Welcome to the thirteenth issue of the English Subject Centre Newsletter. As we settle into the new academic term, we hope that this issue will provide you with an opportunity to pause and reflect on some of the broader issues of teaching our discipline. At the Subject Centre we are approaching 2007-2008 with a sense of renewal and excitement as it brings the continuation of our popular programmes such as the New Lecturers weekend conference in November and our Heads of Department Networking Day next March. We welcome Professor Lyn Pykett as the new chair of our Advisory Board and say farewell to the outgoing chair, Professor Judy Simons. I had the pleasure of interviewing Judy in July which you can read about in this issue. Elsewhere in this issue you will find articles about the new A Level specifications and how they will impact further and higher education, and about Welsh writing in English and the difficulties it has had getting established as an academic subject in HE. Plagiarism and how we deal with it as academics has a fascinating history according to Richard Terry, while Jan Hewitt and Tony Nicholson detail how they created a digital archive at Teesside and simultaneously helped their undergraduates transform themselves from ordinary learners to active researchers. We extend our congratulations to Michael Aicken, the winner in the first round of the student essay award competition sponsored by the Higher Education Academy. This Open University student was last year’s runner-up and is to be doubly commended for trying again and succeeding this year.
The Newsletter continues to evolve both in terms of content and design. A new item is Desert Island Texts (inspired by BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs), which offers a peek onto the bookshelves of colleagues. You will also notice that the ‘Director’s Foreword’ has been replaced by a new ‘Last Word’ section which is open to Subject Centre staff and the wider community as a space for editorial commentary. I have asked Christie Carson, who recently concluded her role as the Subject Centre’s CETL Liaison officer to pen our first ‘Last Word.’ It is connected to her longer article about the CETL initiative and our Renewals conference, also in this issue.
Renewals: Refiguring University English in the 21st Century, our second international conference, was the highlight of the Subject Centre’s year. Two years in the planning, it attracted participants from all over the UK, and delegates from Europe and the U.S. too. We thank all who participated and helped to make it a success, but if you happened to miss it look no further than the Subject Centre’s website where you can watch the fascinating plenary talks given by Professors Alan Liu and Richard Miller, or review the conference Blog penned by Catherine Samiei. It is now five years since our last international conference, The Condition of the Subject and in the book review section you will find Vicky Greenaway’s assessment of Philip W. Martin’s book of the same name .
Despite the time-consuming process of putting on a conference, many other events have filled the English Subject Centre’s calendar over the past several months. These include a Textbook Roundtable that brought together academics and publishers in March, a one-day event on the subject of Masculinities in Texts, our annual Heads of Department Networking Day in April, the second in a series of events on the First Year Experience, and many others. As always, to learn more about an event you were unable to attend or to garner ideas for new ones, we encourage you to peruse the Events Archive on our website.
Although my name appears as editor of the newsletter, like most everything we do at the Subject Centre the newsletter is a collaborative effort which involves not just our staff but also you, the subject community. I am delighted to receive emails about potential articles so please keep the ideas and abstracts flowing into my inbox. I would especially encourage contributions from those of you teaching HE in FE or teaching on MA programmes, or who are teaching in a manner that maps onto Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). As ever, of course, we are curious about your particular research interests—whatever they may be—and how they inform or have transformed your teaching practice. I hope you enjoy the issue.
Nicole King
Editor
