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  • Roles in Educational Marketing Strategies

    Roles in Educational Marketing Strategies

    Reading Time: 8 minutes

    Are you wondering what sort of systems your school needs to streamline processes, enhance communication, and maximize student success? Two critical tools in this digital transformation are Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and Learning Management Systems (LMS). If you’re thinking about which kinds of systems to implement – CRM vs LMS

    While both play vital roles in educational institutions, their functions, benefits, and implementation strategies differ significantly. Understanding the difference between CRM and LMS and integrating them into your educational marketing strategy can provide a powerful edge. In this blog, we provide all of the guidance you’ll need to get started.

    Simplify student management and boost recruitment efficiency!

    Transform your student portal experience. Get a FREE HEM-SP demo today.

    What Is a CRM System?

    In an educational marketing context, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is designed to manage interactions with prospective and current students. You can use CRM systems to track leads, nurture relationships, and streamline admissions workflows. These tools are indispensable if you’re looking to optimize your marketing and recruitment efforts by ensuring every prospective student receives personalized attention at the right time.

    CRM systems often include features such as lead tracking, segmentation, automated workflows, communication tools, and analytics. By providing insights into the enrollment journey, CRMs help schools allocate resources more effectively and improve conversion rates. A robust CRM can also support long-term engagement by keeping alumni connected to the institution.

    What is the best CRM for schools? Every school is different but generally, to choose the best CRM platform for your school, you should prioritize a system tailored to the education sector, like Mautic by HEM, which offers tools for lead management, personalized communication, and data-driven insights to streamline your admissions and marketing efforts.

    Built on the Mautic open-source marketing automation platform, it offers a comprehensive solution for managing leads, automating communication, and gaining insights into recruitment performance. With features such as contact management, campaign workflows, and lead scoring, Mautic by HEM helps schools supercharge their marketing and admissions efforts.

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    Do you want to know how to use CRM and LMS to take your student experience to the next level? Contact us for a demo

    What Is an LMS?

    What is the purpose of LMS in education? A Learning Management System (LMS) is a platform designed to deliver, track, and manage educational content and student learning experiences. LMS platforms provide the infrastructure for online learning, offering tools for course creation, assignment tracking, progress monitoring, and student engagement. Schools use LMS platforms to enhance in-person and online education by providing a centralized hub for learning resources and communication.

    In addition to managing educational delivery, an LMS can provide valuable data on student performance and engagement, allowing educators to tailor instruction and support to individual needs. HEM’s Student Portal System, which includes a Student Information System (SIS), is an example of how an LMS can be integrated into an institution’s broader ecosystem. It streamlines everything from course scheduling to attendance tracking, creating a seamless experience for educators and learners.

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    CRM vs LMS: Key Differences

    Although CRM and LMS systems serve different purposes, they often complement each other in educational marketing strategies. The primary distinction lies in their focus: CRM systems are designed to manage relationships with prospects and current students, while LMS platforms are dedicated to managing the delivery of educational content.

    A CRM system focuses on pre-enrollment activities, such as lead generation, nurturing, and conversion. It ensures prospective students receive timely, relevant information encouraging them to apply and enroll. By contrast, an LMS supports post-enrollment activities, including course delivery, student engagement, and academic tracking.

    Despite their distinct roles, both systems share a common goal: improving the student experience. By integrating CRM and LMS platforms, schools can create a cohesive journey from initial contact to graduation and beyond.

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    Source: HEM

    Benefits of a CRM System in Educational Marketing

    Implementing a CRM system in your school’s marketing strategy can yield several benefits. CRMs streamline lead management by organizing contacts, tracking interactions, and automating follow-ups. This allows your admissions team to focus on high-priority leads while ensuring no prospect falls through the cracks.

    Mautic by HEM, for instance, empowers schools to create automated workflows for tasks such as email marketing, SMS campaigns, and event registrations. These tools help nurture leads effectively, moving them through the enrollment funnel. The platform’s robust reporting capabilities provide deep insights into the success of your marketing efforts, enabling data-driven decision-making.

    CRMs also enhance personalization. By segmenting leads based on criteria such as program interest, location, or stage in the admissions process, schools can deliver tailored messages that resonate with each prospect. This level of customization increases engagement and improves conversion rates.

    Example: One principal benefit of using a CRM for your school is access to detailed data that you can use to make your next move. The report below demonstrates how you can track registrations, what program the prospect has registered for, the prospects’ registration progress, and payment statuses. This is enough to craft and send a personalized follow-up message – a process that can be automated on CRMs like Mautic.

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    Source: Mautic | Higher Education Marketing

    Benefits of an LMS for Educational Institutions

    An LMS enhances the learning experience by providing a centralized platform for educational content and resources. Students can access course materials, submit assignments, and communicate with instructors from anywhere, fostering flexibility and accessibility.

    LMS platforms also facilitate data collection, allowing educators to monitor student performance and identify areas for improvement. By tracking metrics such as course completion rates, assessment scores, and engagement levels, schools can make informed decisions to improve outcomes.

    HEM’s Student Portal System exemplifies how an LMS can integrate seamlessly into an educational institution. With features such as course scheduling, attendance tracking, and performance reporting, it streamlines administrative tasks while enhancing the student experience. This dual functionality ensures that both educators and learners have the tools they need to succeed.

    Example: Here, the learning benefits of Ontario eSecondary School are outlined plainly – they offer quick support, access to expert teachers, and personalized help. An LMS significantly improves the student experience by providing resources that enrich lessons and offer support from staff. 

    An LMS is particularly essential for online academies like Ontario eSecondary School in order to provide structure and necessary resources to students; however, with an increasingly tech savvy student population that tends to expect online options, an LMS can benefit any school. 

    The second image demonstrates how courses can be delivered using LMS tools. Your aim should be to improve student experience by creating an interactive learning experience. This can be accomplished by integrating communications and multi-media tools with your LMS.

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    Source: Ontario eSecondary School

    Implementing a CRM System: Actionable Advice

    To implement a CRM system effectively, start by identifying your school’s specific needs and goals. Consider factors such as the size of your admissions team, the complexity of your enrollment process, and the channels you use to communicate with prospects.

    Next, select a CRM system designed for the education sector. Mautic by HEM is an excellent choice, offering features such as automated workflows, lead scoring, and detailed reporting tailored to the unique challenges of student recruitment. Requesting a demo is a great way to explore the platform’s capabilities and determine how it aligns with your goals.

    Once you’ve chosen a CRM, focus on integration and training. Ensure the system integrates with your existing tools, such as your website and email marketing platforms. Provide thorough training for your team to ensure they can use the CRM effectively. Finally, monitor performance and gather feedback to refine your processes over time.

