Prelims

Access to Success and Social Mobility through Higher Education: A Curate's Egg?

ISBN: 978-1-78754-110-8, eISBN: 978-1-78743-836-1

Publication date: 23 August 2018

Citation

(2018), "Prelims", Billingham, S. (Ed.) Access to Success and Social Mobility through Higher Education: A Curate's Egg? (Great Debates in Higher Education), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. i-xxvii. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78743-836-120181008

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Editorial matter and selection the Editor, individual chapters the respective Author/s.


Half Title Page

Access to Success and Social Mobility through Higher Education

Series Page

Great Debates in Higher Education is a series of short, accessible books addressing key challenges to and issues in higher education (HE), at a national and international level. These books are research informed but debate driven. They are intended to be relevant to a broad spectrum of researchers, students and administrators in HE, and are designed to help us unpick and assess the state of higher education systems, policies, and social and economic impacts.

Published titles:

Teaching Excellence in Higher Education: Challenges, Changes and the Teaching Excellence Framework

Amanda French and Matt O’Leary

British Universities in the Brexit Moment: Political, Economic and Cultural Implications

Mike Finn

Sexual Violence on Campus: Power-conscious Approaches to Awareness, Prevention, and Response

Chris Linder

Higher Education, Access, and Funding: The UK in International Perspective

Sheila Riddell, Sarah Minty, Elisabet Weedon, and Susan Whittaker

Evaluating Scholarship and Research Impact: History, Practices, and Policy Development

Jeffrey W. Alstete, Nicholas J. Beutell, and John P. Meyer

Forthcoming Titles:

The Marketisation of English Higher Education: A Policy Analysis of a Risk-based System

Colin McCaig

Cultural Journeys in Higher Education: Student Voices and Narratives

Jan Bamford and Lucy Pollard

Refugees in Higher Education: Debate, Discourse, and Practice

Jacqueline Stevenson and Sally Baker

Radicalisation and Counter-radicalisation in Higher Education

Catherine McGlynn and Shaun McDaid

Title Page

Access to Success and Social Mobility through Higher Education

A Curate’s Egg?

Edited by

Stuart Billingham

York St John University, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2018

Editorial matter and selection © the Editor, individual chapters © the respective Author/s.

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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Author or the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78754-110-8 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-78743-836-1 (E-ISBN)

ISBN: 978-1-78743-992-4 (Epub)

Contents

Foreword
Dianne Willcocks CBE, DL
ix
About the Contributors xxi
1 Access to Success and Social Mobility through Higher Education: A Curate’s Egg?
Stuart Billingham
1
Section A Aspects of the Contemporary Access Debate
2 Access to the Elite
Emilie Sundorph, Danail Vasilev and Louis Coiffait
21
3 Access to Higher Education in South Africa
Clara Gwatirera
35
4 Learning Through Life Revisited: The Role of Policy in Enhancing Social Mobility through Access to Part-time Study
Liz Marr and John Butcher
51
5 Increasing Access to Tertiary and Higher Education in Rural Communities: Experiences from Tasmania and New Zealand
Margaret Noble and Jessica Grant
67
Section B Focussing on Student Success and Social Mobility
6 What Can Social Capital Contribute to Student Success in Higher Education? Perspectives from Students and Institutions
Helen May and Mark Jones
85
7 ‘So You Want to Be an Academic?’ The Experiences of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Undergraduates in a UK Creative Arts University
Siobhan Clay
99
8 Students’ Views of Tertiary Education as ‘Access to Success’: A Case Study of a Multicultural College in Israel
Bruria Schaedel
115
9 Collective Responsibility and Collaborative Action: Universities and Employers in Pursuit of Social Mobility
Nik Miller
131
Section C Innovations in Access to Success
10 Students Not Patients: Opening Up the University to Those with Mental Health Problems
Simon Newton and Nick Rowe
147
11 Service Learning and Academic Activism: A Review, Prospects and a Time for Revival?
Tony Wall, Dwight E. Giles, Jr and Tim Stanton
163
12 Warming a Higher Education Cold Spot: The Case of Coventry University in Scarborough
Craig Gaskell and Ian Dunn
177
13 A Teacher´s Experience of the Transformative Pedagogic Effect of Part-time Degree Study
Gerard Sharpling and Neil Murray
191
Section D Access to Success and Social Mobility: Thinking Big
14 Access to Success and Social Mobility Involves Everyone! A Whole Institution Approach to Widening Participation
Liz Thomas
209
15 Advocating for Access: World Access to Higher Education Day and Beyond
Graeme Atherton
225
Index 237

