Wray Irwin
Biography
Wray Irwin is the director for enterprise and employability at the University of Northampton and is the strategic lead on raising aspiration, improving employability, and practicing social innovation as a core competence in enhancing the student experience. He is responsible for enhancing the employability of graduates through engagement in social innovation and Changemaking and providing access to the widest possible opportunities to engage in social action, volunteering, jobs, careers support and social enterprise. Key to this is engaging with primary and secondary schools to encourage pupils to be the best they can be and look to University as a career option.
He is an Ashoka U Change Leader at the Northampton; leading on all aspects of the University’s Ashoka U Changemaker Campus commitment, including venture development, social impact reporting, and institutional Changemaker priorities.
In 2014 Wray was awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion, Lifetime Achievement in recognition of his work at the university and the social enterprise sector spanning over 20 years.
Abstract
Transforming Lives and Inspiring Change! The changemaker campus difference
In this keynote talk, Wray will explore the experience of the University of Northampton (UON) as it redesigned its academic and employability support for students.
In 2013, UON was designated the UK’s first Changemaker Campus for its commitment to social innovation as a way of enhancing student success both in the curriculum and through the extra-curricular student experience. The designation prompted an institution wide conversation on how such an ambitious approach could be further supported and encouraged to ensure all students had the opportunity to engage with the unique experience on offer, beginning a 5-year redesign process.
This process culminated the integration of employability support with academic and student success support as the Integrated Learner Support model (ILS) rolled out to all students in 2019-20. This model channels academic support, learning development, and the employability support into the curriculum as an entitlement for all students, focussed on their academic and graduate employment success, and supported with a comprehensive extra-curricular offer.
UON still has a long way to go to perfect the co-curricular ILS model with the presentation drawing out what has been learnt so far, plans for continuous improvement, and to spark debate on how this entitlement for students at UON could be something all students at any university should expect.
Maha Bali
Biography
Maha Bali is Associate Professor of Practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo. She has a PhD in Education from the University of Sheffield, UK. She is co-founder of virtuallyconnecting.org (a grassroots movement that challenges academic gatekeeping at conferences) and co-facilitator of Equity Unbound (an equity-focused, open, connected intercultural learning curriculum, which has also branched into academic community activities Continuity with Care and Socially Just Academia and a collaboration with OneHE: Community-building Resources. She writes and speaks frequently about social justice, critical pedagogy, and open and online education. She blogs regularly at http://blog.mahabali.me and tweets @bali_maha
Further links
Abstract
The delicate balance of community, care and compassion in equity-focused education
In this session, we will explore the notion of Intentionally Equitable Hospitality and how it can be applied in various educational contexts to build community with care and compassion while centering equity. We will discuss the Equity/Care matrix and notions of distributed care inspired by biomimicry.