With the spring semester in full bloom, a new edition of New Vistas has arrived. This spring edition is the journal’s biggest achievement yet—quite literally. In eight higher education (HE) and discipline-focused articles, emerging and established academics are engaging once again with the complex agenda of HE in its local, national and global contexts.
The first set of articles explores current issues within UK’s higher education sector, starting with Gamlath , who considers sustainability-based careers and graduate prospects, arguing for sustainability and employability to be strategically embedded in HE curricula. Also looking at curriculum development, Byrne and Weerawardane discuss the importance of professional skills as part of HE education, suggesting a multi-dimensional approach to embedding these into modern degree courses. Pan and Ressin focus on degree apprenticeships; their article explores common challenges of work-based end-point assessments and proposes a set of recommendations for mitigating these challenges. The final article of the first set is by Dinc , who investigates different variables affecting students’ engagement in online learning and their impact on satisfaction.
The second set of articles showcases the strength of disciplinary research at the University of West London, with Henderson’s timely piece laying out some of the critical issues concerning the future of the BBC and public service broadcasting as part of the mid-term Charter Review that starts in April 2022. Murji shines a light on different approaches to thinking about diversity beyond race or using catchall terms and categories such as BME. Robson offers some unique insight into gender as a factor in changing attitudes to art market values in New York, and the key role of tastemakers in this process. Finally, Olsen’s position paper argues for a structurationist understanding of advertising, outlining aspects of the reciprocal relationship between society and advertising.
This spring issue of New Vistas has explored important themes such as sustainability and employability, which are at the heart of not only the University of West London’s own strategic priorities, but also imperative at a national level. In future editions, we look forward to exploring further such trending topics and reading about creative pedagogic approaches to learning and teaching, as well as disciplinary research from all areas within HE.
Dr Dennis Olsen and Dr Dinusha Weerawardane
New Vistas Editors