Access

Nothing since January and now it's April. Such long absences are what kill a blog, aren't they? Potentially interested customers who haven't mastered RSS forget it exists and never come back. During a heavy teaching semester blogging wasn't a priority. Still, I'm glad you're still here. At the end of the semester there are a couple of items worth a word or two.

What's been happening? Well, for one thing, DACE is absolutely no more. We're now the Centre for Open Studies. More of that elsewhere; follow us on Facebook.

A more personal story: some of that non-blog effort must have worked for somebody or I wouldn't have made this shortlist The nomination came from my Access Mathematics class. Let me explain what that's about.

Our Access programme helps people who've been away from education for some time to make their way towards a university degree. People come twice a week and study two subjects in some depth. In the process they learn how university type teaching and learning work, what will be expected of them in University and how to handle it, etc. If they do well enough on Access the University Admissions Officers will accept it instead of Highers or A levels for entry to degree courses. Access is aimed at "mature" students (although a lower age limit is now illegal!) and particularly at people who have not previously had the chance to benefit from higher education. Demand rocketed in 2008, as the Western world began to fall apart, and the Access programmes are always full now. They were a core function of DACE, as they will be of the Centre for Open Studies.

I teach Mathematics on Science Access. Don't worry! My first degree is in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy (as Physics was still called then) and some of my Astrophysics research is pretty mathsy (e.g. this paper or this one). I'm the sort of person you'd expect to meet teaching this sort of subject in a university.

I did not win the GUSRC "Best teacher - Science and Engineering" award but it was a real honour to he nominated and to make the shortlist. Here's what I would have said if I'd won:

Every week during the academic year the students on our Access programe take two evenings out of their lives to come to their classes with us, after they've spent their days working, looking after kids, involved in all the activities of busy, grown-up lives. Their commitment to study is enormous. It's not hard to teach such people. At the orientation weekend they're starting out hesitant, unsure if they belong here. By the end of the year some of them will have left, for one reason or another, but those that remain are transformed: confident, purposeful, no longer doubting their right to university study. It's a privilege to be involved with these people and a particular honour to have been nominated from Access.