Promoting successful careers

Staying up to date with training has never been more important than today and future professionals will need skills that can adapt with changing careers, says CIHT Vice President Deborah Sims. CIHT has supported and encouraged professional development for over 84 years. It was in 1934 that the Institution first required new members to be academically qualified. Since then the Institution has helped to develop and improve a range of qualifications from NVQs, degrees and degree apprenticeships through to professional qualifications including TPP, EngTech, IEng and CEng

Psychosocial assessment : a critical incident analysis of child and family health nurses' decision-making in an early parenting setting

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Health.Child and family health nurses are skilled professionals, responsible for making decisions regarding care. Decision-making in nursing is a complex process involving both formal and informal thinking to gather and analyse information, evaluate significance, weigh alternative actions and to make judgements regarding care. The nurses’ ability to make decisions affects access to and the outcomes of care. Psychosocial assessment of women in the first postnatal year is critical to ensure access to care. Many women caring for their babies experience mental illness. It is essential that these women are recognised and help is offered to them to reduce the risk of mental illness onset or, when present, to provide support and treatment for mental illness. The objective of this research is to describe the clinical decision-making process of child and family health nurses when they undertake psychosocial assessment of women in the postnatal period. A description of the clinical decision-making process of nurses will provide information and education for health care professionals undertaking postnatal psychosocial assessment. Critical Incident technique is the methodology used to explore the process of clinical decision-making. Thinking in Practice is the theoretical framework that is used to understand the clinical decision-making process. Twelve Child and Family Health nurses working in an early parenting service were interviewed in this research study. Both template and thematic analysis were used to work with the data. This research found that decision-making in regard to postnatal psychosocial assessment is a complex process. The nurses move through relevant domains of information that are specific to each woman, most commonly information on parenting and care of the child, information from assessment tools and women determined issues or goals were considered. The nurses used a variety of thinking strategies in each information domain, most commonly searching for information, recognising pattern, drawing a conclusion and judging the value of the information

Global role of Community College Trustees in Ensuring quality public engagement and social justice in a changing society

Community college trustees are striving to meet the ever changing public accountability and educational demands. Community college trustees and other adult learners are interested in becoming fiscally savvy using Web 2.0 applications. The target learners were the publicly elected community college Board of Trustees members’ who needed instruction to understand Web 2.0 applications. Project explored practical fiscal principles and applications useful for adult learners. Project revealed findings and recommendations for using Web 2.0. and upon completion of tutorial trustees were able share documents in a variety of public settings, e.g. board meetings, closed sessions, study sessions, and community meetings

Lewis L. Sims in a Senior Recital

This is the program for the senior voice recital of baritone Lewis L. Sims, accompanied by Deborah Mashburn on piano. The recital was held on May 8, 1967, in Mitchell Hall Auditorium

Managing projects for change: Contextualised project management

This paper will detail three projects which focussed on enhancing online learning at a large Australian distance education University within a School of Business,School of Health and School of Education. Each project had special funding and took quite distinctive project management approaches, which reflect the desire to embed innovation and ownership at the instructor and student interface. By responding to the stakeholder requirements these three projects provide insight into a) how integrated professional development serves to enable change in practice; b) why leadership at both junior and senior levels of the organisation is an important driver to support instructor engagement for real change; c) what role external private contractors can play; and, d) how instructors were integrated through the varied project management approaches. The integrating theme of the paper is instructor engagement for real change. Each project will be detailed as mini-cases and key lessons drawn out that describe and explain the challenges, opportunities and scope of varied project management approaches to suit the distinct four contexts. This paper builds on and brings together considerable investigation into how we can support and enhance dissemination of a variety of project-based models that respond to contextual needs and issues. The multiple school case study methodology serves to provide an approach that is both robust and cognisant of current trends in increased university investment through shortterm project funding. The final recommendations will highlight how different approaches to project management are both desirable and essential for successfully embedding change of instructor practices for enhancing student learning in distance education modes

Assessment strategies and employability in the environmental and engineering sectors

This case study builds on material presented at the HEA Advance STEM conference held in Birmingham, England, in January 2019 which raised the issue of assessment strategies, suggesting that, for example, examinations do little to prepare students for the workplace. The initial research has been developed to provide an analysis of the current assessments in ecology/environmental management and civil engineering and the relevance to the tasks new entrants carry out in their roles as young professionals. We have developed our initial research, carried out in spring/early summer 2019, to explore this in more depth, using a survey to investigate early career professionals’ perceptions of the usefulness of the various types of assessment they experienced at university and to the requirements of their jobs. At the same time, we asked the employers of graduate ecologists/environmental managers and civil engineers how well prepared they feel graduate entrants are for their job roles and whether they are finding it difficult to recruit applicants with the appropriate competency, with respect to both transferable and technical skills

