Friday 26 January 2007

Honorary Degrees

Something I have been able to do as a sabbatical officer at my student union is go to degree ceremonies. I graduated off the platform at the City Hall in July and attended six others in that week. I attended four more this week. Although work piles up at my office as a result of these, I wouldn't want to miss them. It gives me a chance to see my friends graduate.

One thing that you often see at degree ceremonies is the presentation of honorary degrees. According to Wikipedia, these are defined as:

"An honorary degree is an academic degree awarded to an individual as a decoration, rather than as the result of matriculating and studying for several years. An honorary degree may be conferred by an institution that the recipient never attended. The degree itself may be a bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree — the last being by far the most common. Usually the degree is conferred with great pomp and ceremony as a way of honoring a famous or distinguished visitor's valuable contribution to society. The university derives benefits by association with the person's status and so enhances its networking and publicity."

I strongly disagree with this type of degree for several reasons. A degree is an academic qualification that is awarded after several years of hard study at an academic institution. It shows that an individual has gained the knowledge and skills that should allow them to have a chance of getting a good job.

Honorary degrees are awarded to people who have already had great success and not necessarily as a result of academic achievement. They might not even have studied at the institution previously. The last bit of the above quote annoys me too. They gain publicity from what is often non-academic achievement. They should be gaining publicity from the quality of degree courses, the facilities and student experience and the standard of jobs the students get afterwards - nothing more than that.

Yes, the people that are awarded these 'degrees' have usually made a massive contribution to society, but do they need a degree to recognise that? I don't think so. Why not name an award or building after the person? If that's not possible and there's nothing else of a suitable stature that can be done - then simply do nothing.

According to this page, Nelson Mandela has been awarded 28 honrary degrees/doctorates. That doesn't include all the fellowships he's been awarded too. Kermit the Frog was once awarded an honorary doctorate from Southampton College - part of Long Island University. Ediburgh University even awarded one to Robert Mugabe (although there are plans to strip him of that title). Pierluigi Collina was even awarded one by the University of Hull - he was a football referee, not an academic. All those examples completely devalue something which thousands of students work hard to get every year.

MIT don't award honorary degrees. They are an example of a highly successful and respected institution getting along fine without them. They derive their reputation and publicity from a strong academic record.

Anyway - that's what I think - what do you think?

Technorati tags: Academia, Honrary degrees, Universities, Graduations

Sunday 14 January 2007

Christian Unions vs. Student Unions

This BBC news article highlights something that has been going on for quite a long time.

"The former Archbishop of Canterbury has given his support to the University of Exeter Christian Union.

The union is seeking a judicial review at the High Court, after it was suspended by the university's students' guild and had a bank account frozen.

The guild took action after students joining the union were required to sign a statement of religious beliefs."

In the mind of the Christian Union, this is seen as a restriction of practice which they feel is illegal under the Human Rights Act.

This UCCF says that all christian unions that it's affiliated with have to sign a doctrinal statement. That might not be a problem for some people as they may believe what is in that document. This is what's in the contents:

  • There is one god in three persons, The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit.
  • God is sovereign in creation, revelation, redemption and final judgement.
  • The Bible, as originally given, is the inspired and infallible Word of God. It is the supreme authority in all matters of belief and behaviour.
  • Since the fall, the whole of humankind is sinful and guilty, so that everyone is subject to God's wrath and condemnation.
  • The Lord Jesus Christ, God's incarnate Son, is fully God; he was born of a virgin; his humanity is real and sinless; he died on the cross, was raised bodily from death and is now reigning over heaven and earth.
  • Sinful human beings are redeemed from the guilt, penalty and power of sin only through the sacrificial death once and for all time of their representative and substitute, Jesus Christ, the only mediator between them and God.
  • Those who believe in Christ are pardoned all their sins and accepted in God's sight only because of the righteousness of Christ credited to them; this justification is God's act of undeserved mercy, received solely by trust in him and not by their own efforts.
  • The Holy Spirit alone makes the work of Christ effective to individual sinners, enabling them to turn to God from their sin and to trust in Jesus Christ.
  • The Holy Spirit lives in all those he has regenerated. He makes them increasingly Christlike in character and behaviour and gives them power for their witness in the world.
  • The one holy universal church is the Body of Christ, to which all true believers belong.
  • The Lord Jesus Christ will return in person, to judge everyone, to execute God's just condemnation on those who have not repented and to receive the redeemed to eternal glory.

