Tuesday

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a meeting at the LCC (London College of Communication). Things in this part of South London have changed a lot since I was there.

I stayed overnight with a friend in East Dulwich and this morning took the number 12 bus through my old stomping ground, Peckham past my uncle Charlie’s place, on past Camberwell art school where I took life drawing classes on a Saturday mornings (after I grew out of Ballet I guess), down the Wolworth Road, past what was and maybe still is Southwark college where instead of staying at school and doing A level’s I did my first diploma in general art and design and practised being a real mini art student and upto Elephant and Castle where the talented ended up at what was LCP (London college of printing). Following this burst of nostalgia I went into the meeting at what is now LCC.

I was invited me to attend a meeting that was a tentative look at developing a research group looking at teaching enterprise across creative disciplines. For those familiar with this blog this is an area I’ve been researching in one form or another for the last four years. The meeting turned out to be bigger than I’d expected (approx 15) from various research, teaching and other backgrounds and some really interesting issues and opportunities were uncovered.

This will be, no doubt, something that those chairing the session will disseminate and report on fully but I thought I would, without going into too much detailpick out some of the highlights from the meeting for me:

The need to integrate theory and practice – as a researcher, especially one of the ostensibly applied variety, this is something I would always advocate and within my own institution I am always hoping to achieve.

The need to unpick a little of what already happens within an art and design education that might already be contributing to entrepreneurial intent of students – I have been bleeting about this for a while and currently have a paper out for review which fingers crossed will be published in the not too distant future (I’ll keep you posted as and when).

There was a bunch more stuff around international context, developing pedagogies, training needs of staff and a variety of conferences and publishing opportunities that will help this fledgling group have a voice.

When I’ve heard back from the organisers I’ll let you know who to contact if you’re interested. In the meantime feel free to email and I can pass on your contact details.