Month: April 2025

A Field Guide to Working in Higher Education

A Field Guide to Working in Higher Education
A Field Guide to Working in Higher Education

I am pleased to get my hands of a copy of this new book A Field Guide to Working in Higher Education

The book is designed to support new lecturers who are joining HE from a background in a professional area or career rather than a career in academia. These new teachers draw on different background knowledge and I think it has been a gap in professional development in universities to recognise that they need specific help to get up to speed in our cultures and languages alongside the expertise they are bringing in their area of practice. Too often academic colleagues try to exclude professional people by using academic jargon or referencing arcane local processes.

My contributions to the guide are about the IT support, learning technology, VLEs etc which new colleagues can find for their teaching.  Please do buy a copy and ask your library to buy it for colleagues.

how does your garden grow online?

another lovely slide theme created for me by the LTW Graphic Design team.
another lovely slide theme created for me by the LTW Graphic Design team.

I was delighted to be invited as to National College of Ireland to speak as part  of their  ‘Assuring Quality in Fully Online Programme Delivery’ event last week.  A lovely excuse to visit Dublin again.

I chose a gardening theme which enabled me to talk about the time it takes to grow online learning and the investments we make in ensuring that there are good growing conditions and that native plants can thrive.

To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow
-Audrey Hepburn

adult Jewish human female

It was my honour this weekend to be part of a Bat Mitzvah ceremony for the daughter of one of my oldest friends.  The Bat Mitzvah girl has  grown into an engaging, lively, curious and clever young woman and it was lovely to see her take this step into adulthood as she comes of age.

The service included many reflections on what being a woman in our community is, the importance of family, friends and individuality and the many names we gain as we travel through life.

The event also gave me an opportunity to go on a bit about  how bat mitzvahs were established and the wikipedia page I wrote in 2016 for the first bat mitzvah girl, Judith Kaplan Eisenstein. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Kaplan_Eisenstein

As I was telling the story of the first in 1922 and referring to it as ‘fairly recently’, one of the young women of the party did point out that that is now more than 100 years ago. Time has gone so fast.

Nevertheless, I think the words of Judith Kaplan are still hopeful and relevant to the fight for equality   “No thunder sounded. No lightning struck. It all passed very peacefully.”

 

Looking at the Wikipedia page for Bat Mitzvah, I see that it is a subset of the page for Bar Mitzvah. I also notice that the pictures which illustrate the page could do with a refresh, so if you have pictures of your bat mitzvah which you would be happy to release, I may be able to add you to this article for worldwide fame ( but no fortune). Bar and bat mitzvah – Wikipedia