Culture and culture change in a higher education context: what works and what doesn’t?

PUBLISHED VERSION: Organisational culture and culture change are related concepts which have their origins in organisational studies, but also have relevance to higher education and the constitution of contemporary universities. This paper first explores definitions of and approaches to organisational culture and culture change. Two specific theories are then favoured as being particularly useful when planning and undertaking change initiatives in higher education environments – these being ‘multiple cultural configurations’ and the ‘meso’ theory. Based on a literature review of thirty six studies, arguments are put forward for their wider application in higher education change contexts. In addition, a critique of more popular technical rationalist approaches for the management of change is presented

Providing written feedback that students will value and read

This article outlines a study undertaken at City University London, involving 51 teaching staff (lecturers or other colleagues with a teaching or facilitation role at the University), who were all undertaking a staff-development module focused on learning, teaching and assessment issues (entitled Learning, Teaching and Assessment). Although all participants of the study were staff, they are referred to as students, as they were students of this module. The study examined whether, having undertaken a module which addressed assessment and provision of good quality feedback, these students applied the advice they received into practice when asked to self-assess and provide feedback on an essay they wrote for the module. Data for the study was collected from analysing the aforementioned self-assessment which students provided for themselves. The findings demonstrated that most had some retention of good practice principles from the day, such as providing feedback that related to the criteria, giving positive comments and outlining areas to develop. However, they provided noticeably less advice on how to develop their assessments according to the different criteria, and, despite being advised to write comments in the second person, many wrote their self-feedback as if it were for a third party. Recommendations from this study include: that there needs to be further consideration of how to emphasise the importance of writing feedback in a personalised style; and that there is a need to ensure that sufficient advice is given to students on how to develop their future assessments

The missing meso: variation in staff experiences of an academic practice initiative and lessons for educational change

This paper examines variation in change agents’ experiences of an intended culture change, following their implementation of an organisation-wide initiative at a single university. The purpose of the initiative was to promote better understanding of a range of academic practice and academic conduct issues amongst students and staff, and generate an institution wide culture change. The change agents were interviewed and resulting data analysed using the phenomenographic approach, from which four qualitatively different conceptions were developed. The results suggest that a full culture change has not occurred, but that instances of localised changes have taken place. Drawing on two theoretical models, it is argued that in initiatives of this type, greater account needs to be taken of the meso level - cultures and practices in departmental and programme contexts – and that such meso level considerations should be used to compliment central planning approaches adopted by academic leaders who design such initiatives

StudyWell: an interactive web resource to promote positive study and better understanding of plagiarism prevention

The StudyWell project involved the construction of a new website for students and staff at City University London. The purpose of StudyWell is to integrate existing resources in the University on plagiarism prevention and good study into a single place, and supplement these with a range of new, interactive resources for users. The site takes a positive approach to good study and plagiarism prevention, through its provision of quizzes, activities and case studies, and is aimed at users at both the host institution and to the external community. This paper discusses literature and other data sources which informed the development of StudyWell and argues that, when developing enhancement initiatives of this type, a meso educational change approach should be deployed: one that accounts for the diverse needs of different users and workgroups in school and departmental contexts. The paper also considers the design and construction of the site, summarises results of initial evaluations, and comments on the aforementioned theory and literature in light of development of the site

Exploring the relationship between sustainability and university curricula: a small-scale study

This paper explores the concept of sustainability and whether there is a case for sustainability issues to be incorporated into university curricula, within the context of a single university. After discussing selected literature on sustainability, the main body of the work reports on a small-scale study undertaken at City University London by the author. Four members of staff were interviewed and invited to give their views on what sustainability is and whether it should be incorporated into curricula. The results were diverse both in what they suggest about understandings of sustainability and the relevance it has to curricula. A number of closing comments are offered, and it is concluded that a more consistent perspective on what sustainability is and is for would be a useful starting point, before major areas such as curriculum change can realistically be pursued

