University Council of Modern Languages
Meeting of the Executive on Friday 28 September 2012
Minutes
Present
Jim Coleman (Chair), Tony Shannon-Little, Naomi Segal, Kate Beeching, Lucille Cairns, Claire Gorrara, Mary Anne Ansell, Jocelyn Wyburd, Fil Nereo, Margaret Littler, Teresa MacKinnon, Ramona Gonczol, Rebecca Tipton, Andrew Ginger, Liz Hudswell (Minutes)
1. Apologies
These were received from Terry Lamb, Pam Moores, Mary Fischer, Linda Parker, Ulrich Tiedau, John Morley, Lesley Twomey, Gerda Wielander, Daniela La Penna
2. Minutes of the last executive and plenary meetings and matters arising
Both minutes were approved as true records of proceedings. A number of issues were considered under matters arising.
Survey of non-specialist language students
Jim reported that HEFCE could not fund this survey but the Higher Education Academy (HEA) had agreed to provide funding. The survey was therefore a joint venture between the HEA, UCML and the Association of University Language Centres (AULC). Peter Howarth of AULC was looking to recruit a PhD student to analyse the data.
Languages and the Olympics
There had been a lot of lobbying in advance about languages and the Olympics but it was felt that this did little for language learning. The Head of English translation for the Olympics had given a presentation at Birkbeck. The University of Leeds had offered to help out with the Chinese team but that took a long time to put in place. However, it was agreed that the link between languages and sport should not be forgotten as this is the only contact some young people have with people from overseas.
External communication and engagement for UCML
Jim reminded the executive that there had been some discussion at the last executive meeting when Liz Andersen was in post. Teresa Mackinnon, newly elected VC for External Engagement and Communications, led the discussion about priorities in this area. She pointed out that if people Google UCML, they are likely to reach the website. However, she felt that there was considerable untapped potential there. All users have to go to the website as there is no dynamic element to bring information to them (RSS feeds etc). She also felt that we could be doing more dynamically with the Facebook page. It would be important to consider whether the Facebook page should just
1 be UCML members or should it be a showcase of our activity. If the latter, we could explore having a Google plus page for UCML members.
Teresa asked the executive to consider what are we using social media for – awareness raising, campaigning or other things. If we use Facebook, it needs to be interactive. It could be useful if we want to reach a wider audience with a campaign – the Translation and Interpreting community have used Facebook in this way. Languages teachers in schools have a strong social media presence and assume that the HE community is the same. Jocelyn noted that we have used Facebook to alert our members about useful articles, A level statistics etc. However she pointed out that the people we are trying to alert such as Heads of Department are not natural Facebook users. She wondered if LinkedIn might be better. It was also agreed that any campaigning done by UCML needs to be linked to campaigns and issues in other sectors and it might be advantageous to link more closely to ALL. Since there was no dynamic syndication on the UCML website, it might be beneficial to continue to use Facebook for alerting to issues of national interest for languages.
It was agreed in summary that members of UCML favour various forms of communication and that therefore UCML should use as many channels as possible to reach as many members of the constituency and the languages community as possible. In this vein the following actions were agreed
a LinkedIn page should be set up
We should make sure that our various channels of communication (website, Facebook, Linked In) should provide access to brief and summaries of key policy documents/reports and newspaper articles. We should also provide links to other key organisations such as Thirdyearabroad.com and ALL
We should consider having a You Tube presence
We should consider whether to have a closed area of our website for documentation for UCML members
Action Teresa
All executive members should pass to Teresa any messages for dissemination via Twitter, Facebook, Linked in etc
Action all Exec members
Future plenary meetings
There was some discussion about making it possible to attend future UCML plenaries virtually to increase participation in these meetings. Teresa pointed out that a Moodle space could be created and virtual participants would log in through a Moodle log in. The following issues were raised
We would need to be sure that only UCML members were logging in
2 We would need to explore the technical implications of this venture, for example the microphones that would be needed and whether virtual participants could be engaged fully in the discussion
Would we archive the recording of the meeting, and if we did, would that restrict discussion?
It was agreed that Liz, Tony and Teresa would explore this further
Action Liz, Tony, Teresa
NB Since the meeting, Tony, Liz and Teresa have had further discussions. We agreed to pilot the approach for January by inviting ‘friends’ to attend the meeting virtually and provide feedback. It could then be rolled out to a wider audience in the summer if considered successful.
UCML event on collaboration
There had been some discussion about an event looking at models of inter-institutional collaboration at the June plenary and it had been agreed to explore the idea of an event to take this further. Jim reported that HEFCE were interested in exploring a model/models to ensure geographical spread of provision and diversity. UCML’s aim would be to protect and expand provision rather than threaten posts. The HEA would be happy to provide support for a one-day workshop in late January/early February.
After some discussion it was agreed that Portuguese and Translation and Interpreting should be considered as case studies. A two sided document from each of these communities should be produced before the end of October looking at the issues around inter-institutional collaboration.
Action Andrew and Rebecca
Teresa MacKinnon, John Dunn, SepNet, Rosetta Stone and Netzwerk Deutsch would also be consulted for their views. A briefing document for consultation would be produced in November
Action Jim with Fil Nereo
An event would be organised at the end of January/beginning of February to which representatives from HEFCE would be invited and which could involve the following people as well as those mentioned above
Roel Vismans to talk about the Virtual Department of Dutch
A postgraduate researcher ( to be suggested by Naomi)
A colleague from Wales who has been involved in such collaborative provision (suggested by Claire)
3 Action Jim, Liz, Naomi, Claire
.
