The ‘successful’ Arts student of the new millennium in Australia is likely to be female and studying full-time, having justcompleted her final year of schooling. Increasing numbers of students, however, are mature-age, are working long hours in paid employment, ormay be the first in their family to attend university. A significant proportion of this heterogeneous population may appear on campus only rarely. In order toengage the hearts and minds of thesestudents in their arts and humanities studies, it is necessary to (...) acknowledge such realities. Last century’s solutions to the ‘academic adjustment’ question will not hold. The new transition to study initiatives rely to an extent on differentiating between student groups to establish starting points, but must also find broad and stable ways of supporting the student cohort to make the transition successfully, particularly to the kinds of writingand thinking that characterize the individual disciplines. (shrink)

This article examines the teaching of Advanced level students in both years of their studies at two secondary schools in the Staffordshire area. The purpose of the investigation is to compare the tuition of A level students to the teaching of first year undergraduates at Keele University, specifically in relation to concerns raised by the undergraduates during the potentially disorientating period at the start of their degree studies. The question of whether there is a need to manage the students’ transition (...) to higher education more effectively is considered. (shrink)

This article reviews the activities of the Humanities and Arts Higher Education Network in the UK, and the role of its newsletter HAN News in helping to establish and maintain the network. The article also looks at the origins of our current understanding of networks and networking, and locates the HAN network in the space between purposive networks that are supported by large inputs of outside resources, and those that are ‘natural’ and require little or no inputs of energy, such (...) as family and friendship groups. It points out that without such resource and energy inputs, entropy soon overwhelms a purposive network, thus pointing to the key role played in voluntary networks by a central ‘maintaining’ group. From 2003 onwards the HAN network will largely operate via electronic means, rather than relying on printed media and face-toface events–it will become a virtual network. (shrink)