Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈

At @ihr.bsky.social we can now offer PhD by Publication in History! For those with a substantial body of existing published research (within past 10 years), but without a PhD, should be of particular interest to #heritage professionals and independent scholars!

Oxford-Bloomsbury Fantasy Summer School 2025 Online Offering an insight into the past, present and future of the fantasy genre from leading scholars, writers and publishing team in the field.

Free online attendance at The Fantasy Summer School 2025, organised by the University of Oxford, and Bloomsbury Publishing, that brings together the expertise of scholars, publishers working with fantasy authors.

Link here www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/oxford-blo...

Please share :)

(actually yesterday -- there have been so many that the list has broken)

A full screen of email notifications from Suffolk with the same ticket ID.

Today there have been c. 40 messages on the EE list from University of Suffolk's IT ticketing system. You can't email them to stop it - you can only log in (if you work there) to complain (and probably raise a ****ing ticket). Jeeeeeez. Just BLOODY WELL FIX IT!!

Snip from an email. "Why the fuck tell everyone on the list, we all fucking know" From: External examiners discussion forum <EXTERNAL-EXAMINERS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>

In the spirit of the External Examiners' JISCMAIL list, which has today reached new levels of social etiquette, I think we should all adopt this kind of robust communication style when dealing with the irritation of unnecessary reply-alls.

Today the university advertised my current job by accident to the entire staff. Can't make this stuff up.

Attending yet another emergency Senate this morning. Curious if Wales Online will be providing a live feed.

Cardiff University says school of nursing won't close in U-turn The level of cuts and job losses has been scaled down

Always good to get the important updates about the university from the university - oh sorry, I meant the Western Mail.
www.walesonline.co.uk/news/educati...

I picked Cardiff as a mature undergrad because of the range of choice & no compulsories after year 1 - did a lot of 10 credits & some 20s in stuff I was really interested in (incl Welsh Writing in English.) I loved my degree - enjoyed every minute of it. It doesn't look anything like that any more 😢

I'd really like to gather up all the elitist and unkind words we've encountered from admissions tutors while supporting adult learners with non-traditional educational backgrounds and then publish them. It wouldn't be pretty, but it would be so satisfying.

@camillapriede.bsky.social I very much know I owe you an email - there's so much awfulness going on 😔

Beautiful round-up of our annual Awards Ceremony at Cardiff University's Division of Lifelong Learning, celebrating our spectacular students and staff. I love working here - it really is the kind of place where lives are transformed through the power of education ❤️

Leaflet rack with an assortment of local info. Includes the Cardiff University lifelong learning prospectus.

Look @learncardiff.bsky.social - our prospectus out in the wild (well, Penarth station haha).

I've signed ten so far. I'm done in 😂😂

Pile of certificates to be signed. Text on them says "Dr Michelle Deininger, Interim Director of Lifelong Learning" plus the Welsh translation. Star Wars pen lying on top of the pile.

Signing certificates ahead of our annual Awards Ceremony at @learncardiff.bsky.social this coming Friday - it's so wonderful to celebrate adult learning and all our students' fabulous achievements. ❤️

Welsh universities are in crisis – where is the Welsh Government? James Downs, Mental Health Campaigner A tidal wave of cuts is sweeping through Welsh higher education, threatening jobs, courses, and the future of entire institutions. Cardiff University’s announceme...

Another blistering critique of senior management at Cardiff University: "...if we continue on this trajectory, we risk becoming a country that cannot afford to teach its own language, support its own culture, or train enough professionals to run its public services."
nation.cymru/opinion/wels...

Those at the helm - 1949-2008 Οver the past sixty years the Cardiff Centre for Lifelong Learning, as it is now called, has been extremely fortunate, not only in its recruitment of enthusiastic and committed teaching and support staff, but also in having a succession of directors dedicated to the cause of open access adult education and who have worked hard to establish, expand and promote Cardiff University's community engagement undertaking both regionally and indeed nationally.

Reading this in A History of Lifelong Learning at Cardiff University, 1883-2008, by Marian Williams, I am reminded of the people who have fought for adult education in south Wales. I'm proud to be one of that number.

Protests at planned university job cuts Members of UCU at Cardiff University will today demonstrate at Cardiff University over plans to axe 140 jobs and cut 250 courses at the institution's Centre for Lifelong Learning.

www.ucu.org.uk/article/3886... if you want to read more about it.
Smashing the humanities via Academic "Futures" feels a lot like history repeating itself.

In 2009, the VC was being paid an astronomical £234k, 140 Lifelong Learning teaching staff faced redundancy, students were furious, & the number of courses threatened with closure was roughly equivalent to the ENTIRETY of what we offer now at LEARN (c. 250 courses). Cultural vandalism at its finest.

Researching the history of Cardiff University's Lifelong Learning provision, which has also included the last time cuts were made to humanities. The gist seems to be (a) tutors' rights were improved & pay went up so (b) the university cut off its nose to spite its face and made everyone redundant.

I went on to win a £1000 prize for my grade average at the end of undergrad, distinction at MA, only person in my cohort to get AHRC funding that year for a PhD via the open competition.
Yep, better keep the likes of me out. Think of the damage I'd do.(2/2)

In this new world order, I'd have never got in my with my "non-traditional" qualifications coming via adult education (non trad quals were also highlighted as something to avoid, alongside softening tariffs). 1/2

Encountered some interesting wording recently - "holding the tariff", "not softening" when it comes to entry grades. A university that is only interested in la crème de la crème has lost its way. A university that doesn't adapt to support "non-traditional" students is, quite simply, elitist.

Non-Fiction Reviews, criticism and essays published in various places, as well as a few favourites from my newsletter. “Fantastical Doubles and Split Selves”, New Welsh Review (subscribers only) &#…

Added some of my non-fiction to my website, in case you're interested in that sort of thing: jlgeorgewrites.wordpress.com/non-fiction/

What does this mean for the most vulnerable students and areas, such as lifelong learning and foundation years? The way we protect (or don't) these areas speaks volumes for our trajectory as a sector.

Let's keep those doors firmly propped open for the next generation to come. Even better, let's take the damn doors off their hinges.

A photo of my Western Mail article called "Opening Doors and Breaking Down Barriers", which is a shorter version of a piece I wrote for Woman's Wales (Parthian Press). The picture is too small to see the detail of the text.

Adult education programmes open doors to the most marginalised, the most disenfranchised, the people who missed out first time or couldn't see their own potential. I know it transformed me and I found a confidence I never thought I had. I'm holding onto that in the dark days ahead in HE.

Redux: Working Class Voices | Michelle Deininger Today is exactly 4 years since the publication of Dr Michelle Deininger's piece 'Working Class Voices' - a deep dive into the class system.

I've written about the journey from that course, via Oxford's Cont Ed to Cardiff and eventually a PhD and then to teaching on a parallel programme to the one I found on that leaflet all those years ago www.walesartsreview.org/redux-workin...

I distinctly remember standing in the shopping centre, pulling that leaflet out of a load of local information. That leaflet literally changed my life. I wouldn't have known what to look for online and I ended up enrolled a year or two later on a Certificate of Higher Education with OUDCE.

I'm reading a book (The Lost Bookshop) where a character stumbles into a library and ends up with a load of information about adult education & going to university as a mature student. Reminds me of finding a leaflet about Oxford University's Dept of Continuing Education c.2001 in Cowley Centre.