James G. R. Cronin

A curious publication associated with the Trappist monk Thomas Merton (1915-68) in the Merton Collection in St. Michael’s Priory, Milton Keynes, is a paperback entitled  Breakthrough to Peace: Twelve Views on the Threat of Thermonuclear Extermination .  No editor is credited, but only an introduction by Thomas Merton. This paperback is an anthology of previously published essays by notable peace writers. The full list of contributors is as follows:  Lewis Mumford ,  Tom Stonier ,  Norman Cousins ,  Erich Fromm  &  Michael Maccoby ,  Thomas Merton ,  Gordon Zahn ,  Howard Gruber ,  Walter Stein ,  Herbert Butterfield ,  Allan Forbes Jr. ,  Joost Meerloo , and  Jerome Frank .  A spate of paperback books had begun to be published in the United States in 1962 with the common characteristic approach to peace as voicing the public's anxiety for mankind in the nuclear age. The question of nuclear disarmament was a controversial topic during a dangerous year of a nuclear show of streng

"Changing the status of the  problem  in teaching from terminal remediation to ongoing investigation is precisely what the movement for a scholarship of teaching is all about." (Bass, 1999: 1).  A: From "scholarly teaching" to "scholarship of teaching (and learning)" Ernest L. Boyer (1990), advocated that the idea of scholarship in higher education needed to be broadened to include teaching as well as the dimensions of discovery, integration (later changed to engagement), and application. Boyer made a strong case for a “scholarship of teaching”, but he never clearly defined the term. Pat Hutchings and Lee Shulman (1999) made the following distinctions: 1.  Excellent Teaching : i nvolves teaching well, engaging students, and fostering important forms of student learning. 2.  Scholarly Teaching : in addition to the characterises of excellent teaching, scholarly teaching  entails practices of formative assessment and evidence gathering, is informed not only b

The pandemic has highlighted a recurring theme of isolation amongst postgraduate students involved in research and, to a lesser extent, writing up their projects ( Fogarty, 2021;  Forrester, 2021;  IFERA, 2021). Lessons learned highlight the importance of the supervisor in mentoring students within the socialisation process of a discipline or professional practice.  As we reach the end of the academic journey for postgraduates, and as social restrictions begin to be lifted, here are six observations from my involvement with supervisory teams from September 2020 - September 2021. I wish to highlight the co- responsibility of supervisors and students within the process of disciplinary socialisation. This primarily involves relationship-building and fostering confidence. I will frame these six lessons within a particular view of disciplinary and professional practice supervision as a process of mentoring graduates as emerging "stewards of the discipline" (Golde, 2006)  as outlin

Will the effects of pandemic pedagogy accelerate learnification?  Gert Biesta ,  Dutch-born education philosopher  who is associated with the reclaiming teaching movement,  highlights that the discourse of “education” has become disconnected from “learning.” This shift began during the 1980s, accelerated as a consequence of the proliferation of educational technology over the past twenty years, and is likely to increase with data-gathering and extended reality becoming ubiquitous within educational systems. Biesta makes the point that language constructs reality and that the language of learning has privileged process , but has excluded questions of purpose and content and relationships within dynamic human interrelationships that should define teaching and learning (Biesta, 2012). The sole concern of learnification becomes the individualistic process of learning, rather than the purpose , context , and relationships that are central to education as both a humanistic and holistic