Author: ejashurst

SOUTHAMPTON ADVISORY GROUP FOR THE SUBJECT CENTRE FOR LANGUAGES, LINGUISTICS AND AREA STUDIES

MEETING ON 8 MAY 2001 AT 11AM 

ROOM 2161 (ESOL ROOM) LANGUAGE CENTRE, AVENUE CAMPUS

Present
Dr Bill Brooks (Chair), Adam Warren (CLT), Jackie Rafferty (Director of SWAP),), Veronica Oldfield (Careers Office), Professor Michael Kelly (Director of the Subject Centre), Alison Dickens (Academic Coordinator for Linguistics and Area Studies), Liz Ashurst (Centre Manager and Secretary to the Advisory Group), Vicky Wright (Subject Centre Academic Coordinator for Language), Dilly Fung (Faculty Learning and Teaching Coordinator), Prof Ros Mitchell (Centre for Language in Education)

Apologies
Prof Kate McLuskie , Prof Katherine Crouan, Dr Sally Keenan (New College

1.	Report on recent activity 
	The Subject Centre were invited to report on the most important activities and developments in the last six months.
	
	Workshops, Seminars and Roadshows
	Subject Centre Staff referred the Group to the documentation presented to the LTSN in January giving a review of progress to date and evaluating the activity carried out.  EJA outlined recent activities in the last 6 months.  These included Roadshows in Northern Ireland and Scotland.  There had been two events in the Autumn Term on Ethnography and Residence Abroad and a very popular seminar on Teaching Grammar in January.  
	
	Specialist Groups
	The Specialist Groups had been commended by the Director of the LTSN as a model which could be adopted by other Subject Centres.   The Linguistics Group had been particularly successful in bringing together the two wings of the linguistics community.   However, catering for the Area Studies constituency was considered to be the most significant difficulty encountered by the Subject Centre in the first year.  This was partly due to the fact that it was difficult to engage a community which did not recognise itself as being part of the Area Studies community.  It was also pointed out that Area Studies included programmes such as American Studies as well as the content part of a language degree.  Colleagues teaching in these two areas would have quite different needs. The committee recognised the wide remit of the Subject Centre as a whole.
	
	It was recognised that there was considerable demand from the subject communities for the kind of activities in which the Subject Centre was engaged.  
	
	Relationship with the QAA
	Subject Centre staff were asked what the relationship was between the Subject Centre and the QAA. MHK stated that the Subject Centre worked closely with the QAA (presentations had been given by an Assistant Director ot the QAA at Subject Centre Roadshows).  However he pointed out that the roles of the QAA and the Subject Centre were quite different and that the Subject Centre was keen to make clear the distinctions.  RM suggested that it might be helpful for the Subject Centre website were to contain sample programme specifications from institutions willing to share these.  
	
	Research led teaching
	The difficulty of defining research led teaching was identified by the committee.  The proposal by the Subject Centre to hold an event on research informed language teaching was welcomed by members of the committee.  It was also pointed out that there was research into generic issues such as Assessment and that subject specific discussion on these generic issues was useful
	
	Relationship with the ILT
	The University policy on membership of the ILT was discussed.  It was reported that there were only 20-30 members of ILT in the University at present.  At present there was no pressure from Heads of Department for staff to join.  There was insufficient subject specific content in the materials produced by the ILT at present..  All new staff at Southampton University would be required to undertake the Certificate of Academic Practice as part of their probation.  It was recognised that this qualification should be less theoretical and would provide practical support for new members of staff.

2.	Looking ahead – plans for the coming academic year 
	Website
	MHK highlighted some of the key priorities for the Subject Centre in the coming year.  The integration of material on the former CTI website would be completed as well as developing content in other areas although it was recognised that it would be difficult to provide huge amounts of content material on the website with the broad remit of the Subject Centre.  Two new LTSN funded projects, likely to be awarded to the Subject Centre, would be instrumental in developing the materials on the website.  The Subject Centre for Social Policy and Social Work were also having to consider how much ‘content’ to include on the website.  It would be useful to have some expertise in knowledge management in the Southampton part of the Subject Centre.  
	
	Specialist Groups
	It was hoped that the Specialist Groups could be reorganised to help to address the difficulties experienced by the Area Studies group.  MHK also reported on two projects to be carried out by the Subject Centre.  These involved the development of web based materials which would help to cope with the diverse and complex constituencies of this Subject Centre.  
	
	Institutional visits
	MHK outlined the proposals for visiting institutions which would involve exchanging ideas between the Subject Centre and the host institution so that mutual benefits would be derived.  Although these visits would be resource intensive, they would be a powerful tool for bringing about change in departments.  
	
	Relations with the Generic Centre
	It was noted that the Centre for Learning and Teaching could benefit from working with the LTSN and would most naturally work with the Generic Centre whilst individual subject departments would turn more naturally to the Subject Centres.  The Generic Centre is part of the Learning and Teaching Support Network.  It aims to disseminate and promote information and practice in relation to learning and teaching issues common to all subjects.  It will help the Subject Centres to make the best use of a wide range of approaches to learning and teaching.
	
	Cooperation with Subject Associations
	MHK stated that his key role had been to promote cooperation between organisations and to develop partnerships between the Subject Centre and other parties.  There was a good relationship with the sponsoring organisation, UCML, which had led to involvement of the Subject Centre in a bid to HEFCE’s Collaboration and Restructuing Fund.  MHK had also been involved in the Thematic Network Project organised by the European Language Council.  This would help to share good practice across Europe.  
	It was also recognised that Subject Centre was beginning to work in partnership with Subject Associations to organise activities.  
	
	Accommodation for the Subject Centre
	It was clear that the Subject Centre activity was expanding and the committee noted the implications of this on the University, not least the difficulty of accommodating extra staff who were likely to be appointed.  
	
3.	Sharing Good practice 
	JR pointed out the difficulty in defining good practice.  Commissioning of case studies which might be evaluated by the community might be one way of disseminating good practices in the discipline.  The Director of the Subject Centre for Social Policy and Social work reported that she was Chair of a learning innovations group in her department.
	
4.	Embedding – possible actions to embed the activities of the Subject Centre in the School, Faculty and University
	The committee agreed that it was helpful that members of Subject Centre staff were also members of staff in the School of Modern Languages and that the appointment of Alison Dickens as the Teaching and Learning Coordinator for the SML was a helpful development.  
	
	It was agreed that it would be useful if Dilly Fung could work with the Subject Centre as much as was practicable.  
	
	MHK suggested that the LTSN as a whole may not be widely known across departments in the University.  It was suggested that an event across the Faculties ‘How to make the best use of your Subject Centre’ might be valuable.  
	
	RM suggested that the new Chair in Higher Education Learning and Teaching should establish links with the two Subject Centres at Southampton.  The Chair would be working closely with the Centre for Learning and Teaching. 
	
5.	Any other business
	No items were taken under Any Other Business
	
6.	Date of next meeting
This would be scheduled for November 2001 
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