‘Pragmatic’ scholarship at Gloscol

Last Thursday I discussed notions of scholarship and ideas as to how we might best develop research and scholarship at Gloucestershire college. I left thinking how lucky I was to be working with such an informed group of professionals and hoping that we can somehow create the space to dig deeper, develop our initial responses and identify ‘wicked problems’ to solve through research.

Yes I am lucky  to meet such an engaged group of people, unafraid to critically challenge peers, and all full of ideas to share. The workshop went over time (by 20 minutes) and this is unusual – I’m usually very ‘tight’ with timings as students at HCA know – but this was appropriate – when you have ideas generated to this kind of standard, you have to gather them.

Likewise, I apologise for the lack of interesting photographs. I was too busy listening to the ideas generated with the workshop to take any images with actual people in them.

Ideas put forward that were ‘stand-out’ and need further discussion were:

• The idea of ‘pragmatic’ scholarship
• The interrogation of how nursing has developed as a profession as a tangible example of what differentiates ‘scholarly practice’ from ‘practice’
• The awareness of a need for developing what John Lea  call sHE-ness within a range of conceptual and practical dimensions

I will be writing up the workshop in more detail and disseminating to participants once I’m back from holiday. In the meantime, huge thanks to all involved with the workshop.

Sarah