Foreword

The story of widening participation and promoting social mobility to and through higher education (HE), so powerfully illustrated in this volume, has a proud history, where leaders and players have come together at different times and in different places to forge new ways of engaging social change. In charting our successes, partial successes and unfinished business, it is salutary to look back on half a century of what we popularly term ‘struggle’ but is in practice a now normalised way of aligning people, places and political action through creative educational strategies that aspire to promote progress for the many not the few.

My personal story begins in 1973 as a ‘mature’1 student and parent at the University of Surrey – this, the re-housed and re-badged Battersea Polytechnic Institute, which began life in 1891, offering science and technology to the ‘poorer inhabitants’ of London. Six years later, I moved to my first, short-term contract-researcher post in the Polytechnics world –at the famous Polytechnic of North London (PNL). This drew on the combined and powerful legacies of the Northern Polytechnic Institute (1896), ‘promoting the technical skill, general knowledge, health and wellbeing of young men and women’; and the North Western Polytechnic focussing on social sciences, humanities and arts.

In the 1990s, I progressed to Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) with its traditions firmly rooted in regional development. The Sheffield School of Design was founded in 1843 ‘to provide skilled designers to support Britain’s industries’. Finally, in 1999, I joined the College of Ripon and York St John as Principal. The College would become York St John University, but would never neglect its nineteenth century mission, shaped by the Dioceses of York and of Ripon, to construct a cadre of teachers imbued with moral rectitude and high levels of learning, who would educate and create opportunity for the children of the poor.

Importantly, these staging posts in my career suggest that the twenty-first century universities are, literally, well placed to build on firm foundations, translating Victorian educational legacies into a contemporary vision for an inclusive society. The appetite for this challenge, however, clearly varies across institutions. Arguably, it is through leadership at all levels that we realise the vision of HE’s founding fathers.

The 1980s will not be recalled as a period in which public services were best placed to secure the public benefit demanded by their communities. The phrase ‘rolling back of the welfare state’ became a leit motif for savage financial cuts to local services; marketisation; strangely, centralisation of control; and a lurch towards a form of harsh modernisation experienced by many as a negation of past contributions to community wellbeing. The PNL was not isolated from such a change.

Notwithstanding the dismantling of the Greater London Council (GLC), we did initially retain the unquestioning support of the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). A particular lead by ILEA, then the HE funder for inner London Polytechnics, was sponsoring access through a generous budgetary allocation to the five HEIs for ‘affirmative action funding’.2 This annual budget line was not hypothecated for particular activities – but it was, of course, accountable. At the PNL, this enabled working with our neighbouring Boroughs, particularly Islington, Haringey and Hackney, to address the aspirations of newer and diverse communities – African Caribbean, South Asian and Irish.

Accordingly, partnership and cross-agency working became the new norm and early innovation produced the first important tranche of social workers and teachers who reflected the experiences and ambitions of their own communities – supported by introductory Access programmes. As the fate of ILEA echoed that of the GLC, Polytechnics typically resolved (both within management and through the trade unions) to protect the ever-widening concept and practices of access and Access.