    Implementing an LMS: Actionable Advice

    When implementing an LMS, start by defining your educational goals. Consider the types of courses you offer, the level of interactivity you want to provide, and the needs of your students and instructors.

    Select an LMS that aligns with these goals. HEM’s Student Portal System, for example, offers a comprehensive solution for managing courses, tracking attendance, and monitoring student progress. By integrating these functions into a single platform, the system simplifies administration while enhancing the learning experience.

    Ensure your LMS is user-friendly and accessible. Provide training for instructors and students to maximize adoption. Regularly review performance metrics to identify areas for improvement and ensure the platform continues to meet your institution’s needs.

    Example: Here, the SP Student Information System is being used for course planning. LMS systems like this help you centralize the information that students need to retain lessons and complete their assignments. Be detailed and clear when providing lesson information.

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    Source: Student Information System

    Combining CRM and LMS for Maximum Impact

    While CRM and LMS systems serve different purposes, integrating them can create a seamless experience for both prospective and current students. For example, data from your CRM can inform personalized communication with enrolled students through your LMS. Similarly, insights from your LMS can help you refine your marketing efforts by highlighting the types of content and courses that resonate most with learners.

    HEM’s suite of solutions, including Mautic by HEM and the Student Portal System, offers an integrated approach to educational marketing and administration. By combining the strengths of CRM and LMS platforms, schools can create a unified strategy that supports students at every stage of their journey.

    It’s Time to Get Started!

    LMS vs CRM? Instead of choosing one over the other, try focussing on how each system contributes to your educational marketing strategy. A CRM system like Mautic by HEM helps schools attract and convert prospective students, while an LMS like HEM’s Student Portal System ensures those students have an exceptional learning experience. By leveraging both tools, schools can optimize their processes, enhance engagement, and achieve their goals more effectively.

    If you’re ready to take your school’s marketing and administrative efforts to the next level, consider exploring HEM’s Mautic and Student Portal solutions. With the right tools and strategies in place, your institution can thrive in today’s competitive educational landscape.

    Simplify student management and boost recruitment efficiency!

    Transform your student portal experience. Get a FREE HEM-SP demo today.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Question: What is the best CRM for schools? 

    Answer: Every school is different but generally, to choose the best CRM platform for your school, you should prioritize a system tailored to the education sector, like Mautic by HEM, which offers tools for lead management, personalized communication, and data-driven insights to streamline your admissions and marketing efforts.

    Question: What is the purpose of LMS in education?

    Answer: A Learning Management System (LMS) is a platform designed to deliver, track, and manage educational content and student learning experiences.

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  • The importance of Ukraine to the world

    The importance of Ukraine to the world

    A radical violation of international law

    Daniel Warner: Since the end of World War Two in 1945, the relations between countries have been more or less governed by certain norms. The United Nations and international law have been the foundations for over 70 years of relative peace. While there have been small outbreaks of violence, there have been no major violent confrontations. The Cold War was not a hot war.

    The Russian attacks on Ukraine violate numerous parts of that established order. While the Russian president claims that Ukraine is not a real state and is part of Russia, Ukraine, since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, is a country recognized by the international community. A country bombing another country is a radical violation of international law.

    How to respond? While the government of Ukraine will attempt to respond militarily, other countries will try to impose sanctions on Russia in order to stop the fighting while not engaging in a major conflict.

    The implications around the world will vary. But the most damaging implication for everyone will be the lack of respect for international norms that have been the bedrock of peace for over 70 years.

    Inconsistent champions of international norms

    Alistair Lyon: Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an unconscionable violation of international law, the integrity of national borders and any respect for the rules of the United Nations, where Russia sits as a veto-wielding member of the Security Council.

    Anglo-Saxon outrage at the Russian leader’s use of military power would carry more weight if the United States and Britain had themselves proved consistent champions of international norms since the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

    The U.S.-British invasion of Iraq in 2003 punched a huge hole in the post-Cold War security system. The war, launched on spurious grounds and without U.N. authorisation, was opposed not only by Russia and China, but also by France and other NATO allies such as Germany.

    The assault on Ukraine might seem more shocking to some because it threatens peace in Europe, but the Iraqi debacle helped destabilise the Middle East, spurred Islamic militancy and crippled U.S. influence in the region, leaving a vacuum filled by others, including Turkey, Iran and Russia.

    The commitment of the United States to international law also came into question when former President Donald Trump endorsed Israel’s 1981 annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights and recognised Jerusalem as the Jewish state’s capital, including the city’s occupied eastern sector, which Palestinians see as their future capital. President Joe Biden has not reversed those moves.

    A fear of democracy

    Julian Nundy: What if the reason for invading Ukraine was nothing to do with NATO after all? What if it was just a fear that the functioning democracy that has developed in Russia’s southwestern neighbor could be contagious?

    Amid all the media attention given to Moscow’s calls for NATO to renounce any idea of admitting Ukraine into the western military alliance, there have been commentaries, stirring less debate, that it is President Vladimir Putin’s obsession with “color” revolutions in former Soviet republics — especially the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine that led to a re-run of a presidential election and the final inauguration of a westward-looking government — that prompted his decision to use force to bring Ukraine into line.

    “On the whole, strategic stability is maintained … NATO forces are not building up, and they are not showing threatening activity,” wrote one commentator at the end of January. And not just any commentator. It was retired Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, chairman of the All-Russian Officers’ Assembly, who as a serving general occupied several of the most senior command posts in the Soviet and Russian armies.

    The statement was given prominent coverage on Ekho Moskvy (Moscow Echo) radio, which is owned by the Gazprom gas giant’s media arm, suggesting that Putin had less than total backing for his policy in very high places. Ivashov said Putin threatened to make “Russians and Ukrainians mortal enemies” and turn Russia “into a pariah of the world community.”

    If the invasion really was motivated by a fear of democracy, then Russia itself — where there are now reported to be more political prisoners than in the Soviet Union 40 years ago and where free speech and other rights are being reined in on a regular basis — can expect yet more erosion of basic freedoms. And if Putin succeeds in bringing Ukraine under control, who will be next? The former communist states of eastern Europe, most probably, and then, perhaps, the rest of Europe.

    Climate change will go on the back burner.

    Helen Womack: Quite apart from the suffering of Ukraine, this war may go well beyond its borders. If Putin attacks the Baltic States or Poland, NATO will be obliged to come in militarily.

    NATO member Hungary, which under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has in the past sought friendly relations with Putin, will be forced to make clear where it really stands.

    War between Russia and NATO would amount to a third world war, and let us not forget that Russia has nuclear weapons. But Putin is NOT Russia, and his war is not likely to be popular with ordinary Russians. The only hope is that internal opposition will grow.

