Guest Lecturer - Vice Chancellor - David Warner

Education Policy Due to the sickness of our lecturer Andy Reynolds, we have been having many guests come and cover for him. Today, we had the Vice Chancellor of Swansea Metropolitan University Professor David Warner. This was a fantastic experience to have our very own vice chancellor come and lecture for us. Today, Warner began by talking about the background on higher education, he spoke of the following bullet points: Background on higher education • What is higher education? - The level of work that you do, does not necessarily mean university, could be in institutions. - Who pays you, the number of students studying H.E is not the same as students that are studying at university Once Warner had explained the background of what higher education is and how it came about, he then gave us some very interesting information on the history of Swansea Metropolitan University: History of Swansea Metropolitan University • 1853 – oldest faculty of art and design • Swansea Metropolitan will be spending 7million of their own money to convert the old library. • 1913 – 100 years old next year – Townhill campus • Mount Pleasant – founded by Bishop Gore Continuing on the subject, he the spoke of the history of universities: History of universities • Middle ages - first universities established • 1918 – 22 universities and university colleges • 1980 – 47 universities, including CAT’s a new ‘plate-glass universities’ • 1992 – over 100 universities as legislation enabled polytechnics to adopt the title of ‘university’ • Most universities were established after the Second World War. Why go to university? And student fees: • To enable people to develop the capabilities and fulfil their potential, both personally and at work. Swansea Metropolitan University focus on this • To contribute to an economically successful and culturally diverse nation • To advance knowledge and understanding through scholarship and research – Swansea University focus on this. • To contribute to regional prosperity both through technology transfer and direct contribution? • Social justice? It’s about breaking down the barriers through education - the transformation of the individual. You can break out of what your parents/grandparents did. I found Professor David Warner's lecture extremely interesting. I enjoyed the fact that we learnt about the history of pur very own university not just all the others. I feel that we were all very privileged to have had a lecture with the vice chancellor himself!