Action on Employability in English – an English: Shared Futures Satellite Event
Preparing our students for their futures is a key aspect of the role of contemporary degree courses. Perspectives on the place of employability in higher education range from viewing it as a core part of all discipline-focussed degree work, as an inevitable or accidental by-product, or as an externally imposed and ill-fitting bolt-on. English degrees, in all their forms – specialising in literature, language and linguistics, or creative writing – equip students with invaluable knowledge and skills. Our graduates are critically astute and culturally sensitive; they are analytical thinkers and agile communicators.
This event asked: what we are doing to support students in recognising, developing and articulating the skills and aptitudes they gain through our courses, what can we do better, and how? It offered a day of sharing views, insights and good practice throughout the discipline, during which we explore different ways of thinking about, ‘embedding’, ‘extracting’, engaging with and talking about employability in our courses. The event involved panels share different in-curricula, co-curricula and extra-curricula approaches to employability. The end of the event was dedicated to current and future employability priorities for our graduates, and to finding and sharing constructive positions and messages about employability in HE English.
Two resources prepared for the event and shared here are:
- a written interview with two graduate alumni reflecting on their experiences of employability in relation to their English degrees
- a compilation of alumni data from 9 universities on the graduate destinations of English alumni (including short-term and long-term roles both immediately and several years after graduation)
Presentation materials from the event are also shared here, through the kind generosity of the contributing Speakers, as follows:
- Co-Delivering Industry Experience – Claire Malcolm, CEO New Writing North and Prof. Katy Shaw, Northumbria University
- Employability, English and the Future of Work- Prof. James Annesley, Newcastle University
- Engaging Employers and Employability in English – Ben Robertson, Leeds Beckett University
- Applied Degrees at Aston University – Dr. Chloe Harrison, Aston University
- Placements in Literature and Motivated vs. Transferable Skills – Dr. Sara Wasson, Lancaster University
- Entrepreneurship in English Literature – Dr. Andrea Macrae, Oxford Brookes University
- A ‘Language in the Workplace’ placement module – Dr. Matt Evans, Huddersfield University
- A Future Focus: Employability for English– Stuart Norton, AdvanceHE
- A contribution by Jane Nolan, drawing on relevant points from her PhD on employability in English