    Ultimately, this war will bring Putin down but at what cost? The world has better things to be thinking about than war, but again climate change will go on the back burner while we focus on this.

    Ukraine does matter.

    Alex Nicoll: Does Ukraine matter to the wider world? Well, if armed gangsters took over your neighbour’s house, what would you do?

    Would you, like Donald Trump, say “genius move,” shrug your shoulders and go back to your golf game? Or might you think that your house, and your friends’ houses, could be next?

    This is the situation facing all western governments today as they watch the invasion of a democratic European country. We live in a sophisticated, digitised world. But we can see plainly that our comforts can be undone by old-style tanks, missiles and bombs. The atrocities of war have not been consigned to history.

    If you are American, your reaction might be that this is happening a long way away, so why should I care? Someone else’s problem! But remember that the United States too was attacked in 1941 and 2001, resulting each time in American involvement in long global conflicts and the loss of many American lives. Because of past traumas, the U.S. is party to numerous alliances, agreements and friendships. These benefit Americans just as much as other people around the world. Thanks to strong alliances, a third world war has been averted.

    So far. It is for mutual self-preservation — leaving aside moral outrage at Russia’s attack on Ukraine — that Western countries now need to unite to starve Putin of money and support, so that the venture in Ukraine fails and global conflict is averted. It does matter.

    None of this bodes well economically.

    Bryson Hull: The conflict in Ukraine is already raising energy prices and that in turn will make climate change policies, which entail higher costs or wholesale energy system changes such as eliminating oil and natural gas, less palatable to voters. Politicians will correspondingly find it less attractive to support aggressive steps to mitigate climate risks until energy prices trend lower.

    The realities of war in Ukraine and the global economic spillover will necessarily put more aggressive carbon-zero efforts to the wayside because of cost concerns. The tradeoff there is that practical, achievable energy and climate policies will fall back into vogue with politicians — who fear high energy costs as the election risk they are — instead of activist/pressure group-driven policies like those that are faring disastrously in the UK and Europe. Good sense and appropriate urgency may now be able to coexist in the sphere of energy prices versus climate ambitions.

    There are already about 20 U.S. liquified natural gas cargoes diverted to Europe from Asia on a pure arbitrage market play because of Ukraine. Already they’re running up against offloading capacity issues. High crude prices fund the war, and you can already see the Biden Administration greens doing everything they can to avoid the U.S. stepping into the gas supply breach with Democratic Senators urging a liquefied natural gas export ban.

    With the highest inflation in 40 years and gasoline (petrol) back at seven-year highs, none of this bodes well economically unless Biden goes Keynesian and cranks up the war machine.

    Europe needs Russian gas.

    Jeremy Lovell: Putin has very openly been using energy as an economic and political lever on Europe for some time. I reckon Europe needs Russian gas on balance rather more than Russia needs Europe’s gas market. It has VAST resources of untapped gas such as the Shtokman field and can always supply elsewhere given time. China is a good option there.

    But both Putin and Xi appear to have megalomaniac tendencies — although one is rather more thuggish than the other, at least on the surface — and an alliance between the two might be a bit fragile in much more than the immediate term.

    Given that the Ukraine venture seems rather unlikely to have been a spur-of-the-moment thing, I assume Putin calculates Europe will fold quietly in a relatively short time, giving him carte blanche to act at will and isolating the U.S. even further.

    The Brits may crow about the fact the UK does not import much if any Russian gas. But gas is a pure commodity. Supplies of floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) frequently change destination several times on any given voyage. So if Russia fiddles with gas supplies — or Ukraine taps off even more than it usually does — then Qatari LNG heading for South Wales or London will simply divert to Belgium or France, and the UK, which has minuscule storage facilities, will be left hanging.

    No legal standing

    Robert Holloway: Putin’s legal justification for the invasion is very flimsy, to say the least. He said he acted “in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter” after two provinces in eastern Ukraine sought Russia’s help.

    The UN Charter recognises the right of a member state to self-defence in case of armed attack. Even allowing Putin’s breath-taking claim that Ukraine was the aggressor, the breakaway provinces are not UN member states and have no legal standing under the Charter. And Russia, which is a member, is not under attack.

    The Charter goes on to say that an attack on a member state must be reported to the UN Security Council so it can take measures to maintain international peace and security.

    But even if Ukraine reports the invasion to the UN, Russia is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council with the power to veto any of its decisions.

    A carnivore among herbivores

    Tom Heneghan: Before leaving Paris last week, I heard the French philosopher Luc Ferry say on French radio: “Putin is a carnivore in a world of herbivores.” That goes to the heart of what is happening now. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, it seemed that most countries were playing by the post-World War Two rules that say borders are inviolable and problems between countries should be solved peacefully. That has not always been the case, of course, but all knew the rules and mostly kept by them. The speech by the Kenyan ambassador to the U.N. the other day was a good example of that.

    Biden keeps on saying we will not send U.S. troops to Ukraine, and that’s both a recognition of reality in U.S. politics and admission that Russia should not be unduly provoked. But the U.S. has been willing to send U.S. troops to a lot of countries in recent decades, like Kuwait, Iraq, former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. They were smaller and the wars were theoretically winnable. The wars did not always turn out as planned. Both the U.S. and its adversaries in those countries were carnivores — think Saddam Hussain or Slobodan Milosovic — but the forces were unequal and politics messy.

    Russia has been a carnivore in recent years — Georgia, Crimea, in a lesser way Belarus — and continues now. NATO now shows admirable resolve in standing up for the rules-based world order. But how long will that last? Putin is thinking of history and ready to play a long game here. The West — for lack of a better term — has to adjust to the long term too. This doesn’t mean the West has to become a carnivore as well, but it has to think far more strategically about Russia than it has so far. Ukraine is bigger and more central than those smaller wars. That Putin opted for a full invasion rather than more green-man salami tactics tells us that his goal is to turn the clock back to bloc-style divisions.

    A lot of commentators have been saying this crisis is like the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and in many ways that’s true. But I think another important comparison is with the 1948 Berlin Blockade, when the USSR blocked Allied rights to ship goods through East Germany to West Berlin. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a perilous standoff that ended quickly. The Berlin Blockade lasted about a year and a half and required sustained Allied solidarity and the famous airlift to West Berlin. We’re going to need that kind of sustained solidarity to ensure we can hold the line on the rules-based world order.