At the PNL, I was supported within Natfhe (the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, now UCU) to take on roles both within the Union and on the Board of Governors – which provided developmental opportunities both for me and for the PNL. As the Polytechnics Secretary for Natfhe’s Inner London Regional Assembly, I was able to share and shape policy developments for part-time study in HE; for the establishment of research programmes in Polytechnics to underpin an excellent student experience (then a radical idea); and for the protection of budgets to acknowledge the needs and contribution of new kinds of learners (see also, e.g., Marr & Butcher in this volume, Chapter 4).

Looking at specific activity, it is not insignificant that the acclaimed access/Access work of the redoubtable Maggie Woodrow was located, at this time, at the PNL. Both a sponsor of well founded initiatives and a myth buster for inappropriate attempts to short-circuit necessary investments in social inclusivity, Maggie’s early evaluation of two-year accelerated degrees aimed at mature and/or non-traditional students identified the significant barriers, both for students and HEIs, in achieving successful outcomes. As learning about widening participation started to accumulate, one important legacy from that optimistic moment when change seemed possible is the Irish Studies Centre at London Metropolitan University.3

In 2016, this small but influential exemplar of public benefit celebrated with the Irish Ambassador and the Leader of the Labour Party (among other eminent guests) a proud 30-year history, which has attracted global recognition. In 1986, as the PNL Director of Research, I secured support to establish the first University-level Centre to acknowledge and explore further, through teaching, research and community partnerships, the specific experiences (contributions and conflicts) of the Irish in Britain. This was not just through glorious literature, drama and history but as a force for productive economic and social change in the widest sense. This serves as a powerful signal of how scholarly excellence, university relevance and community benefit can come together when underpinned by the values and commitment of an institution to its continuing access mission (see also, e.g., Gaskell & Dunn, Chapter 12; Newton & Rowe, Chapter 10; Thomas in this volume, Chapter 14).

One of the lessons learned concerning effective leadership is to network, become visible and secure a positioning where you are noticed! This is not an endorsement of individual, aggressive self-promotion, but more a recognition that active pursuit of significant goals requires significant action.

Therefore, the access leadership journey does typically involve joining up different roles and relationships and placing access explicitly at the heart of them. When my junior research role at the PNL shifted to whole institution Director of Research in 1986, it enabled cross-faculty conversations and developments, always asserting excellence with relevance, and learning how that might be interpreted across disciplines and delivered with an access orientation. This, in turn, led to an invitation to join the Postgraduate Awards Panel of the Economic and Social Research Council. In addition, my concern with teaching excellence (and a new role as Faculty Dean) led to a position on the Council for National Academic Awards and a role as quality auditor with the Higher Education Quality Council – all places in which to confront access dilemmas. The mid-1990s, however, brought a new, political, clarion-call to pursue ‘education, education, education….’4

Helpfully, this post-dated the Polytechnics’ shift of title to be named universities and secure greater autonomy. This enabled a new and positive dialogue for policy makers and practitioners alongside their partners in the communities they served. Arriving at SHU as Assistant Principal in 1993, I encountered a city and sub-region in transition. The language of ‘industrial upheaval’ fails to capture the deep decimation of traditional skill-based employment and community lifestyle around coal and steel. The urgent need to re-skill redundant workers and their children, and to meet the expectations of the women who had developed new confidence and ambition as they supported their families through painful challenge and change, was high on the ‘to-do’ list of my new colleagues and collaborators in diverse outreach activities.

Access can appear in many guises. The Sheffield Hallam that I joined was both an instigator and an early adopter of much innovation. A particular leadership style espoused by the Vice Chancellor, John Stoddart, was ‘to enable great people to do great things’. In other words, he facilitated through his senior team, his Board and his external connectivity, a permissive environment where participation in HE by the wider community was of primacy. The curriculum was designed in ways that would facilitate entry to the emerging economy of new technologies and cultural industries, yet also respected traditional strengths and excellence as in materials science and urban studies; it also supported public services. Entry to and success within the University was encouraged and enabled through:

  • outreach in schools and further education;

  • curriculum structure offering flexible study (an early example of combined studies that really worked for learners);

  • the visibility and popularity of town and gown lectures; and

  • the creation of a student-friendly, one-stop-shop support infrastructure building confidence and achievement across the student ‘life-cycle’: from ‘getting in’; to ‘getting through’; towards ‘getting out’ and getting a good graduate job; and ultimately getting ‘back in’ for further study.