However, student unions have equal opportunities policies. That means that any member of the union should be allowed to join any club or society. So, theoretically that could mean a Jewish person would be allowed to be a member of the Christian Union. That situation is highly unlikely though, so there is no need for a doctrinal statement. If you don't do or believe in something - you won't join a society relating to it. I don't watch Neighbours, so why would I waste my money and join the Neighbours Society?

The constitution, bye laws, policies and regulations of students unions are all legally binding, so you would think the action of the student union is perfectly fine - the society contravened something which is legal.

Ekklesia, a think tank, seems to agree with me:

"antagonistic legal action could lead to widening an 'us' and 'them' mentality on campuses". It continued: "This does not help with friendly dialogue between the diverse cultures and views that can be found within the UK's educational institutions."

NUS simply wants mediation between the two sides of the argument and, like Ekklesia, doesn't believe legal action is the best thing to do.

Do you agree with me, or do you believe the Christian Union at Exeter would have a chance in court?

These are two more articles about the issue:

Christian Union takes legal action over suspension

Christian unions warned against legal action

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Thursday 4 January 2007

2020 Vision

This 2020 Vision report is quite interesting. It was done by a review group linked to the government and it analyses the current school-level teaching and learning setup and suggests improvements. It's way too long to go through everything in one post, so feel free to download it and look at the entire thing yourself. I'll be going through what I consider to be the most important bits in this blog entry.

The following are five points from part 2 of the report that were suggested to improve assessment:
  1. Engineering effective discussions, questions and tasks that elicit evidence of learning.
  2. Providing feedback that moves learners forward.
  3. Clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success.
  4. Activating pupils as the owners of their own learning.
  5. Activating pupils as resources for one another.
Point 1 is expanded by the report suggesting things like pupils having more time to answer a question. How long is 'longer'? That could be interpreted in a number of different ways. If a pupil has more time it doesn't necessarily guarantee that they'll know the answer. There should be more of a focus on content and it's delivery, not timespans for answering questions.

I agree with point 2 - feedback is so crucial, but I think it should be for all tasks and not just a selection. Also, it should be alongside marks - not a replacement for them.

I agree with point 3. The report suggests providing access to mark schemes, which is what universities do already.

Points 4 and 5 are perfect examples of management speak. I agree with point 5 - working with other pupils is good, but point 4 is dubious as it suggests pupils selecting from tasks. This could lead to them only picking the easy ones which won't help at all.

Part 4 of the report focuses on what happens when some pupils fall behind. I'm glad they covered this as it's important to make sure everyone gets to a good standard. However, most of the points in this sectin are fairly generic and/or only mention access to additional support - not what the actual support is. It's not going to be any good if the access is excellent and the support is rubbish. Pupils will then either be left in the same position or worse.

the government should use the opportunity of the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review to introduce a national and school-level aspirational target for there to be no ‘stuck’ pupils. This should provide a focus for increasing the rate of progress between KS1 and KS2 (thereby reducing the number of children leaving primary school with below expected levels of attainment) and between KS2 and KS3.

This is ok, but doesn't suggest options for what the target should be, which doesn't make it too useful. It also points out the obvious - that there should be support for the core subjects of English and Maths from KS1 upwards.

The report also covers learning spaces and Continuous Professional Development (CPD), which is an equivalent of Personal Development Planning (PDP). I'm not surprised by the PDP issue, the government are pushing PDP in universities so it would make sense to implement it in lower levels so it is truly 'continuous'.

The report has a few points about learning spaces:
  1. Be flexible enough to allow for a variety of learning and teaching approaches and greater diversity in the size and age mix of pupil groupings.
  2. Be familiar and welcoming for parents and the wider community, inviting them and encouraging them into school.
  3. Emphasise participation and collaboration, through being open, safe and inviting.
  4. Support interaction, knowledge sharing and learning amongst teachers and support staff.
  5. Use technology - both within and outside classrooms - to enhance learning.
I don't disagree with these points, but they are far too generic. As there is so much room for interpretation, some schools could comply with the five points and still not have good learning spaces. For instance, 'Use technology' could mean either two computers and a printer with a few bits of software, or it could mean loads of networked PCs, with WiFi access, projectors etc. and continually updated programs that are totally relevant to the course.

Catering for different styles is also mentioned. This could be good, but it depends on how it's implemented. It could mean increased paperwork and unnecessary complexity.

To conclude, I would say that the report highlights several points that are worth considering to improve schools, but some parts are far too generic and could mean a 'good standard for all' is unobtainable.

A DfES article about this report can be found here.

What do you think?