    One of the elements in any sustained strategy is weeding the Russian oligarchs out of the Western economic system. Suspending Nordstream 2 was a good start. How about stopping all the money laundering the oligarchs get away with in Western countries? All the property they’ve bought up in London, New York and elsewhere to squirrel their money abroad? And what about their relatives, like the children who get to study in the best universities we have? Part of Putin’s power lies in the way he has allowed oligarchs make money as long as they do not play politics and contribute to soft-power causes he likes, such as the “Russkii Mir” (Russian World) projects promoting Russian culture and the massive church-building of the Russian Orthodox Church? These non-governmental organizations are not non-political.

    A carnivore among herbivores. Not all carnivores have won against smart herbivores, but Moscow has a far more crafty carnivore in power this time around. We need sustained solidarity now to deal with this challenge, probably more than we seem to be capable of these days. Let’s hope we can do it.

    A major blow to Pax Americana

    Jim Wolf: Russia’s armed thrust into Ukraine marks a major blow to the so-called Pax Americana, the state of relative peace since the end of World War Two. That’s when the United States became the world’s top economic and military power.

    The land, air and sea attack on an increasingly pro-Western Ukraine supercharges a Great Power rivalry as U.S. clout has been slipping and China-Russia solidarity is growing.

    The old Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 after a 40-year “Cold War” with the U.S. — a geopolitical struggle that also dominated the world view of both powers’ respective allies and blocs. With the Soviet Union’s collapse, its 15 former Communist-controlled republics gained independence, leaving the U.S. the sole remaining superpower.

    Russian leader Vladimir Putin has called that fall “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of a 20th century that was also wracked by two world wars. In launching the biggest attack by one state against another since the end of World War Two, Putin said he was protecting Russian citizens among others subjected to “genocide” in Ukraine, which has infuriated Moscow by aiming to join the U.S-led NATO military alliance.

    Putin warned against outside interference, saying Russia is “a powerful nuclear state.

    Off the Earth, for the Earth

    Tira Shubart: At the moment onboard the International Space Station is a crew of seven: two Russians, four Americans and a German. Other than the German and one American – who is a doctor – they are bred and trained in the military.

    The crew all speak English and Russian.

    In fact, one of the Americans, Kayla Barron, is a Submarine Warfare officer. The doctor has been working with Russians — and on joint missions with the Russians since 1997. His Russian is particularly good.

    The United States and Russia — NASA and Roscosmos — were in the process of negotiating more crew exchanges. And at the moment there are three Russian cosmonauts — who are certainly military as all cosmonauts are — training at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

    Finally, on March 30, one of the Americans, Mark Vande Hei — also a professor at West Point — will be landing in Kazakhstan with the two Russians. Traditionally, a NASA team flies in through Russia and joins their recovery team, then bounces back through Russia to the United States. It will be interesting to see what happens.

    Twitter posts today from the international space community were saddened and alarmed by the Ukraine crisis but agreed that solidarity in space, which one called “the pinnacle of human cooperation” would not be threatened. After all, the U.S. Astronauts and the Russian Cosmonauts of the Cold War era held each other in high regard and the crew members onboard “have trained together for years and are personal friends.”

    There is a club of Space Explorers which are all the astronauts and cosmonauts who have flown. They say they simply regard themselves as earthlings after looking down and seeing no borders on our planet. But surely the ISS motto of “Off the Earth, For the Earth” will be in their minds now.

    Embers of dead empires

    Jeremy Solomons: An immediate African perspective on the Ukraine invasion was shared by Kenyan U.N. Ambassador Martin Kimani, who used a speech at the UN Security Council on Tuesday to warn Russia to respect its border with Ukraine, using Africa’s colonial past to highlight the dangers of stoking the “embers of dead empires.”

    More controversially, he went on to say: “At independence, had we chosen to pursue states on the basis of ethnic, racial or religious homogeneity, we would still be waging bloody wars these many decades later. Instead, we agreed that we would settle for the borders that we inherited. But we would still pursue continental political, economic and legal integration. Rather than form nations that looked ever backwards into history with a dangerous nostalgia, we chose to look forward to a greatness none of our many nations and peoples had ever known … not because our borders satisfied us, but because we wanted something greater, forged in peace.”

    For some commentators, who are concerned about neo-colonialism on the African continent, this invoked the somewhat cynical conclusion of the late Tanzanian leader, Julius Nyerere, who said: “You multiply national anthems, national flags and national passports, seats at the UN and individuals entitled to 21 guns salute, not to speak of a host of ministers, prime ministers and envoys, you have a whole army of powerful people with vested interests in keeping Africa balkanised.”

    Floods, COVID-19, Ukraine

    Robert Hart: Obviously the UK government, as a committed member of NATO and a devoted ally of the United States, has joined the international clamour denouncing Russia’s attack.

    Prime Minister Boris Johnson has labelled the Russian offensive as “a tidal wave of violence” and declared that a “massive package” of sanctions will be introduced against Moscow.

    No doubt many young UK graduates and university students will see the Russian attack with alarm and deep concern about where this will all lead and how it may affect their future. But many others, young and older, will be reaching for an atlas to check where Ukraine is and wondering how much this matters.

    The UK itself has just come through a period of three consecutive typhoon strength storms which have caused major damage and severe flooding in many parts and given millions of people, young and old, plenty to worry about in their own lives.

    And those who follow national politics at all will have been hooked by the still ongoing saga of the prime minister’s involvement in a string of illicit drinks parties held in No.10 Downing Street during the peak months of COVID-19 lockdown. Smart young people don’t have to be super-cynical to see how the floods and now the Ukraine drama could divert public attention from Boris Johnson’s role in the lockdown parties scandal.

    Russian nuclear missiles feel very close to home.

    Tiziana Barghini: News of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an awful awakening. Putin has shown total disdain for international borders, agreements and customs. I wonder what his real motivations are – a way to build domestic consensus? I do not understand who is benefitting from this.

    This morning at a bakery in Milan, someone attached a sign – “Putin = Hitler”. World War Two — a story often told by my parents and grandparents. I feel relieved that I am burying my Mom today. My parents are not here anymore to see the world going on that path again. They were sincerely convinced that wars were something of the past.

    I feel thrown back into the Cold War years. Russian nuclear missiles feel very close to home in Milan and even closer to Germany, where my son lives. First the pandemic and now the war. I can’t believe we are really living this.


     

    Questions to consider:

    1. What reasons did Russian President Vladimir Putin give for invading Ukraine?
    2. How has the West and its allies reacted to the Russian aggression?
    3. Does the conflict in Ukraine matter to you, and if so, why?


     

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  • What college presidents are thinking about in 2025

    What college presidents are thinking about in 2025

    College presidents showed tepid support for tenure with a little more than a third agreeing that the pros outweigh the cons, according to Inside Higher Ed’s 2025 Survey of College and University Presidents, conducted with Hanover Research and released in full today.

