/memorable date and a password to get in!).

The AUA National Office will periodically report on the progress being made on delivering the action plan and thus meeting the objectives - so even more reason to look out for information in the members only area.

Just to whet your appetite, though, we agreed that as an association, AUA wants to build up a membership that promotes professionalism and excellence throughout the sector, supported by a responsive national office, promoting a re-invigorated AUA brand. We want to be sure that our CPD programme is the most useful in terms of sector-relevance available, that we are using ICT opportunities to best effect, and by these means have a suitably high profile as an active player in the sector. We want to be an organisation that embraces partnership through appropriate strategic alliances, not averse to risk, and looking to ensure financial viability through a range of means appropriate to our mission. We want to be cost-effective in delivering the highest quality services and publications to our membership – both in the UK, and increasingly further afield as we make global links.

So – if you would like to see how this is to be done – visit the members only site and see the action plan. If you need help accessing the site, contact the national office on 0161 275 2063.

Bruce Nelson
Chair

AUA members: want to look ten years younger?

AUA has been approached by a researcher from the Channel 4 makeover show, Ten Years Younger, who are casting for the next series.  They are inviting university staff to either apply themselves, or nominate someone they know - a friend, partner, relative… colleague??

AUA members are, of course, exceptionally well-presented, but you might know just the person who would benefit from such an experience.  So, here's the blurb:

Do you know anyone who is in need of a makeover?

Channel 4 are looking for lively new applicants (especially men!) to take part in the next series of '10 Years Younger'.

We will welcome calls from anyone interested in nominating themselves, or someone they know, for one of Channel 4's leading makeover shows.

To apply, call the 10 Years Younger team NOW on:  0121 224 8381  or email 10yearsyounger@mavericktv.co.uk  to request an application form.

We are in the process of casting for a new series right now so please don't delay!

News from the AUA national office for members ….

I’m delighted to announce that the office has two new members of the team.

Kath Morgan joins the Events Team – replacing James Haden – and Kath will be responsible for booking speakers for our professional development programme and for the annual conference, among other things. She will be working with Matthew and Paul over the coming year to make sure that our 07/08 events programme runs to plan!

We also now have a Membership Services Coordinator in post – Felix Mussell, recently graduated from the University of Leeds. Felix will be working closely with Sara Dixon (RCs’ Coordinator), and directly with BCs and RCs, not only to support their promotional work for AUA, but also to develop a role description, an appointment process, and to improve communications within the BC network / national office. He will also be contributing to regional activities, so if you have local events where you would like office involvement, or presentations, let Felix know!

It’s great to have two more enthusiastic, interesting, energetic people joining us during this busy year in the national office, and I hope that you will be in touch to say hello to them over the coming months!

Details of both our new colleagues are on the website if you would like to make contact.

Liz

When will history be in the past?

With 'A' levels, confirmation and clearing, and a nice new batch of league tables, Higher Education is enjoying it's normal high profile in August.  I'm struck, again, however by the way that the press, and perhaps ourselves, are still dividing the world up into 'old' and 'new', especially noting where a university used to be a polytechnic.

I accepted a job at a polytechnic a little over 15 years ago, but on the day I arrived there it had become a University.  15 years is a long time - why is is necessary when writing about Oxford Brookes, for example, that our local paper still feels the need the add the tag, "the former Oxford Polytechnic" to its description of us.  When will this stop?  I don't think that Bath University is now referred to as "the former Bristol College of Science and Technology", or Leeds as "the former Yorkshire College".

There are still some structural differences between the pre- and post- 1992 sectors: diferent legislation, charters vs articles of governance, pension schemes etc.  but are these real?  Is is just the league table quality judgements that seperate tiers of universities?  What do we think: is there something about 1992 that still rankles with the press?  Is there something about the polytechnic status (it can't be the word - Surrey isn't billed as the "former Battersea Polytechnic")? 

Soon we will have young people applying who were born after 1992, maybe the fact that a university has been a university for the whole of their life will be enough to consign this dividing line to history.

Mike Ratcliffe
Oxford Brookes University (formerly Oxford College of Technology)
17 August 2007

AUA Executive Director

Liz Bromley is leaving AUA at the end of September to become Director of Student Services at Salford.  This is a big promotion for her, and we wish her all the best for her future career.  The fact that she's got such a promotion so quickly in my view confirms what an excellent appointee she was, as has also the impact she has had on AUA in such a short space of time.

Caroline Auty is being appointed Acting Executive Director from 1 October until Liz's successor takes up her post.  We are delighted that Caroline has agreed to take on this role.  I know that she will do a really good job, supported by the excellent team in the office.

The Executive Director post will be advertised shortly.  We hope to complete the appointment process by the end of October, with the new Executive Director taking up his/her post early in the New Year.

Bruce Nelson
Chair

Competition in a Global Market: The Bologna Process & Beyond

JISC infonet is pleased to host the UK Higher Education Europe Unit 2007 survey on the sector's involvement in the Bologna process and European higher education issues.

This survey follows the Europe Unit survey in 2005 and will collect further information on European activity and engagement with the Bologna Process.  The survey covers the implementation of the Diploma Supplement, credit, joint degrees, Masters' degrees and their recognition, and institutional strategies.

Outcomes will inform the Europe Unit's future activity and enable the Unit to continue supporting the UK HE sector in implementing Bologna recommendations and responding to European developments as effectively as possible.  Further background from the Unit including a link to previous results can be found in Europe Note E/07/05, available from http://www.europeunit.ac.uk/news/europe_note_archive/2007.cfm.

Responses will also further inform the JISC infoNet project 'Building Capacity: Preparing for Bologna' currently under development with a range of project partners (for more information visit: http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/bologna).

The survey is available at http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/bologna/survey

You are invited to submit your response by 30 September 2007.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to assist the Europe Unit and JISC infoNet in helping the sector move forward.

Janette Hillicks
Researcher/Analyst
JISC infoNet, Northumbria University

Have you used student Focus Groups?

I work for the Student Services department at the University of Brighton, and we’ve been reviewing our feedback mechanisms.  As well as the normal feedback questionnaires, comment boxes and wider surveys, we’re wondering if it might be useful to hold some student focus groups.

I think the main purpose of the groups would be to dig deeper into the perceptions of our services - and perhaps to inform future strategies and marketing styles.  We tend to find that once people are through the door, they’re usually pleasantly surprised with our services, but it’s the dreaded non-users that we find more difficult to survey.

I was wondering if anyone had any experience of using groups in a similar way to inform services, and if they’d been successful.  Another option would be to rename the group something like “student marketing forum” so that students could feel like they were gaining marketing skills that might look good on their CVs.

I’d also be interested to learn how students were recruited to focus groups to try and get a balanced perspective.  Did bribery work?

If you’d prefer to email me away from the main blog, you’re very welcome.

Thanks

Annie

Northumbria branch: new admin page is Wiki'd

         

Northumbria’s AUA branch has set up a new wiki page to provide an online community for members to disseminate information, updates and codes of good practice.

Branch Co-ordinator, Janette Hillicks, explains: “Wikis are fantastic tools to allow for collaborative writing.

“Every visitor to our wiki can edit any page using a very simple text language that is much easier to learn and read than HTML.

To see the new wiki go to http://northumbria-aua.pbwiki.com/