Donald has worked on a number of modernisation programmes in Higher and Further Education for the World Bank, IVIMEDS (global group 34 Medical Schools) and worked with BECTA, HEFCE and a number of Universities here in the UK. He was a founder and CEO of Epic Group plc and is a Director of the University for Industry (2,600,000 learners), Caspian Learning, LearningPool and the Brighton Dome and Festival.
What should the University be for? with Dennis Hayes, Donald Clark and Dr. Blay Whitby
Image Above: Illustration of old professor with head buried in books.
Thursday, 29 April 2010 - 7:15pm to 9:00pm
The British University system continues to enjoy a world class reputation and has been the model for higher education systems around the globe. Over the last couple of decades Universities have enjoyed a massive expansion in student numbers and opened up much wider section of the population. Yet over the same period its ethos, organisational model and raison d’être has come under ever greater pressure.
Asked to recruit and educate more students for less money, to make research and teaching more “relevant” to students interests and to submit research and education to an ever narrower set of economically and ideologically motivated top-down goals; it is time to ask whether the university as presently constituted can meet the demands put on it.
In the midst of the economic crisis these problems are set only to get worse and the questions that are posed need to be taken head on. Should the link between teaching and research be uncoupled?
Should universities be re-targeted on producing the skills Britain seems to need to build its way out of the recession? Or will such a narrowly pragmatic programme itself serve to undermine the fabric of British Society?
Can the University continue to pursue the noble pursuit of research for research's sake and "the great conversation" of liberating and enlightening minds? Or is this an “unsustainable” and outmoded aim?
Prof. Denis Hayes will briefly introduce the discussion and the crisis facing Higher Education in Britain today.
Donald Clark will then put forward a case for Universities being bloated and no longer ‘fit for purpose’ in terms of their management, research/teaching dilemma, confused theory/vocational mix, pedagogic amateurism, low occupancy rates and agricultural calendar.
Dr. Blay Whitby will argue that conventional academic values predate and will outlast the ‘managerial capitalism' which currently dominates thinking about the future of British Universities.
The focus as ever will be on the full scrutiny of these ideas by *the Salon*. The meeting will be chaired by the Salon’s Dr. Rob Clowes.
Speaker
Speaker
Dennis Hayes is Professor of Education at the University of Derby and a visiting professor in the Westminster Institute of Education atOxford Brookes University. He was made a National Teaching Fellow in 2010.
He has been a columnist for FE Focus in the Times Educational Supplement and writes regularly for the national press on educational issues and is a member of the Editorial Board of theTimes Higher Education magazine.
In 2006-2007 he was the first (joint) President of the University and College Union (UCU) the largest post-compulsory education union in the world. A TES profile at this time said: "He is thin, energetic, elliptical, tense and intense, a man who avoids easy conclusions..."
He is the Hon. Secretary of the Standing Committee for the Education and Training of Teachers (SCETT) and since 2004 he has been the convenor of the Institute of Ideas Education Forum.
He is well-known throughout higher education as the founder of the campaign group Academics For Academic Freedom (AFAF).
Speaker
Dr Blay Whitby is a philosopher and ethicist concerned with the social impact of new and emerging technologies. He is a leading researcher in the field and the author of many books, chapters and papers on the subject including “On Computable Morality”, “Reflections on Artificial Intelligence: The Legal, Moral and Ethical Dimensions and “Artificial Intelligence, A Beginner’s Guide”.
Dr Whitby is a member of the Strategic Ethics Committee of BCS The Chartered Institute of IT and ethical advisor to the Royal Academy of Engineering.Widening public engagement in science through debate is important to him and he is a regular speaker in community settings as well as having participated in several very high impact science/art collaborations
He is currently a popular and engaging lecturer at The University of Sussex, leading a number of courses including: “Ethical Issues in Computing”, “Introduction to Cognitive Science”, “Knowledge Based Systems”, “Philosophy of Science” and “Research Ethics”.
Dr Whitby is happy to be involved with and support new research projects, which would benefit from his expertise in ethics and the social effects of emerging technology.
Chair
Rob Clowes is a founder member and the chairman of the Brighton Salon: a serious but fun discussion forum based in Brighton. The Brighton Salon, modelled on the Salons of the 18th Century, has been organising cultural activities, especially its monthly meetings in Brighton since the summer 2006. He is currently setting up the Lisbon Salon along similar lines. He also performs with and is on the management committee of Lisbon´s English Language Theatre Company: The Lisbon Players.
In his professional life Rob is a researcher and lecturer working on core issues in the philosophy of cognitive science.
Having held positions at the University of Sussex for the last ten years where he is still a Visiting Research Fellow mainly at the Centre for Research in Cognitive Science (COGS) he recently accepted a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at the New University of Lisbon. He works especially on the material basis of consciousness, the role of language in mind and most recently he has been working on the relationship between cognition and technology through a number or prisms but with special regard to internet technologies. His latest project looks at virtuality as a model for representation.