    That was just one of many findings across the annual survey, now in its 15th year.

    Presidents were optimistic in some areas, with most expressing confidence that their institutions will be financially stable over the next five to 10 years and positivity about the job itself. But campus leaders also expressed concerns about politicians trying to shape institutional strategies, which they see as an increasing risk, plus a seeming lack of improvement on undergraduate mental health, even as campuses make more investments in related services.

    Inside Higher Ed earlier this month released a portion of the survey findings that unpacked how presidents viewed the second Trump administration. The bulk of the survey’s political findings were covered in that initial release, with college presidents largely worried President Donald Trump will negatively affect higher education in this new term.

    This year’s survey included responses from 298 respondents across two- and four-year institutions, including public, private nonprofit and a small number of private for-profit colleges.

    More on the Survey

    Inside Higher Ed’s 2025 Survey of College and University Presidents was conducted with Hanover Research starting in December and running through Jan. 3. The survey included 298 presidents of two- and four-year institutions, public and private, for a margin of error of 5 percent. Download a copy of the free report here.

    On Wednesday, March 26, at 2 p.m. Eastern, Inside Higher Ed will present a webcast with campus leaders who will share their takes on the findings. Register for that discussion here.

    Faculty Tenure

    Tenure is often championed by professors and presidents alike for the protections it provides when it comes to issues of academic freedom. But just over a third of college presidents surveyed here—37 percent—indicated that the pros of tenure outweigh the cons.

    By institution type, presidents at public doctoral universities were most likely to support tenure, with 82 percent agreeing that the pros outweigh the cons.

    The overall finding came as a surprise to some observers, especially as politicians in some states are increasingly taking aim at tenure.

    Anne Harris, president of Grinnell College in Iowa, said she was surprised that presidential support was so low, adding that tenure plays an important role at liberal arts colleges, such as the one she leads.

    “For the small liberal arts college model, tenure is the continuity of mentorship, of advising, of those long-term relationships that we rely on … to see students through, to high graduation rates, to all those things,” she said. “From my perspective, the pros are very, very salient for what tenure does, not just for academic freedom and for the pursuit of research, but also for what it does for the continuity of advising and mentoring for students.”

    Michael Harris, a professor of higher education at Southern Methodist University (and no relation to the Grinnell College president), noted tenure can “be a thorn in the side of presidents and provosts” but that it can also serve as a buffer to political attacks on academic freedom.

    “It’s disappointing to me that presidents don’t have a better opinion of tenure, particularly in this current moment. I understand the challenges that tenure causes, and how it might limit the institution financially, or in decision-making—well-known areas where tenure can slow things down. But at this moment it’s just disappointing to me that there wasn’t more belief in tenure,” Harris said.

    Yet he believes that even the presidents who don’t like tenure will continue to protect it.

    “Presidents understand—even if tenure is a pain for them to deal with—the damage it would do to them in recruiting faculty [to lose tenure]. So there’s a self-interested argument on keeping tenure, even if they personally would like for the whole industry to get rid of it.”

    Campus Speech

    After pro-Palestinian student protests broke out on campuses nationwide over the bloodshed in the war between Israel and Hamas, many institutions changed their campus speech policies. Almost half of presidents surveyed—45 percent—noted that their institution updated its speech policies within the last 18 months, with public institution leaders most likely to say so.

    Additionally, almost a third of survey respondents (29 percent) indicated that their campus has an institutional neutrality policy, according to which college leaders should not comment on social or political matters that do not directly threaten the core mission. Such policies saw an uptick amid the fallout of the recent protests, which many congressional Republicans cast as antisemitic.

    Few respondents whose institution does not already have an institutional neutrality policy said it’s likely to adopt one.

    Despite recent student protests, presidents overwhelmingly blamed politicians for escalating tensions over campus speech concerns, versus other groups: Some 70 percent said politicians were primarily at fault, while just 18 percent blamed students.

    Presidents speaking on a panel about the survey findings at the American Council on Education’s annual meeting in Washington on Feb. 12 suggested campus speech concerns are overblown.

    “One incident goes viral, it gets all sorts of publicity,” Jon Alger, president of American University, said, while arguing that “99 percent of campus conversations” typically go well.

    Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, chancellor of the City University of New York, also speaking at ACE, said that social media often inflates speech issues with incomplete narratives for the sake of virality. He added that outside actors also weaponize such tensions to further their own political agendas.

    In a separate December survey of two- and four-year students by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab, nearly all respondents supported institutional efforts to promote civil dialogue, and 40 percent were at least somewhat concerned about the climate for civil dialogue and student free expression at their institution.

    Economic Confidence

    Presidents surveyed expressed strong financial confidence, despite difficult headwinds for the industry in recent years, which have seemingly been exacerbated by Trump’s recent executive actions threatening funding, prompting hiring freezes and more.

    Among respondents, 87 percent signaled that they expect their institution to be financially stable over the next five years, and 83 percent said the same over a 10-year timeline. But nearly half of presidents, 49 percent, believe their institution has too many academic programs and needs to close some. Some 19 percent responded that they had serious merger or acquisition talks recently, about the same as last year’s survey.

    This year, most of the presidents weighing mergers cited a desire to ensure their institution’s financial stability and sustainability, rather than risk of closure.

    Nine percent of all presidents said it’s somewhat or very likely that their institution will merge into or be acquired by another college within the next five years, with presidents of private nonprofit baccalaureate institutions especially likely to say so (21 percent).

    Presidents also saw risks beyond the business side. More than half—60 percent—believe politicians’ efforts to influence strategy are an increasing risk to their institution.

    However, some presidents at public institutions see that tension as inherent to the sector.

    “I think we’re a little bit naïve if we expect to be totally independent from the voices of our elected officials in helping to set the direction they think is important for the public investment that is being made in our institutions,” said Brad Mortensen, president of Weber State University in Utah.

    Presidents of public and private nonprofit institutions expressed similar levels of concern on this point.

    Being a President

    Most presidents like the job, even if they question how their time is spent. The overwhelming majority of respondents—89 percent—agreed, at least somewhat, that they enjoy being a college president.

    Additionally, 88 percent of respondents said that their own governing boards were supportive.

    However, more than half—56 percent—question whether the presidency can be capably handled by one person. Presidents also indicated they would prefer to focus on strategic planning, fundraising and community engagement but often find other pressing demands, such as dealing with personnel issues and managing institutional finances, eating into their time.

    A quarter of respondents said that the hardest part of the job was navigating financial constraints. Other areas of difficulty that emerged in the survey include too many responsibilities with too little time to do the job, enrollment challenges and external political pressures.