The 1990s were especially important for highlighting gender difference in HE and exploring diverse ways to challenge barriers, and improve opportunities for women. SHU was one of the first Polytechnics/Universities to introduce and achieve scholarly recognition for Women’s Studies – both within the curriculum and as an area of research. In the City of Sheffield, a motivational initiative called ‘If I can, you can’, brought together women leaders for mutual support and, importantly, to go into schools and support teachers and pupils.5 Talks with classes of girls (and often boys) generated unexpected dialogue around what counts as being a leader and how do I get there! Moreover, of course, it was in the 1990s that – Through the Glass Ceiling – led by the exceptional Chris King addressed the question ‘Why are there so few women leaders in our universities’. Hence, the ‘clarion call’ from political leaders found traction with SHU leaders and beyond. And whilst a 50% participation rate in HE continues to underpin the thought leadership of many government agencies today, the new millennium would bring new challenges requiring new vigilance and new resolution.

At this propitious moment, in mid-1999, I joined the College of Ripon and York St John as Principal. Tellingly, a fellow (sic) Principal observed, warmly, whilst congratulating me: ‘Isn’t it great to be running your own train set?’ Therefore, this was the pivotal moment when I might draw upon the influences and experiences of peers and mentors, projects and partnerships across my former university lives – and yet remember that male imagery and metaphor had not yielded up their grip with respect to ideas of leading change.

The decade began for me as a tale of two proud Cathedral cities and two modest and unassuming Colleges of fading Victorian grandeur, Colleges that must merge into one in order to protect the values and mission of access for the wider community. In particular, there was a longstanding commitment that was acknowledged tacitly, and would be nurtured further, to open our doors (literally and metaphorically) to those for whom HE had no self-evident attraction or relevance. Moreover, rationalisation to a single site in York would facilitate change and growth. York with its world-class heritage, great connectivity, glorious countryside and an exceptional tourist draw was chosen as the future base for investment. Yet, this beautiful city also concealed significant pockets of deprivation; and across the hinterland, an emerging imperative towards rural and coastal access was highlighted by voices from the soon-to-become York St John College, subsequently, University (see also, e.g. Gaskell & Dunn, Chapter 12; Noble & Grant in this volume, Chapter 5).

As a small college with a big agenda, partnership (both of necessity and by choice) was at the heart of the forward strategy – led by a senior team seriously skilled and experienced in the policy and practice of enabling social inclusion, including the Editor of this text! The City of York, in dialogue, supported plans for a fit-for-purpose campus regeneration to support new learning styles and engage new learners. National HE agencies such as the Leadership Foundation (LFHE) and the Higher Education Academy embraced and utilised our expertise, both on their Boards but also as their trainers and facilitators – and as early entrants into the esteemed hall of National Teaching Fellows. During the passage of the Higher Education Act 2004, it was helpful to have the College Principal positioned as Chair of what is now GuildHE6 – working with Ministers to defend the best outcomes for the widest range of future students as the new and controversial tuition fees regime came into play. Importantly, this was mitigated, in part, by the introduction of a new regulatory force in the form of the Office for Fair Access.

Other partnerships at subject level, at professional level and around research interests ensured that the engagement of scholars from across the college contributed to the wider HE debates. For example, about what counts as widening opportunities for a particular subject, for the neighbourhood or city, and for the college/university. Importantly, this was not the task of a single heroic leader but one that was shared. One unifying theme which elicited different views and provoked different responses was our identity as a Church Foundation and its relevance for the social inclusivity agenda. A group of some 12 Church Colleges would meet under the banner of what came to be known as the Cathedrals Group in HE. For College leaders, this served as both a challenge and support group, exploring diverse policy and practice issues – including the boundaries of Church connectivity and the impact this might have on access missions, as subscribed to by all. In different geographies and different social contexts, it became clear that Christian values had underpinned significant thought leadership around access.

