Newslink 90 | Editorial

Dr Giles Brown
Editor | Newslink

The theme of our annual Conference and Exhibition this year was Beyond Brexit: embracing uncertainty, defining our purpose, sustaining successful professionals. Over two days in March, conference attendees experienced 64 working sessions, two plenaries, six keynotes, a question time, the award ceremony, AGM, exhibitor hotspots and exhibition, the gala dinner, and two lunch and three refreshment and networking sessions; all over five floors of University Place at the University of Manchester (and that doesn’t include the Sunday evening social at Salford Museum and Art Gallery) phew! Put simply in numbers, an amazing opportunity and statement about our association, its members, and our position and ambitions in connecting and developing HE professionals across the sector.

However, Conference is so much more than numbers, as evidenced by the buzz around the conference venue; from the opening plenary by Professor David Phoenix to the closing question time session chaired by our Honorary President Mary Curnock Cook. From frequent flyers to first time attendees, the stimulation derived from sharing, face to face, the opportunities and challenges of working and developing a career in twenty first Century HE was clear to see (and hear!).

We can, of course, only cover a few of the myriad of sessions here in Newslink. However, I hope those that are included, along with a celebration of our PGCert graduands and updates on new developments announced at Conference, allow those of you who didn’t attend to experience and benefit from some of the development opportunities on offer. In addition, I hope those of you who couldn’t make it this year will start to plan for next year. It really is not to be missed!

Underlying the Conference theme of embracing uncertainly, and a topic frequently mentioned by speakers and attendees, was resilience. This aspect of health promoting HE* is, I believe, one of the increasingly important topics in HE, and one that needs more careful consideration and embedding in both professional development and undergraduate and postgraduate education. Interestingly, it is now being taught much earlier in our education system, where the four Rs, Reflectiveness, Resourcefulness, Reciprocity (Relationships) and Resilience, are entering the primary school curriculum as part of promoting emotional health and wellbeing.

This issue of Newslink offers three perspectives on this topic: Jan Shine, Sarah Turner and Lisa White, offer tips and a toolkit for personal resilience, and Jonny Driscoll discusses technological solutions to managing information overload in the student body.

There is a fifth R too, Risk Taking, and an additional advantage of a resilient workforce is their aptitude to make bold decisions and thus make the most of opportunities. The same robustness benefits our students too, allowing them to both maximise the breadth and adventurousness of their learning at university level, and their preparedness for the demands of the workplace.

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Also in this issue…

Conference 2018
Highlights and insights from this year’s event

Building your brand
A step by step guide

Resilience
Weathering the storm

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