Colum Cronin and Jenny Shaw announced as keynote speakers for UKAT’s 10th annual conference

Educators, administrators, researchers, scholars, students and emerging leaders are all invited to come together in the interest of advancing the scholarship and practice of student advising and personal tutoring. 

Colum Cronin (The Irish NFL Show) and Jenny Shaw (Unite Students) will join us in bringing the academic community together to focus on the topic of Learning Well. The conference days will focus on celebrating the power of positivity, the joy of learning and university life.  

We will be joined by colleagues with expertise in psychology, mental health, education theory, wellbeing, community engagement, student partnership and student life. 

The keynote sessions

The keynote sessions are free for all UCL staff. If you would like to attend either or both of the UKAT conference keynotes please complete this short MS Form by Friday 4 April. 

1. Colum Cronin with The HE Advising and Tutoring Show: Where Past Meets Future. 

Join us for this special celebratory keynote hosted by Colum Cronin, presenter of the Irish NFL Show and former presenter of the Advising Podcast. Colum will be joined by members of the UKAT Board of Trustees and special invited guests. Together they will consider the evolution of UKAT and academic advising/ personal tutoring in the UK over the last 10 years, how UKAT helps advisors and tutors, the future of HE and the challenges this presents. They will explore how the sector can work together to respond to those challenges and make a difference to students, the sector and themselves. 

2. Jenny Shaw with Practical Compassion. 

Compassion is one of those things that we instinctively recognise but may find hard to define, and is even more challenging to apply in higher education. In this session, Jenny Shaw draws on two recent publications from the Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce (HEMHIT), together with student research and good practice examples from the UK and beyond, to discuss compassion towards students and how this can be applied in a practical way. The presentation will explore both individual approaches to practical compassion and what it means to be a compassionate organisation. 

Find out what else is on

You can view the conference schedule on the UKAT conference website, including accepted abstracts from many UCL colleagues. 

Get involved

As UCL is the host institute for the UKAT conference, there are a few different ways staff can participate. 

• Book a discounted place for one or both days through UKAT’s conference website. UCL colleagues get an automatic 33% discount when booking with your UCL email address. 

• The UKAT team has kindly offered to open keynote sessions to the wider UCL community for free. If you would like to attend either or both keynotes, please complete this short MS Form to register that you plan to attend the session(s). 

• Come along to the artsUCL Student Showcase taking place at the Bloomsbury Theatre from 7:30-8:30pm on Monday 7 April. Alongside UKAT delegates, UCL students and staff can get discounted tickets for £5 - simply book the artsUCL extravaganza directly and select UCL/ UKAT. 

Full information about the UKAT conference at UCL

Register to attend the UKAT conference by 28 March