Academic Identities

Title: Opportunities and challenges: Disaggregation and academic development practice and identities
This paper reports on academic developers’ perceptions of opportunities and challenges in the application of disaggregated learning to academic development. Survey and interview data was collected from academic developers in a network of 7 Australian Higher Education institutions who participated in a nationally funded project in 2016/17. Project participant’s activities stimulated discussions about the nature and scope of resource sharing for qualifications across institutions, and through this, the nature of contemporary academic development practice. Analysis of data identifies challenges and opportunities for academic development practice embedded in the concept of disaggregation, particularly in relation to organisational context, identity and power.

Detailed session proposal
There is recognition that contemporary academic development practice requires reconceptualization. Arising from ongoing analysis of current trends influencing academic work, these proposals varyingly acknowledge the shift from the periphery to the centre of institutional strategic planning and development (Boud & Brew 2013; Crawford, 2010; Debowski, 2014; Knapper, 2016; Land 2001; Makura & Toni, 2014; Schalkwkyk S et al, 2013; Stensaker, (2017). This session explores the concept of disaggregated learning in relation to rethinking academic development by drawing on empirical research conducted with academic developers from 7 Australian institutions. Using theoretical frameworks informing discussions about disaggregated learning (Ewen 2016), trends in Higher Education teaching and learning ( Gallagher & Garrett 2013, Glasby 2016, Lemoine &Richardson 2015), and proposals for the reconceptualization of academic development above, the anticipated session outcomes include identification of challenges and opportunities inherent in disaggregation as a concept in relation to:
• Academic developer identities where what counts as knowledge of academic development is shaped by wider discourses and the emergence of new roles to accommodate these;
• Institutional contexts for practice relative to wider networks shaping professional learning for academics, including Human Resource professionals and external networks of academic developers;
• Power, autonomy and agency in academic development practice in relation to professional knowledge required to develop and implement systems where disaggregated learning is supported.
This discussion has relevance to rethinking contemporary academic development practice.
References
Boud, D. & Brew, A. (2013. Reconceptualising academic work as professional practice: implications for academic development. International Journal for Academic Development. 18.(3). 208-221.
Crawford, K. (2010). Influences on academics’ approaches to development: Voices from below. International Journal for Academic Development, 15(3), 189–202.
Debowski, S. (2014). From agents of change to partners in arms: The emerging academic developer role. International Journal for Academic Development. 19(1), 50–56.
Ewen, C . 2016). Higher Education Standards in a Disaggregated Learning Environment: Final report. Sydney, NSW Office for Learning and Teaching.

Glasby, P. (2105). Future Trends in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, ITaLi  http://itali.uq.edu.au/filething/get/5325/Future_trends_in_teaching_and_learning_in_higher_education_Nov_2015.pdf

Knapper, C. (2016). Does educational development matter? International Journal for Academic Development., 21, 105–115.

Land, R. (2001). Agency, context and change in academic development', International Journal for Academic Development. 6. (1). 4-20.
Lemoine, P. A. & Richardson, M.D. (2015) Micro-Credentials, Nano Degrees, and Digital Badges: New Credentials for Global Higher Education. IJTEM 5.1 (2015): 36-49. http://www.irma-international.org/article/micro-credentials-nano-degrees-and-digital- badges/129773/
Makura, A. H. & Toni, N. (2014). Managing the link between academic development and the scholarship of teaching and learning: The case of South African universities. International Journal of Education Sciences. 6(1), 85–93.
McGreal, R., Conrad, D., Murphy, A., Witthaus, G., & Mackintosh, W. (2014). Formalising non-formal learning: Assessment and accreditation challenges within disaggregated systems. Open Praxis, 6(2), 125-133. http://openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/114
Schalkwkyk, S. et al (2013). Journeys of growth towards the professional learning of academics: understanding the role of educational development. International Journal for Academic Development, 18 (2), 139-131

Stensaker, B (2017): Academic development as cultural work: responding to the organizational complexity of modern higher education institutions, International Journal for Academic Development, DOI: 10.1080/1360144X.2017.1366322

Who am I? A scientist? A researcher? A teacher? A professional? A technician?