Sculpted Symposiasts of Ionia

Statues and statuettes of reclining banqueters were dedicated at several Ionian sanctuaries during the sixth century B.C.E., beginning with the Geneleos Group at the Samian Heraion. Though common for small bronze and terracotta sculpture, this figure type is not otherwise attested in monumental dedicatory sculpture and is rare as architectural decoration elsewhere in archaic Greece. This article explores the social implications of this Ionian sculptural tradition, which paired the luxury of the reclining banquet with bodily corpulence, in light of archaic poetry and Samian history. The short-lived trend of reclining banqueter dedications may be understood as a locally specific type of aristocratic self-definition and an Ionian corollary to burials on klinai (banquet couches) in neighboring western Asiatic dynastic cultures. These sculptures also challenge conventional distinctions between private and cultic banqueting and illuminate the place of sympotic culture in archaic Ionian sanctuaries and the social implications of East Greek sculptural style

Couched in Death: Klinai and Identity in Anatolia and Beyond

In Couched in Death, Elizabeth P. Baughan offers the first comprehensive look at the earliest funeral couches in the ancient Mediterranean world. These sixth- and fifth-century BCE klinai from Asia Minor were inspired by specialty luxury furnishings developed in Archaic Greece for reclining at elite symposia. It was in Anatolia, however—in the dynastic cultures of Lydia and Phrygia and their neighbors—that klinai first gained prominence not as banquet furniture but as burial receptacles. For tombs, wooden couches were replaced by more permanent media cut from bedrock, carved from marble or limestone, or even cast in bronze. The rich archaeological findings of funerary klinai throughout Asia Minor raise intriguing questions about the social and symbolic meanings of this burial furniture. Why did Anatolian elites want to bury their dead on replicas of Greek furniture? Do the klinai found in Anatolian tombs represent Persian influence after the conquest of Anatolia, as previous scholarship has suggested? Bringing a diverse body of understudied and unpublished material together for the first time, Baughan investigates the origins and cultural significance of klinai-burial and charts the stylistic development and distribution of funerary klinai throughout Anatolia. She contends that funeral couch burials and banqueter representations in funerary art helped construct hybridized Anatolian-Persian identities in Achaemenid Anatolia, and she reassesses the origins of the custom of the reclining banquet itself, a defining feature of ancient Mediterranean civilizations. Baughan explores the relationships of Anatolian funeral couches with similar traditions in Etruria and Macedonia as well as their “afterlife” in the modern era, and her study also includes a comprehensive survey of evidence for ancient klinai in general, based on analysis of more than three hundred klinai representations on Greek vases as well as archaeological and textual sources.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1119/thumbnail.jp

Remembering the Persian Empire (Book Review)

Has the world forgotten the Persian empire? Three new publications approach this question from different angles. Despite what their titles imply, the British Museum\u27s landmark 2005 exhibition, \u27Forgotten Empire. The World of Ancient Persia\u27, and catalogue of the same name have aimed to reclaim the Persian empire not from oblivion but rather from its reputation, founded upon Hellenocentric and Eurocentric biases, as a \u27nest of despotism and tyranny\u27, and to illuminate its \u27true character\u27 as a remarkably tolerant and cohesive imperial power that embraced cultural variation (pp. 6, 8). One could say that the Persian empire has not until now been forgotten, but remembered and recast in different ways over the centuries. That is, in fact, a central point of L. Allen\u27s new survey of Achaemenid history, The Persian Empire. A History, which also explores the self-conscious \u27remembering\u27 of earlier Near Eastern dynasties by the Achaemenid kings themselves. The papers collected in Birth of the Persian Empire demonstrate in their own way how ideas about the Achaemenid past are shaped and reshaped by modern concepts of culture and national identity

Burial \u3cem\u3eKlinai\u3c/em\u3e and \u3cem\u3eTotenmahl\u3c/em\u3e?

How can burial furnishings help to clarify the meanings of banqueting imagery in funerary art and the place of banqueting in funerary ideologies? Should tombs furnished with klinai or replicas of banquet couches be understood as representations of banqueting, meant to equip the dead for an eternal ‘Totenmahl’? Or do funeral couches mark their occupants as members of the elite class that enjoyed banqueting and/or luxury furniture while alive? These questions are not so easily answered, because klinai in the ancient Greek world were multifunctional furnishings, used for sleeping and resting as well as for dining and revelry, and because burial assemblages are constructed representations, much like tomb paintings or reliefs. This paper presents a brief history of burial klinai in the Mediterranean world and proposes parameters for interpreting funerary klinai as symbolic banquet couches, with discussion of archaeological and cultural contexts as well as ethnographic parallels. Consideration of burial furniture complements the study of the banquet motif in contemporary funerary images and underlines the importance of the ‘funerary banquet’ concept – however defined – in certain eras and regions