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Call for symposium contributions “The 9-5 student? Rethinking the concept of studenthood”
5th May
This symposium will take place on Friday, 23 May at MTU’s Bishopstown campus. We invite proposals for 20-minute presentations engaging with any of thematic strands outlined below.
Proposals should be of approximately 250 words, and can be submitted via our submission form until Monday, 5 May.
We also very much welcome interested colleagues to register as attendees by Thursday, 15 May.
Symposium outline:
Both anecdote and recent media comment would suggest that the nature and practice of studenthood is evolving rapidly. With students increasingly likely to devote significant time to employment and less than academics might envision to study and related tasks, the time is apt for academics and for institutions to rethink the design and practice of Higher Education learning. This symposium aims to investigate the contextual factors that are actively reshaping the practice of studenthood, with a view to exploring conceptual gaps between academics’ and students’ expectations of its enactment. We are particularly interested in socio-cultural and other situational factors influencing the changing nature and experience of studenthood.
Relevant themes can include but are not limited to:
• individualisation and personalisation;
• the influence of ed tech;
• proprietary AI, especially GenAI;
• time as organising principle;
• learner incentives and rationales for embarking on HE study;
• learner incentives and rationales for attending and engaging post-enrolment;
• commuting, cost of living, and socio-economic factors;
• access and progression;
• political economy of HE;
• cultural, socio-cultural and (trans-)media(l) climate;
• space and geographies of HE;
• sustainability in and of HE study; and
• any other relevant contextual influence on the nature and practice of
studenthood today.
The symposium organisers, Marian Hurley and Deirdre Casey, welcome queries, and can be contacted at Marian.Hurley@mtu.ie and/or MarieD.Casey@mtu.ie.
This symposium is part of the project “Space + [time x practices] = engagement?”, funded through SATLE – the Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement Funding in Higher Education – by the Higher Education Authority’s National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.