Based on research, and with ample opportunity for discussion and exploration, get to grips with the complexity of identities in higher education and explore links to career pathways.

Feeling as 'the other' even twice: as an individual in Professional Services and as a woman working in the Higher Education sector. This and much more to be explored in this workshop at WHEN, the first network gathering all women in HE.

This chapter uses a collective biography methodology to explore threshold moments of academic legitimacy. They demonstrate the precarious processes and liminal spaces of being and becoming ‘academic’. We examine how the well-documented practices that characterise the corporate/managerial/enterprise university frame the experiences of women aspiring to work in the sector and the affective and embodied ramifications of such practices as casualisation, contractualism, and competition between intellectual workers. Informed by work on academic subjectivities in contemporary universities (e.g. Bansel, Studies in Higher Education, 36(5), 543–556, 2011; Mewburn, Studies in Continuing Education, 33(3), 321–332, 2011; Petersen and Davies, Learning and Teaching, 3(2), 92–109, 2010; Petersen, Studies in Higher Education, 32(4), 475–487, 2007; Petersen, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(3), 394–406, 2008), and specifically on analyses of women’s experiences (e.g. Clegg, Privilege, agency and affect: Understanding the production and effects of action. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013; David, Feminism, gender and universities: Politics, passion and pedagogies. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014; Leathwood and Read, Gender and the changing face of higher education: A feminized future? Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press, 2009; Wilson et al., Gender and Education, 22(5), 535–545, 2010), we explore ambivalence, desire, disappointment, and at times joy in our experiences of securing PhDs and seeking work in universities. We argue that for early career and aspiring academics, becoming ‘academic’ is a precarious, contingent process where legitimacy is always provisional and reliant on conferral from those who are powerfully positioned in and beyond the institution of the academy.

Educational institutions should ensure that students develop a professional identity, as well as safeguarding their well-being and activating awareness and change processes. The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of group psychodynamic counselling as a means of reinforcing academic identity – considered the forerunner of professional identity – and psychological well-being in a group of final-year undergraduates studying clinical psychology. Thirty-three final-year-students of clinical psychology who participated in six group psychodynamic counselling sessions were compared with sixteen final-year students of clinical psychology who had never participated in an intervention of this kind. The results suggested that group psychodynamic counselling made students feel more capable of managing their lives and more open to new experiences as well as encouraging them to perceive their relationships as more positive and satisfying, to believe that their life is meaningful, and to achieve greater self-acceptance. The in-depth exploration also prompted students to consider their commitment to their choice of career. Group psychodynamic counselling also reinforced students’ educational choice, as the likelihood of students becoming less committed to this choice was reduced after the intervention. Thus, the study confirmed the efficacy of group psychodynamic counselling as a means of reinforcing both academic identity and promoting well-being and demonstrated that it is a tool clinical psychologists and university teachers could use to activate self-reflection and change within educational settings.

This study attempts to relate faculty feelings towards writing with writing genres, perceived competences and values associated to writing. 67 foreign languages faculty in Colombia and Spain voluntarily filled in a four-section on-line questionnaire entitled The Writing Feelings Questionnaire. All the sections were Likert Scale type. The first, Affective dimension, consisted of a list of bipolar adjectives (feelings) associated to writing; the second, Genres, asked about frequency of use of written genres; in the third one, Competences, faculty evaluated their perceived proficiency in writing competences; in section fourth, Good writing, faculty valued good writing characteristics. Exploratory factor analyses were performed and subsequently, data were related through a co-occurrence analysis. Results showed a three-factor structure for the four sections, associating: (a) writing to feelings of demanding standards of writing, satisfaction and importance; (b) genres to research writing, technical writing and narrative writing; (c) perceived writing competences to the management of formal and technical mechanisms, discursive mechanisms and in a less percentage, composition processes competences; and (d) good writing to data-driven content information, argumentative procedures and rhetoric mechanisms. Correlations showed that perceived proficiency in writing competences was related to all feelings. Besides, participants conceived writing as demanding, but also as