The Role of the University in the 21st Century

These workshops will explore the nature and the role of a university in the 21st Century. The workshops will not be focusing on the University of Bristol in particular, but will be looking more generally at the part that a university might play within its local, regional and national communities and the global community.

There will be two workshop groups.

• The first running between 2 and 5. Please arrive at 1.45
• The second running between 6 and 9 Please arrive at 5.45

Refreshments will be provided and we will reimburse any travel costs.

The workshops will be held in Room MR1

Students Union
Queen's Road
Clifton
Bristol
BS8 1LN

There is nearby street parking, an NCP car park on the Triangle and buses 8 and 9 stop opposite.

The schedule for both workshops will run as follows

• Introduction and purpose of the workshop (10 minutes as a whole group)
• Exploring the role of the university (1 hour in small groups)
• Building the university of the 21st Century (1 hour in small groups)
• Debriefing to explore each groups ideas (40 minutes as a whole group)

You don't need to know anything about universities, you don't need to have any specialist knowledge about education or research, you just need to come with an open mind, an interest in meeting different members of the community and a willingness to share and to develop ideas.

In each set of workshops there will be four smaller groups of about eight people. Each group will be led by a facilitator who; will have some very broad questions to help steer the discussions. There will be someone to take notes for the group. There will be various materials available for you to work with, pens flip chart paper for developing ideas and lists and some materials should you wish to develop your ideas of what a university might be.

Where are we going with the findings from all your work ?

There are two things that we would like to do. Firstly, to make sure that the ideas that people have are heard and so that they inform the development of universities thinking about what they might do to be of best use within their communities.

Secondly, to work with colleagues to develop a research proposal about the nature of universities in the 21st Century, this research bid will include research and academic staff from a range of subject backgrounds. The project coordinator Dr Gillian Squirrell has a commitment to universities being useful within their communities and so is keen to develop an element of the research bid, which will help to better explore these questions.

Finally we would like a small number of people who are interested in this project to be on the steering group for our research project.

I think that these will be interesting events for everyone involved, to meet other members of various communities and to share ideas. Could you please let me know if you or any of your colleagues would have some initial interest and say if afternoon or evening session would be best by e mailing me on: fa5623@bristol.ac.uk .

Thank you for taking the time to read this, please do not hesitate to contact me for more information or to discuss this further.

Kind regards

Farrah Antonio

(Research Assistant)