Higher Education Outreach: Examining Key Challenges for Academics

Abstract

How should academics engage in outreach? The need of academics to answer this question has become all the more pressing given increasing concern for Widening Participation, Employability and Impact in an era of austerity and £9,250 fees. While outreach professionals have access to a range of resources and support mechanisms by which to advance programmes, academics often face a series of profession-specific pressures that make engagement in outreach all the more complex at a time in which that engagement is needed more than ever. This article draws upon the experience of twenty five academics from eighteen different subject areas and eighteen institutions to present guidance for academics involved in outreach. This guidance covers such issues as: the formulation of programmes; funding; workload management; relationships with internal and external partners; the place of capacitybuilding; style and content of programmes; integration of outreach into curricula, and evaluation of programmes. The guidance offered is not all encompassing, but a series of reference points to be revised and updated over time.

Romans and Rollercoasters: Scholarship in the Digital Playground

“…It is still difficult to find a place for play and digital technologies in our institutions. Since Boyer (1990)'s call to transform our understanding of scholarship, academia has become more open to practices that go beyond that of study and research, at least in spiritthere is still a major discrepancy in the valuation of interdisciplinarity, outreach, and teaching activities vs. 'pure' research (see Johnson et al 2019). Yet change is slow at institutions that have their roots firmly in the norms and sensibilities of the era of Enlightenment rather than that of our current (post-)digital society.…”

Reimagining the Higher Education Student

“…Traditionally, this agenda has appeared to be directed from HE institutions themselves in specialist outreach departments, yet with concurrent pressures on schools to demonstrate progression and further education colleges providing HE programmes, the sector has proliferated. Elsewhere we have noted that 'there is seldom guidance on good practice for academics' (Johnson et al, 2019, p. 3) engaged in outreach work. Indeed, there remains a lack of compelling evidence either produced by or to guide this diversified outreach sector.…”

“…Shortly after attending this focus group, we went to a national training for WP practitioners in which we were encouraged to loudly chant 'outreach works', suggesting that critical messages around both university and the success of WP did not fit with current narratives. This likely reflects the shifting agendas of the WP sector which has blurred the lines between outreach and recruitment (Johnson et al, 2019), with the consequence that a key performance indicator of outreach is return on investment in student numbers.…”

“…This could occur at a targeting/policy level within universities, schools and colleges. For example, the marketisation of WP as described by commentators (Johnson et al, 2019) creates a 'safe' approach to WP practice that discourages working with those young people and staff who need it most. Instead WP practitioners can avoid risking investing in those for whom they do not feel confident that their efforts will translate into acceptance of a place and success at their institution.…”

Teaching and Learning Excellence: The Coventry Way

“…Finally, the project resulted in a Q1 REF paper that has been accepted for publication in the British Journal of Educational studies (Johnson et al 2019) Introduction:…”