At York St John, the identification of faith advisers from seven world religions (seven women and seven men) contributed creatively to the understanding and celebration of diverse cultures for both a significantly white student community and a significantly white city. And it enabled successful outreach initiatives via workshops in West Yorkshire where Muslim mothers looked with confidence to York St John as a safe and respectful environment for their daughters. Yet, perhaps the most influential collaboration, shaped and sustained in large part by York St John, has been Higher York. This was the UK’s second lifelong learning partnership and is still active today. Yet, it began very nervously with a secret meeting in a basement bar in York between three CEOs: from University of York, York FE College and York St John.

There was anxiety about status and excellence, takeover/merger, standards dilution, mission distraction and loss of face – unspoken sentiments that might be attributed to academic communities rather than to the leaders themselves. In reality, the leaders had an emerging high ambition for a seamless education system available for York and North Yorkshire to offer students a comprehensive curriculum from (e.g.) Archaeology to Zoology – with scenic routes linking options and levels across institutions, as students journey towards their academic goals.

One measure of success is the swift move from project-plotting to consultation and effective bidding; then through to ‘delivery’ – with an enhanced membership to include the local agricultural college. A measure of impact is the naming and full incorporation of the work of Higher York into the City of York Local Strategic Plan where the virtues of widening access to HE for economic, social and cultural gain are explicitly articulated. And a measure of the positioning of York St John in this mix is the routine reference by civic leaders to ‘our two universities’ – where the particular access role of York St John is seen to complement the global reputation for research excellence of the University of York.

Meanwhile, in 2008, an exciting opportunity to forge new pathways and new thinking beyond York was secured through the Vice-Chancellor’s membership of the HEFCE board and associated chairing of its Widening Access and Participation Committee. Notwithstanding the seemingly benign climate for HE engendered by the commitment to ‘education, education, education’, the economic clouds of financial failure were hovering over part-publically funded bodies as the decade was drawing to a close. Leading social inclusivity through uncertainty and turbulence became the watchword for success. Performance indicators for the opening of doors were threatened and, as my retirement beckoned, supporting the ambitions of the next generation of leaders became my key goal. As my Leadership Consultancy business cards arrived and the home office took shape, my retiree diary for 2010 started to reflect my continuing passion for challenge and change towards widening participation and social mobility. A social justice imperative links with my Trustee roles at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, in Health and in the Arts. I have enjoyed developing for the LFHE their well-regarded Governor Development Programme. Moreover, I returned as an enthusiastic Trustee to the regenerating London Metropolitan University. Clearly, in diverse geographies and sectors, there exist multiple opportunities for shaping change.

This narrative demonstrates that leadership across different time frames can manifest itself in different places and in different ways – and that leadership qualities do not depend on status or title. In the case of widening participation, this is evidenced across this series of essays. We see that political and historical contexts help to shape the particular form that leading change will follow: whether operating under the radar of reactionary forces, or riding with the tide of good intentions! But an effective leader, in their turn, will seek to reinvent and shape that environment, for the better. Influence on social inclusivity is best exerted through positioning and partnerships where common interests unite governments, local or national, and where shared goals with arms-length-agencies, labour movement leaders, students, employers, fellow providers of FHE and many more can exert a multiplier effect on successful outcomes.