    Asked how long they expected to be in their job, a plurality (47 percent) answered five years.

    Harris, the SMU professor, is skeptical that most presidents will last that long. He said the finding that nearly half of presidents expected to be in their jobs over the next five years prompted him to “laugh out loud,” and he noted that data from ACE’s latest American College President Survey showed the tenure for college leaders has fallen to just over five years.

    “Either a whole bunch of first-year presidents filled out the survey and they’re going to stay another five years, or somebody is missing the boat on how long they’re actually going to serve,” he said. For reference, the plurality of survey respondents, 33 percent, have served as president of their current institution for five to 10 years. The rest were roughly split between less than three years, three to approaching five years and 10 or more years served.

    Last year saw numerous high-profile presidents abruptly resign, including from the nation’s wealthiest institutions—some of whom had only been in the job for a matter of months.

    Student Mental Health

    College presidents also expressed confidence about their institution’s approach to student mental health.

    The overwhelming majority reported that their institution has done a good or excellent job of promoting student health and wellness across multiple areas. On mental health, in particular, 81 percent said this. And 69 percent said that their institution has been effective in addressing the student mental health crisis, though only 37 percent felt the same was true of the sector as a whole.

    Despite the confidence in their institution’s efforts, only 44 percent of presidents somewhat or strongly agreed that undergraduate mental health is improving on their campus. Just 23 percent said the same of undergraduate mental health across higher education.

    Harris, the Grinnell College president, suggested that finding may not be cause for alarm but rather for deliberation. She noted that “more students accessing mental health resources, to me, is not necessarily a sign of a mental health crisis, it’s a sign of mental health self-advocacy.” Still, she said that colleges still need to develop a better understanding of student mental health issues.

    Other Findings

    Artificial intelligence is another category that prompted mixed feelings.

    About half of respondents—51 percent—believe their institution is responding adeptly and appropriately to the rise of AI, but only 29 percent said the same was true across the sector.

    About the same share over all (52 percent) said their institution had established a campuswide AI task force or strategy.

    Survey respondents noted that the most common uses for AI for their institutions included virtual chat assistants and chat bots, research and data analysis, predictive analytics to identify student performance and trends, learning management systems, and use in admissions processes.

    A third of presidents (32 percent) said their institution has set specific climate-related or environmental sustainability goals. Institutions in the Northeast and West appeared to lead here and on other sustainability-related questions, by region.

    The survey period ended Jan. 3, ahead of Trump taking office for a second term and ahead of his administration issuing a Dear Colleague letter attempting to dramatically widen the scope of the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against affirmative action in admissions in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

    At the time of the survey, nearly all presidents (88 percent) said their institution had been able to maintain or increase previous levels of student diversity since that Supreme Court decision. Looking only at presidents whose institutions previously practiced affirmative action (n=22), closer to half said they’d been able to maintain or increase previous levels of diversity.

    Separately, 10 percent of all presidents said their institution had curtailed diversity, equity and inclusion efforts beyond admissions since the decision, with presidents in the South and Midwest likeliest to say this, by region.

    Groups such as ACE have cautioned against anticipatory compliance to the Education Department’s Dear Colleague letter, which does not have the force and effect of law. Other legal experts note that the letter is not subject to the current preliminary injunction against parts of two White House executive orders that also seek to limit diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

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  • An argument against teaching demos (opinion)

    An argument against teaching demos (opinion)

    I have always found the teaching demo portion of a faculty job candidate’s visit to be the least useful component of assessing that individual’s fit for the position. Think about it—for teaching-focused institutions, teaching demos are held in high regard and are often a mandatory component of candidate job-talk visits. The prevalent belief appears to be that without seeing an individual in action in front of a live classroom, one cannot assess their teaching ability.

    To me, it seems rather like expecting an interviewing physician to come into an ongoing surgery and take over the operation for half an hour before retreating and handing the patient back to the original surgeon. This seems hardly fair to the visiting physician or the beleaguered patient.

    A teaching demo often involves the job candidate having to go teach a portion of a lecture in an already existing and functioning course. Right off the bat, the entire premise of the teaching demo is unnatural and flawed. Neither the demo giver nor the demo receivers benefit, and the observers (i.e., the hapless search committee members), who are the ones most invested in the demo, gain nothing of value, either. Yes, maybe you can determine in 20 minutes how a candidate speaks in front of an audience, but that factoid can be gathered from a research or job talk presentation as well. In that job talk presentation, perhaps the candidate can also talk about his or her teaching philosophy. That to me seems more valuable and more useful information to gather.

    One big issue for me about the teaching demo is that the students in attendance know it’s a demonstration and are probably not too fussed about paying too much attention, knowing that whatever the demonstration covers, the contents are unlikely to make it into the exams or quizzes given by their regular instructor. So it would not be surprising if they base their evaluations entirely on random criteria, such as one’s sense of sartorial style.

    Essentially, the demo serves as a distraction for students—a way to let their minds wander from their regular programming. I would argue that this sort of demoing is disruptive for student learning and regular instructor teaching. We are taking away valuable time that students would have gotten their regular teaching in order to subject them to a teaching demo, which they know doesn’t matter in the long run.

    And of course, this sort of demo interrupts the teaching plans of the regular instructor. Now that instructor has to hang around for the length of the time of the demo letting their attention wander, just like the students. And then the instructor has to go back to their regular class, out of which half an hour or longer has already been squandered.

    Furthermore, whatever evaluations are garnered from the teaching demo are not exactly trustworthy. There is evidence that course evaluations (conducted after an entire semester) are biased against women and minority professors. And mind you, that’s after an entire semester—how on Earth can one expect a 25- to 35-minute demo evaluation to be unbiased? They most assuredly are not unbiased and are probably reflective of similar biases against minority and women candidates. I’ve been on and chaired several search committees, and have seen some really random comments listed on the demo evaluations. Needless to say, those comments were not germane to the actual situation, in that they provided no useful evidence about the candidate’s teaching ability.

    Also, these sorts of teaching demos are especially rough on candidates who have social anxiety or are introverted. Teaching involves building rapport with your students—20 minutes is hardly enough time to do that. It is entirely possible for a candidate to be unfairly assessed based on a tiny sliver of time. A great teacher could have a bad teaching demo, and a poor teacher could have a great teaching demo—how accurate is it to judge someone’s teaching abilities based on a short lecture? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to actually take the time to pore over the candidate’s teaching evaluations instead? Yes, they are prone to error, but it stands to reason they are not as prone to error as a teaching demo. Preferring a teaching demo over a more complete semester-long evaluation is akin to judging a movie from its trailer. A trailer can be great, but the movie may still be terrible. Ditto with teaching demos.

