A one-day SEN seminar discussing partnerships, relationships and generations.

A number of current terms for student are often criticised for their ideological baggage. Monetized labels such as 'client' and 'customer' implicitly reframe academics as providers and producers, reducing the student experience to the status of product. Such thinking establishes not only fixed identity roles, but also the flow of the process governing transactions between them. One way of disturbing, or at least questioning, this logic is to focus on the quality and nature of the relationships between the actors.

This one-day Student Experience Network examines the relationships between HEIs, academics and students. It questions how they are conceived and suggests ways to enact them. What, for example, is the tension between generational politics and notions of partnership? If there is a new 'radical', 'lost' or 'jilted' generation forming (to name three recent books), how should HEIs and practitioners pursue partnership with them and vice versa?

Structured around four speakers, the day will provoke practical and useful discussion for anyone with an interest in student engagement, staff/student relationships, and the way in which the student experience is framed around them. More details, including abstracts, will be circulated in mid-January 2012.

• Dr Paul Ashwin, Senior Lecturer in HE Research and Evaluation Centre in the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University.
• Colin Bryson, Director of Combined Honours Centre, Newcastle University.
• Dr Ben Little, Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies, University of Middlesex.
• Dr Sabine Little, Editor of Staff-Student Partnerships in Higher Education (Continuum, 2011), University of Sheffield.
• Prof Valerie Hey, Head of Education, Professor of Education, University of Sussex. (Discussant)
• Graeme Wise, Assistant Director (Policy), National Students' Union (Discussant)

Event booking details

To reserve a place at this seminar please register at http://www.eventdotorg.co.uk/events.asp or telephone +44 (0) 207 427 2350.   SRHE events are open to all and free to SRHE members as part of their membership package. The delegate fee for non-members is £25 [full time students £20]. Non-members wishing to join the Society may do so at the time of registration and the delegate fee will be waived. Please note that places must be booked in advance and that a £25 for non-attendance will  be charged if a place has been reserved but no notice of cancellation/non-attendance has been given in advance

Interested in joining the Network-but not able to attend this event? To receive details of future events in this series and to join the mailing list, please email  nmanches@srhe.ac.uk