In conclusion, I observe that the ‘Curate’s Egg’ of the title might be said to mask a sustained and often heroic series of endeavours that make a reality of access to success and social mobility through engagement with a rich and diverse community of protagonists. Inevitably, impact remains patchy (as signalled by the ‘Curate’s Egg’ metaphor) and in part unproven but, most encouragingly, the appetite to address unfinished business is illustrated powerfully throughout this volume.Professor Dianne Willcocks, CBE, DL

About the Contributors

Dr Graeme Atherton Founder and Director of ‘AccessHE’ and the National Education Opportunities Network (NEON), has worked in the access to post-secondary education field for 20 years both in the UK and internationally. He is Visiting Professor at London Metropolitan University, Amity Business School and Sunway University Malaysia.

Professor Stuart Billingham is Professor Emeritus of Lifelong Learning at York St John University being previously Pro Vice Chancellor at the University. He has worked to widen access to success in, and through, tertiary education for almost 40 years. He has published widely, both nationally and internationally, and regularly presents at major international conferences on these issues.

Dr John Butcher is Associate Director (Curriculum & Access), Learning and Teaching Innovation, at The Open University. John has led research projects for the Office for Fair Access on outreach for disadvantaged adult learners, and for the Higher Education Academy (HEA) on part-time learning in higher education (HE). He is currently Co-Editor of the international journal Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning and is an executive member of the Forum for Access and Continuing Education (FACE).

Siobhan Clay is Educational Developer in the Teaching and Learning Exchange at University of the Arts London (UAL). Her role is focused on student experience and attainment agendas, working with academics to support inclusive pedagogies and curriculum development. Siobhan has taught on the Inclusivity unit of the Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning (PG Cert) for staff, and has supervised colleagues undertaking diversity and inclusion research projects.

Louis Coiffait is Associate Editor at Wonkhe, where he: writes, commissions and edits articles; produces email briefings and speaks at a range of events. He also leads on a number of new partnerships, consultancy and services. He has researched a wide range of education policy topics, including; access to HE, apprenticeships, employability, careers and selection. His career includes working with Reform, NFER, Pearson, TTA, HEA, for an MP and a Government Minister.

Ian Dunn is Deputy Vice Chancellor (Student Experience) at Coventry University. Ian’s success in the 2016 Guardian Higher Education Awards ‘Inspiring Leader’ category sums up the way he works with colleagues, students and the local community alike, and he is a driving force behind a number of prestigious additions to the University’s widening participation portfolio – most recently CU Scarborough and CU Coventry.

Professor Craig Gaskell is Professor of Higher Education Enterprise and Associate Pro Vice Chancellor at Coventry University. He was founding Provost of CU Scarborough, Coventry’s new start-up campus on the Yorkshire coast, leading the project from initial concept to full implementation. He has extensive experience of senior management and leading change in the university sector. His research interests include organisational forms and student experience in Higher Education, enabling close alignment between his research and professional practice.

Professor Dwight E. Giles, Jr is Professor Emeritus of Higher Education at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA. Dwight was recently inducted into the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship. He has been a practitioner-scholar of Experiential Education for 35 years, during which time he has taught courses and directed programmes in service-learning and international internships. He has co-authored numerous books and articles on service-learning research and community engagement including ‘Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning?’.

Jessica Grant has been based at the University of Tasmania since March 2014 working across strategic planning and government engagement functions. Previously, she was Director of the Higher York Lifelong Learning Network in the UK, working on a range of widening participation projects, including Aimhigher. Prior to this, Jessica worked with post-16 providers to develop lifelong learning provision across York and North Yorkshire, for the Learning and Skills Council.

Clara Gwatirera is an education activist whose work in South Africa focusses on youth empowerment and development, and the promotion of educational opportunities for orphaned and vulnerable children. In 2005, she was a young person representative for Zimbabwe to the UN Secretary General’s study on violence against children. In 2011, she was a delegate at the One Young World Summit in Switzerland. Clara aspires to study theology in the near future, and currently works as a Sales Consultant in Johannesburg.