    Alternatives to Teaching Demos

    I propose some alternatives to teaching demos. The first is to include a small teaching portion in the job talk itself. Give the candidate the leeway to talk about his or her teaching philosophy and perhaps about their approach to pedagogy. That, when combined with actual semester teaching evaluations, would be far more useful than a 20- or 30-minute demo. Anyone can fake being nice and approachable for 20 or 30 minutes—doing that over the course of a semester is a lot more difficult. Even faculty members who are perceived as rude and unapproachable by their usual students can pass themselves off as wonderful and approachable for a 20-minute window. How they behave throughout the semester is far more useful and predictive information.

    Another alternative to a live teaching demo could be to make it asynchronous. Have the candidate record a video lecture of themselves, and then have faculty and students watch the video to rate the candidate on their teaching performance. After all, the goal is to see how the candidate presents and teaches—why not take away the anxiety component of the live demo and instead make it a lot more equitable? Sure, recording a video could be anxiety-provoking in its own right, but it can’t be more anxiety-provoking than a live demo in front of a crowd, can it?

    The third alternative to live teaching demos is to open up the candidate’s research presentation to students as well. Far too often, the research presentations are only attended by department faculty members (some of whom have to be reluctantly corralled from their offices by the search committee chair). Opening these presentations up to students would serve a dual purpose, both bolstering the audience numbers and giving the students attending a good idea of how the candidate communicates. This does much the same job that the teaching demo does, but more effectively and efficiently.

    Conclusion

    To conclude, I am suggesting that we do away with the teaching demos in faculty job candidates’ visits. It is high time that we eliminate useless rituals that we follow just because of tradition. Let’s send teaching demos the way of the dodo.

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  • The holy grail of credit transfer?

    The holy grail of credit transfer?

    • Helena Vine, Lead Policy Officer for England at the Quality Assurance Agency, considers what we might learn from American researchers Lauren Schudde and Huriya Jabbar’s recent study of ‘Discredited: Power, Privilege and Community College Transfer’.

    When it comes to the more intractable issues in higher education policy, we’re often tempted to look wistfully overseas to supposedly sunlit uplands where the knotty issue has, at least on the surface, been resolved.

    This has never been truer than in the case of credit transfer – the process by which a provider recognises the credit a student has successfully accrued at another institution, exempting them from modules or even whole years of learning that they have already undertaken elsewhere. If I had a pound for every person who’s suggested I look at how the USA does it, I might be able to fund a neat solution here in the UK.

    I understand the appeal – the community college system and the transferable nature of credit are much more embedded within the United States than in the UK, even if each state takes a slightly different approach. It’s tempting to see such a system as the ‘holy grail’ of credit transfer models, where students can accumulate and transfer credit between institutions – and where the path of attending a community college before moving onto an institution offering four-year degrees is well-trodden.

    Finding a way forward feels particularly pertinent right now. The potential for a coherent and consistent sector-wide approach to credit transfer has been highlighted by growing government aspirations across all four nations of the UK to promote lifelong learning, widening participation and regional economic development. This is why we at QAA published guidance on credit recognition and research into credit transfer practices across the UK last year and why we’re currently working with colleagues across the sector to produce an in-depth study of those practices.

    We’ve naturally looked to the US ‘holy grail’ model to inform our thinking about how credit transfer might work under the Lifelong Learning Entitlement in England – and more broadly across the rest of the UK. But rather than discovering an abundance of convenient solutions that we could apply here in the UK, we were struck by the number of challenges and barriers that our systems share. It turns out that the US perhaps doesn’t have it entirely figured out after all.

    Credit transfer systems appear difficult for students to navigate in both the UK and the US. Research in the US exposed conflicting sources of information, guidance documentation that is difficult for students to digest, and protocols which place the onus firmly on students to show they have the requisite learning.

    These findings may feel all too familiar to those who’ve been engaged in credit transfer processes in the UK, which our own research found could also prove extraordinarily opaque.

    In their study of the credit transfer practice across Texas – Discredited: Power, Privilege and Community College Transfer (Harvard, 2024)– Lauren Schudde and Huriya Jabbar refer to this issue as the ‘hidden curriculum of transfer’. They argue that the series of hoops students must jump through almost feel designed to make them ‘demonstrate that they are worthy’. The students most ably navigating the system could do so because they took no information at face value and instead triangulated it across various sources to identify what was accurate. Such an approach indicates a significant amount of effort is therefore required to do something supposedly so essential to the smooth operation of a tertiary education system.

    Despite there being much clearer routes between community colleges and four-year degree providers in the United States than those we have between further education colleges and universities in the UK, Schudde and Jabbar’s research identifies an underlying assumption in some institutions that community colleges are of lower quality and their students are not necessarily academically prepared for transfer to higher levels of study.

    Academic faculty and administrators at those four-year institutions sought instead to preserve their institutions’ prestige and reputation for selectivity. In doing so, they fostered unwelcoming and unreceptive transfer processes and cultures, inevitably contributing to poorer outcomes for the students involved. Indeed, Discredited cites one administrator at a selective institution who questioned whether the students who failed to navigate its own complex system were the right candidates for such a prestigious place of study.

    And in the traditionally hierarchical education system we have known in the UK – and particularly in England – it’s not impossible to imagine that there have been similar pockets of resistance that have impeded credit transfer and student mobility here too.

    Delving further into the body of research on credit transfer in the US, we find that attempts to streamline and standardise these processes have often encountered concerns around the impact on institutional autonomy. While state-wide, policy-level initiatives are much more common in the US than in the UK, measures as simple as the introduction of a common system for course numbering have been met with resistance. Similar concerns abound across the UK, where efforts to acknowledge some consistency across provision raise fears of a slippery slope towards external interference in admission policies.

    Ultimately, Schudde and Jabbar argue that efforts to improve support for students (and for community colleges) in navigating these transfer processes are insufficient within a system not designed to ease their paths and where the players with the most power are sometimes the ones most resistant to a reformed system.

    Their argument rings true in the UK. On an individual level, providers are open and willing to engage with students with prior learning and support them in finding a route into the institution that recognises their potential and sets them up for success. Many are also willing to acknowledge that their practice in this area could be enhanced. But if the conversation continues to happen solely at an individual level, we risk a system which remains disjointed, opaque and disheartening to engage with. In doing so, we will fall far short of our ambitions for lifelong learning, a skills revolution and a more flexible imagination of higher education.