See written reports from executive members circulated in advance of the meeting
3. Chair’s report
Jim noted that the Language Futures conference in Edinburgh in July had attracted 150 delegates. It was a very good conference with notable plenary addresses from Colin Riorden and Ros Mitchell.
He also reported on Primary languages noting that he had responded to the consultation on behalf of UCML. It was agreed that we can act as a broker if UCML is asked to suggest experts in other sectors but we have not got the capacity for extensive engagement.
He also noted that Rosetta Stone are interested in meeting with UCML
4. Treasurer’s report
Tony noted that there was a balance of £16, 334 at the end of the year. This was less than at the same time last year because there had been an overspend in 2011-12. He reported that we had been unable to collect all the subscriptions that had been anticipated. Although we lived marginally beyond our means last year, we will be reducing costs in future by having fewer meetings. There will be no biennial conference in 2013 so there will be no contribution to that. He proposed that subscription levels remain unaltered.
Report from Vice-Chair (Linguistic and Intercultural Education)
Jocelyn reported that exam boards are keen for University involvement in the development of A levels. The HE sector is advocating the inclusion of cultural content and there is discussion about essays on content in the target language. Languages A level are in the first wave of those to be developed so examination boards have to have finalised their specifications by June 2013.
Jocelyn encouraged Executive members to read the consultation on the EBacc (https://www.education.gov.uk/aboutdfe/departmentalinformation/consultations/a00213902/refor ming-key-stage-4-qualifications) which is posted on the UCML Facebook site. She asked executive members to read the consultation and send Jocelyn any comments. The deadline for submission of comments is 15 December.
Action all executive members
Jocelyn noted that we should welcome the idea that languages are seen as key to a rounded secondary education. But students who do not pass the EBacc might have no qualifications in languages.
4 Report from the Vice-Chair (Research)
Naomi reported that there are no further updates on the REF and we are simply awaiting the announcement of additional assessors.
She suggested that the question of open access might be a discussion for the next plenary. The Finch report was published in July. She also noted that the OAPEN Project, funded by the AHRC and JISC, has a further two years to run and is looking at the implications of open access for publishing monographs and publishing in other languages. She was due to attend a meeting at the British Academy in early October where such issues would be discussed. She had also attended a meeting hosted by Versita and noted that, although Versita agrees to make publications visible online, if you stop paying a subscription, the publication disappears.
It was agreed that Jim and Naomi would liaise about the focus of the afternoon session at the January plenary on this topic.
Action Jim and Naomi
5. Issues arising from reports from other members of the Executive
Wales
Claire Gorrara reported that Routes has an additional year of funding. Key focus of activity will be to emphasise the employability benefits of languages. The new University of the Heads of the Valleys is offering no language provision. The situation for Languages in former polytechnics is very serious. She reported on a model of practice based learning for undergraduates at Cardiff where students would be going into schools. A similar model was being adopted at Bangor University.
6. Recruitment
Jim reported on the feedback he had had from departments on recruitment.
Some Russell group universities reported that they had met their target. Others were on average 10% lower than target figures.
One non Russell group university reported that they had recruited to target. But others were up to 60% down on target figures. He also reported that Greenwich and Leeds Met have stopped offering German.
Jim noted that this represents a continuing concentration of students in a handful of universities. He asked executive members to provide details about PGT and PGR recruitment especially if numbers are low.
Action all Exec members
7. HEA and LLAS reports
Fil reported that on 9 November the HEA is running an event for staff new to teaching languages and linguistics in HE. This is being held at the University of Manchester and is free to attend. Naomi is representing UCML.
5 Liz drew members’ attention to the e learning symposium which is taking place on 24 and 25 January with a deadline for the call for papers extended to 22 October.
8. Liaison with employers
Margaret Littler requested this as an agenda item and raised the question of how best to use approaches from employers. A number of resources already available were mentioned including the Careers translated at Newcastle university (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sml/about/news/item/careersblog) , the Goethe Institut careers fair and Third Year abroad.com (http://www.thirdyearabroad.com/jobs.html) It was also noted that there are employability materials on the Shaping the Future website.
9. Any other business
Shaping the Future
Pam Moores had requested volunteers to be involved in Working Groups 4 and 5. It was agreed that membership of Group 4 should be discussed with John Morley and AULC and Rebecca agreed to discuss membership of Group 5 with the National Networks for Translation and Interpreting.
Action Jim, John, Rebecca
Jim reported that he was going to try to arrange a meeting of the Higher Education Languages Group (HELG).
Action Jim
He also reported that he had done a number of interviews for local radio stations. The main focus was OU provision but there had also been discussion of recruitment to languages programme. He asked executive members to give any feedback if they had any.
Action all Exec members
Jim reported that Anne Marie Graham had just published a report on public sector interpreting funded through the Routes into Languages Programme. (https://www.routesintolanguages.ac.uk/PSITreport)
Members had signed the petition asking OCR not to reduce available ASSET language exams from 25 languages to 5.
10. Dates of future meetings
Steering Group – to meet virtually in November. Teresa to arrange this Action Teresa Plenary meeting 18 January Action Liz (Teresa and Tony) Event on Collaboration late January/early February
6 Action Liz/Jim/Fil to fix a date Executive 22 Feb Action Liz Summer Plenary 5 July Action Liz
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