Twenty Years of Workplace Health Promotion

Curtin University has been actively advocating a healthy lifestyle in the workplace to increase productivity, creativity, health and happiness for 20 years. The Curtin Healthy Lifestyle Program was initially established based on a community development approach.University staff are assisted to reduce their level of stress by promoting a healthy lifestyle and changing the work culture to one where staff are valued. Staff are encouraged to balance work, study and family life by taking work breaks, attend healthy activities during work time, be involved with campus life, network with other staff, develop hobbies, fit physical activity into their day (even involving their families in healthy activities) and generally make time to care for their health.The program focuses on intersectoral collaboration amongst various departments, areas and individuals. Staff and students are encouraged to become involved, to form supportive groups, to increase the number of healthy opportunities available and to find solutions to health related problems on campus.This paper reviews the range of activities offered at the University as part of the program, and outlines environmental and policy changes undertaken to develop a supportive environment in the workplace and the development of a "Health Promoting University"

A New Deep Suture.

n/

Vertically integrated projects (VIP) @ the University of Strathclyde : how to enhance the student and staff learning experience through VIP

The purpose of this paper is to outline and share with the wider academic community the experience of developing and implementing Vertically Integrated Projects at the University of Strathclyde during their pilot phase. In turn we consider the results of a preliminary evaluation, paying particular attention to the effects on the student learning experience, (and to a lesser extent the academic staff), and illustrate how those results and our own observations have been used to identify constraints in VIP development and expansion, in addition to those critical factors which have contributed to their success. We conclude with a reflective statement on `moving forward`, in the hope that others will be inspired to follow suit

Student staff partnership to create an interdisciplinary science skills course in a research intensive university

This paper reflects upon the development of a multidisciplinary lesson plan aimed at developing science skills for Physics and Astronomy, Geographical and Earth Sciences, and Chemistry students at a research intensive Scottish university. The lesson plan was co-developed with a small group of staff and undergraduate students from these disciplinary areas. The authors discuss the rationale and process for developing the course, drawing upon literature relating to students and staff co-creating curricula in higher education. The authors conclude by offering suggestions for the academic development community about ways in which this kind of collaboration can be supported at local and institutional levels

Effectiveness of E-mail Support to Increase Physical Activity Within the Workplace

A brief intervention was conducted to assess the effectiveness of a walking based intervention to motivate Curtin university staff to be more active. Thirty staff participated in a blind trial with half the participants randomly allocated to the control group (given pedometers to record their normal daily steps) and intervention group (given pedometers and additional email motivation to increase their daily step count).It was found that University staff physical activity levels (7,605 mean steps per day) were significantly lower than physical activity levels of the general population in Western Australia (9,695 mean steps per day). This is of concern as it places University staff at higher risk of mortality and morbidity from chronic diseases.Regular motivational emails were found to be useful in encouraging staff to be more active as staff liked the social support, sense of belonging and encouragement. Group 1 (email motivation) increased their mean steps significantly from 7,578 in Week 1 to 9,128 in Week 2 while the control group did not change.Many workplaces have staff with sedentary jobs that could be targeted by similar flexible physical activity interventions

Staff and students co-creating curricula in UK higher education: exploring process and evidencing value

Student engagement in learning and teaching is receiving a growing level of interest from policy makers, researchers, and practitioners. This includes opportunities for staff and students to co-create curricula, yet there are few examples within current literature which describe and critique this form of staff-student collaboration (Bovill (2013a), Healey et al (2014), Cook-Sather et al (2014). The competing agendas of neoliberalism and critical, radical pedagogies influence the policy and practice of staff and students co-creating curricula and, consequently, attempt to appropriate the purpose of it in different ways. Using case-based research methodology, my study presents analysis of staff and students co-creating curricula within seven universities. This includes 17 examples of practice across 14 disciplines. Using an inductive approach, I have examined issues relating to definitions of practice, conceptualisations of curricula, perceptions of value, and the relationship between practice and institutional strategy. I draw upon an interdisciplinary body of literature to provide the conceptual foundations for my research. This has been necessary to address the complexity of practice and includes literature relating to student engagement in learning and teaching, conceptual models of curriculum in higher education, approaches to evidencing value and impact, and critical theory and radical pedagogies. The study makes specific contributions to the wider scholarly debate by highlighting the importance of dialogue and conversational scholarship as well as identifying with participants what matters as well as what works as a means to evidence the value of collaborations. It also presents evidence of a new model of co-creating curricula and additional approaches to conceptualising curricula to facilitate collaboration. Analysis of macro and micro level data shows enactment of dialogic pedagogies within contexts of technical-rational strategy formation and implementation

Athenian mercantile community : a reappraisal of the social, political and legal status of inter-regional merchants during the fourth century

This quotation from Plato's Laws has often been seen as representative of the perception of inter-regional trade and traders held by the majority of classical Greeks. Plato and Aristotle dominate the moral philosophy of the classical world for modern scholars because their works survive in a fairly complete form, whereas, in contrast, the writings of other philosophers of the same era are frequently fragmentary. However, the quality and immediacy of the evidence presented by Plato and Aristotle can be dangerously seductive and, as a result, these works have been given disproportionate importance in previous studies of mercantile operations in the Greek world. In general the picture of merchants and inter-regional exchange that these two men present is very negative. One underlying reason for this negativity is their belief that wealth generated through trade unsettled the balance of society and, in certain circumstances, led to stasis. Rather than being based on the principles of equality and fair exchange, inter-regional commerce was seen as centred on the more aggressive concept of profit maximisation. Plato and Aristotle both saw inter-regional merchants as a symbol of failure for the polis, in its attempts to achieve what they viewed as the ideal state of complete self-sufficiency. Aristotle was to take this a step further, suggesting that the world was regulated by a natural order, an order that was centred on balance and equilibrium. Profit-orientated trade, in Aristotle's opinion, stood opposed to the normal state of equality found in nature, as it sought to upset the natural balance by demanding more for something than it was worth. As a result Aristotle accused inter-regional merchants of perverting the natural order of the world.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo