HEA funding for History and Linguistics
Wed, 22 Jun 2016 11:08:00 BST
Dr Pat Cullum from the History Department and Dr Jane Lugea, from the Linguistics Department recently paired up to put in a successful application to the Higher Education Academy (HEA) for a grant of £10,000 to be used to fund projects focussing on employability. "Our research is designed to improve our students' prospects once they leave us. This year 100% of History students were in work or study 6 months after graduation". said Pat (DLHE stats 2016).
The Higher Education Academy (HEA) is the national body which champions teaching quality. We provide value to the HE sector by focusing on the contribution of teaching as part of the wider student learning experience.
Dr Lugea wanted to introduce a new work placement opportunity within the English Language, Linguistics and Modern Languages Department and this is one reason why the pair submitted their application.
“We ran a survey with our current history students and asked them what it was they wanted and took their ideas on-board” said Pat.
The students ran an event celebrating employability and the careers service here at the University became involved in helping develop and improve relationships with our students.
“We have a ‘Graduates Attribute Framework’ that will be going live in autumn” said Pat. "This has been root tested with our students and is a place where students can come to enhance their skills and attributes, the number of which in the Framework having been reduced from 7 to 5".
There has also been a number of changes within each department due to the project, such as finding new resources and changing the number of work placement hours from 180 to 150 to ensure students can find a suitable placement and also help potential employers take them in.
“The reduced placement hours give our students more learning time” said Pat. “We want to use this free learning time to give our students workshops on how to write their CVs, cover letters and help them research into future work to encourage their development.” This new resource was suggested to Jane and Pat by their students who said they would like to learn more interview skills and techniques.
Pat said, “We have pushed for this project not only to help ourselves, but to help other people within the School of Music, Humanities and Media and also across campus and other universities.”