The Benefits and Challenges of One New Zealand Nursing Undergraduate Clinical Education Model: a Case Study

This research project has utilised a case study approach to give ward managers a voice in the literature, by exploring and describing from their perspective the benefits and challenges of one particular nursing undergraduate clinical education model. The Tertiary Education Provider contracts the Health Provider to provide Clinical Nurse Educators (CNEs) to support second and third year undergraduate nursing students during their clinical experiences. The CNEs are seconded from their respective wards to meet the organisation’s contractual obligations. Data were gathered from two ward manager’s using semi-structured interviews. A thematic analysis using the ‘colour coding’ method as described by Roberts and Taylor (1999) was used to analyse the interview data. The findings elucidate the role of the undergraduate CNE, highlighting benefits such as the CNE being supernumerary to ward rosters and having time to teach, not only supervise students. CNEs are student-focused and easily accessible as they are based on site. The CNE was the one person who was ‘there’ for a student as a student’s preceptor can change shift-by-shift and day-by-day. One significant challenge which emerged was the replacement of ward staff, not only of senior nurses who can leave their wards for up to 12 weeks to undertake the CNE role but also that of the student’s preceptor if the student’s preceptor was on annual, sick or study leave. Other challenges such as the inability of ward managers to pre-book casual staff; preceptor work-loads; skill-mix issues and fluctuating fulltime equivalents (FTEs) are also discussed

Devalued, Misunderstood, and Marginalized: Why Nontraditional Students’ Experiences Should be Included in the Diversity Discourse

Objective: This paper presents a rationale for discussing the marginalization of nontraditional students in the diversity discourse. Background: There is tremendous growth in adult college student enrollment, however marginalization of the nontraditional population is perpetuated through institutional policies and practices. Although there has been improvement in educational access for these students, they are still neglected programmatically and in service provision, similar to underrepresented student populations. This neglect is apparent in the omission of their experiences in scholarly diversity literature. Method: A content analysis of 706 sources was conducted to determine how often and in what ways nontraditional adult student experiences are explored as diversity issues. Results: A huge gap in the diversity literature regarding nontraditional adult students’ experiences exists. Conclusion: This oversight silences adult students’ voices and impedes their academic and economic progress. Application: Increasing diversity publications about adult students’ experiences as a marginalized population will provide resources to educate diversity scholars, practitioners, and college personnel

Interdisciplinary collaboration: working with employers and practitioners to inform curriculum design

Employability is a central theme in university rhetoric reflecting student priorities and the investment the majority are making in their future (Cheng et al 2021). But to what extent do academics delivering programmes with clearly defined career routes understand industry and potential employer requirements? We are both academics who are previously worked in the engineering and environmental industries, separate disciplines and have a history of collaboration based on our shared interest in Industry Oriented Education (IOE) and the importance of industry/professional body links to an effective Teaching Pedagogy environment (Gharehbaghi 2015). We are committed to ensuring our graduates can demonstrate competency and relevant employability skills, and to maintaining our reputation for high quality, current and relevant teaching. Our professions both shape every road development scheme, however challenging situations can occur due to the potentially conflicting agendas of ecologists and engineers, with the former focusing on compliance with environmental legislation, and the latter on completing work to time and budget. We recently held a national conference “Highway Engineering and Ecology; A Roadmap for getting it Right”, involving practitioners from both sectors. In this session we describe how the outcome can help us prepare our graduates for collaborative working. Cheng M, Adekola O, Albia J C, & Tongji S C (2022) Employability in higher education: a review of key stakeholders’ perspectives. Higher Education Evaluation and Development 16 (1) 16-31 DOI 10.1108/HEED-03-2021-0025 Gharehbaghi K (2015) The importance of industry links in teaching pedagogy: a higher education perspective. American International Journal of contemporary Research 5(1) 17-23 http://www.aijcrnet.com/journals/Vol_5_No_1_February_2015/3.pd

Lewis L. Sims and Jim Barnes in a Junior Recital

This is the program for the junior voice recital of baritone, Lewis Sims, accompanied by Deborah Mashburn on piano, and the junior piano recital of Jim Barnes. The recital was held on October 7, 1966, in Mitchell Hall Auditorium