Dr Mark Jones is Chief Operating Officer at Advance HE, formerly the Higher Education Academy (HEA). Prior to joining the HEA in 2014, Mark worked on the development of digital learning and digital curriculum materials, in the development of web-based delivery of public services (including launching the NHS’s first app), and in a range of business development roles across the private and charity sectors.

Dr Liz Marr is Director of Teaching at the Open University, UK, having originally joined the University as Director of the Centre for Widening Participation. She has a long history of engagement with the widening participation agenda in the UK, initially through the Aimhigher programme. She is Co-Editor of the international Journal of Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning and Chair of the Action on Access Forum.

Dr Helen May works at Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy), currently leading Teaching Excellence Awards. Over the last 13 years, she has led a number of priority themes, including social capital, internationalisation, change, inclusion, retention and widening participation. An experienced teacher and educational researcher, Helen authored a National framework for enhancing student success (2016) and published in 2017 on communities of practice.

Nik Miller is Chief Executive of the Bridge Group and Director at More Partnership. Prior to this, he worked in the USA, at the University of Warwick and the University of York. Nik has advised the UK Government on social mobility, and collaborated with a range of organisations to support more equal access to HE and the professions, including Google, KPMG, the University of Oxford, the Wellcome Trust, the BBC and Trinity College Dublin.

Dr Neil Murray is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, UK, and an adjunct member of the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures at the University of South Australia (UniSA). Previously, he co-convened the 1st International Australasian Conference on Enabling Access to Higher Education, which led to the publication of Aspiration Access and Attainment: International perspectives on widening participation: an agenda for change (Routledge 2014, with Chris Klinger).

Simon Newton is a Charity Trustee and activist. He is currently Trustee of Out of Character, a theatre company whose members have used mental health services, and Pilot Theatre, an international touring company aimed at young adults. He was Deputy Director of Communications at the Open University, Director of Enterprise and Innovation at the University of York and Head of Partnerships at York St John University.

Professor Margaret Noble is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic Quality and Schools Engagement) at the University of Tasmania. Previously, she was Chief Executive at Waiariki Institute of Technology in New Zealand and at the now University of St Mark and St John in the UK. She has directed a number of large regional widening participation projects in the North East of England and South East London, and led the establishment of the Kent and Medway Lifelong Learning Network. Margaret has published widely in urban and regional studies, higher education policy and widening participation.

Dr Nick Rowe is Associate Professor at York St John University and Director of ‘Converge’ – an initiative offering higher educational opportunities to people who use mental health services, which he founded in 2008 and now being adopted by the Universities in Leeds and Newcastle. Nick trained as a psychiatric nurse and dramatherapist. Since the launch of Converge he has written extensively about the model and the lessons to be learned from it.

Dr Bruria Schaedel is Senior Lecturer at the Western Galilee Project, Akko, Israel. She is Founder, Director and Senior Researcher of several projects at the University of Haifa and the Western Galilee College. ‘The Western Gallts’ project aimed to develop cooperation and partnerships among Jews and Arabs in the northern region. The mutual partnerships were developed in various groups and included children, teachers, parents and students.

Dr Gerard Sharpling is Senior Teaching Fellow within the Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick. He has previously worked for the Open University, the University of Birmingham and the Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Université de Nantes (France). His main current areas of interest lie in English for Academic Purposes and Language Testing. He is particularly interested in empowering students from diverse linguistic and social backgrounds by helping them to develop their writing.

Dr Tim Stanton is Senior Associate/Engaged Scholar for Ravensong Associates (USA), through which he consults in global service-learning design, development and research in the United States, Africa and Asia. In 2016, Tim was Visiting Professor in International Studies at Northwestern University (USA). He is a Director Emeritus of Stanford University’s Bing Overseas Studies Program in Cape Town, South Africa. He has published numerous articles and two books on service learning and engaged scholarship.