    Sector reference points, such as the UK Quality Code and the Credit Framework for England coordinated by QAA, have a strong track record of facilitating appropriate consistency across a diverse sector. They recognise the common ground the sector shares while enabling providers to adapt it to their own context. The same approach could be taken with further guidance around credit transfer. Every provider’s credit transfer policy may include slightly different requirements and limits, but a sector-led agreement coordinated by QAA on what information goes in those policies and how they’re communicated to applicants would go a long way towards easing the burden on learners and providers, who know they need to do more in this space but aren’t sure where to start.

    Learning that the US is far from perfect in this area could easily disincentivise action. Instead, I think it demonstrates that it’s not simply a waiting game for slow cultural and system change to emerge. Instead, it shows that, without proactively tackling the entrenched barriers in the system, the challenges continue to linger no matter how smooth and shiny it looks on the surface.

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  • Beyond Syllabus Week: Creative Strategies to Engage Students from Day One – Faculty Focus

    Beyond Syllabus Week: Creative Strategies to Engage Students from Day One – Faculty Focus

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  • Students making changes on transport

    Students making changes on transport

    Before being elected as a sabbatical officer, I was a commuter student at my university for 5 years.

    Over that time, the price of the single student ticket increased gradually from £1 to £1.70. It doesn’t sound like a lot but it soon adds up.

    It had a huge impact on my studies. I reduced the number of days I spent on campus as I often did not have the funds to afford it. Eventually, I had to find a part-time job to cover the costs which were easily in their hundreds for each year.

    In 2021, following a campaign from youth activists, the “Zoom pass” was introduced in Sheffield, a travel pass often advertised to students that offers discounted tickets and fares to 18–21-year-olds. Sadly, I was already too old.

    I watched the service get drastically reduced, the timetable became more inconsistent and the prices of student tickets got increasingly more expensive. And on top of all this – the bus would never even arrive on time.

    Commuter students are entitled to the same learning opportunities and experiences that university offers.

    Commuter students make up a large proportion of our student population at Sheffield Hallam. In fact, we make up over 55 per cent. Add to the mix that 57 per cent of our students are also mature and more students are working than ever and you’re left with a huge cohort of students who are struggling to afford to attend teaching on campus and who are too busy and tired to engage in campaigning.

    The university has made steps to adapt to the needs of our diverse student body – a move towards more online or hybrid teaching, a condensed timetable with longer hours over fewer days. But students are still struggling. The solution must be to make transport cheaper.

    Time to campaign

    In the last academic year, Hallam Students’ Union launched its third iteration of the cost of living survey and its results were damning.

    We created a set of recommendations that would enable us to develop student support and lobby for positive change, at a local and national level, to help ease the burden on our students.

    For our “Cheaper Transport Campaign,” we committed to lobbying the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA), those responsible for economic development, transport and regeneration of South Yorkshire, for cheaper transport for students.

    We want:

    1. The Combined Authority to make the “Zoom pass” available to all students across South Yorkshire, regardless of age, on buses and trams
    2. A reduction in fares overall

    In the meantime, we promoted our campaign on our social media platforms, asking students to share their commuter experiences, with the help of a small cash incentive – the winner having the next few months of their travel expenses paid for.

    Eventually, with thanks to our Vice Chancellor, we were finally able to set up a meeting with our officer team and the South Yorkshire Mayor, Oliver Coppard in October. We discussed all the good stuff: the importance of affordable transport for Hallam students, the student testimonies we had collected, as well as the requests laid out in our campaign.

    Since our meeting, the Mayor has opened a public consultation on taking back control of South Yorkshire’s buses through franchising. Bus franchising will give SYMCA powers to decide what routes buses take, when and where they operate, the quality and reliability of the service, as well as the price of fares.

    With decentralised decision-making, things can happen faster – local people better understand local issues and can find local solutions.

    Ten foot testimony

    We began brainstorming how to engage commuter students, including students that use public transport to travel to placements, with the public consultation. But public consultations are boring and commuter students are time poor.

    We needed to mobilise, build student support and solidarity to get people to engage with public policy decision-makers and sign the consultation. How do you get students to be active citizens in the local transport agenda?

    I enlisted my good friend and fellow artist, Johnsey, to help us facilitate an outreach event to garner some energy, excitement or at least some interest around bus franchising.

    The ten foot testimony, we would call it. We secured a huge piece of paper on the floor, in the entrance of our main university building, inviting students to write their public transport experiences.Two student officers stood on a long piece of paper with feedback from commuter students on

    It was really simple, and I was worried students simply wouldn’t care. Fortunately, passers-by wanted to contribute (staff included) and the ten foot testimony became twenty feet in no time at all.

    While the testimony itself is no good to the Mayor, we had the opportunity to speak to so many students, encouraging them to sign the consultation.

    We successfully managed to engage students in the conversation, had a fun time doing it, and now have a lovely, long and bright piece of documentation to show for it.

    Many students feel disenfranchised when it comes to decision making in their towns and cities. We firmly believe that they should have an active say in how decisions are made and how it impacts them.

    Next stop, success

    The public consultation closed a few weeks ago, and it might be a while before we hear the official result and the following decisions made on bus franchising.

    Recently, one of our largest bus providers in Sheffield, First Buses, announced that they would be keeping the price of the student single fare at £1.50, following the bus fare cap rising. Not only that, but they extended the eligibility of the student ticket for all of South Yorkshire, not just Sheffield. We are hopeful that Stagecoach will follow suit.

    By making commuter students visible, we were able to gather their voice and campaign for more affordable and accessible travel. Whilst we’re not there yet, we’ve engaged students as active citizens in transport policy and displayed the benefits of devolution in practice.

    When it comes to decision making on transport, universities and their student unions can play a huge part in lobbying for an improved commuter student experience. It’s easy for their voices to go amiss in policy making when they are time poor, busy, not on campus or simply don’t think anything will happen fast but the sector can play a role in empowering students to have a more accessible, affordable and sustainable commuter student experience. It’s not just limited to the classroom, it’s also about getting there.

     

    This blog is part of our series on commuter students, click here to read more.



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  • EXCLUSIVE: Ombudsman on what universities can do better now to support students

    EXCLUSIVE: Ombudsman on what universities can do better now to support students

    UTS chancellor Catherine Livingstone told universities they need to rely less on public funding. Picture: UA

    The National Student Ombudsman (NSO) First Assistant Ombudsman Sarah Bendall has revealed details of the 220-or-so student complaints she has received in the first three weeks of operation.

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  • Mary O’Kane to lead ATEC from July, UA chief’s pitch to press

    Mary O’Kane to lead ATEC from July, UA chief’s pitch to press

    Professor O’Kane will lead ATEC from July. Picture: Cath Piltz

    The chair of the Australian Universities Accord is to lead the yet-to-be-established Australian Tertiary Education Commission, Education Minister Jason Clare revealed on Wednesday night.

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