Emilie Sundorph was a Researcher at the think tank Reform, at the time of contributing to the writing of the first chapter in this volume. At Reform, she worked on a wide range of themes, including how top universities can be held accountable for supporting social mobility. Prior to working at Reform, Emilie worked with a number of educational charities, including Prisoners’ Education Trust and The Challenge. She is now at Teach First.

Professor Liz Thomas is Professor of Higher Education at Edge Hill University and an independent consultant. She has approximately 20 years’ experience of undertaking and managing research about widening participation, student retention and success and institutional approaches to improving the student experience and outcomes. She is author and editor of over 10 books, many journal articles, reports, briefings and practice guides – all informing institutional, national and international policy and practice.

Danail Vasilev was a Researcher at Reform think tank at the time of contributing to the writing of the first chapter in this volume. His research focusses on applying quantitative methods to a range of policy issues – from the distribution effects of Social Care spending to the impact of contextualised admissions on widening participation in higher education.

Professor Tony Wall is Professor and Founder/Director of the International Thriving at Work Research Group at the University of Chester, where he leads numerous research and impact projects, Professional Doctorates and holds editorial positions with various international journals. He has three Santander International Research Excellence Awards, and he is a Visiting Scholar at Research Centres in the UK, Australia and the United States. His research and practice focus is on ‘thriving’ across multiple cultural and ecological contexts.

Professor Dianne Willcocks CBE, DL, is Emeritus Professor at York St John University, Honorary Doctor at Sheffield Hallam University and Honorary Fellow of Rose Bruford College. Formerly Vice Chancellor at York St John University, she is an advocate and practitioner for socially inclusive citizenship, promoting educational endeavour and opportunity that engages with the needs of modern communities. She is Vice Chair of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the York Teaching Hospital Foundation Trust.

The now-familiar descriptor ‘mature’ was neither articulated, nor conceptually understood in the early 1970s.

Following 1970s, equalities legislation, a tangible expression of political desire (by some) for a fairer society was the introduction of affirmative action strategies to support marginalised groups – as opposed to positive discrimination.

In 2002, the former PNL, subsequently University of North London, merged with London Guildhall University to become London Metropolitan University.

The pre-election promise of New Labour.

Visits usually occurred as part of what was then tortuously badged, ‘PSHE’ – Personal, Social and Health Education, now more commonly timetabled ‘citizenship education’.

The Standing Conference of Principals, founded in the 1970s, was one of two formal representative bodies for HE in the UK alongside what is now UUK. In 2006, it changed its name to GuildHE.

Prelims
1 Access to Success and Social Mobility through Higher Education: A Curate’s Egg?
Section A Aspects of the Contemporary Access Debate
2 Access to the Elite
3 Access to Higher Education in South Africa
4 Learning Through Life Revisited: The Role of Policy in Enhancing Social Mobility through Access to Part-time Study
5 Increasing Access to Tertiary and Higher Education in Rural Communities: Experiences from Tasmania and New Zealand
Section B Focussing on Student Success and Social Mobility
6 What Can Social Capital Contribute to Student Success in Higher Education? Perspectives from Students and Institutions
7 ‘So You Want to Be an Academic?’ The Experiences of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Undergraduates in a UK Creative Arts University
8 Students’ Views of Tertiary Education as ‘Access to Success’: A Case Study of a Multicultural College in Israel
9 Collective Responsibility and Collaborative Action: Universities and Employers in Pursuit of Social Mobility
Section C Innovations in Access to Success
10 Students Not Patients: Opening Up the University to Those with Mental Health Problems
11 Service Learning and Academic Activism: A Review, Prospects and a Time for Revival?
12 Warming a Higher Education Cold Spot: The Case of Coventry University in Scarborough
13 A Teacher´s Experience of the Transformative Pedagogic Effect of Part-time Degree Study
Section D Access to Success and Social Mobility: Thinking Big
14 Access to Success and Social Mobility Involves Everyone! A Whole Institution Approach to Widening Participation
15 Advocating for Access: World Access to Higher Education Day and Beyond
Index