Writing to it: creative engagements with writing practice in and with the not yet known in today’s academy

We have developed an approach to collaborative-writing-as-inquiry that we sometimes refer to as ‘between the twos’. Increasingly, we came to understand that the only way to continue in our process was to ‘write to it’; whatever the question, the query or the problem, it was this inducement – ‘write to it’ – that led to new experimentations and the indeterminate rhythms and refrains of the multiple that were often present in the agonistics of our practice. This is how we have been living intra-actively with desire within and against the traditional representations of research and pedagogic practice in higher education in recent years. In offering opportunities for bringing non-totalising modes of sensing to life within Deleuze and Guattari’s experimental and creative originations, and in the multiplicity and the vibrant potentialities of always becoming, we make claims for new, creatively productive writing practices in the university of the future.     

Academics or executives? Continuity and change in the roles of pro‐vice‐chancellors1

The leadership roles of pro‐vice‐chancellors (PVCs) in the United Kingdom and elsewhere have evolved markedly over the last three decades while universities have been encouraged to shift towards more executive styles of leadership and decision‐making. The change does not only reflect changing institutional needs, however, but an accommodation of deeper historical continuities around institutional autonomy and academic values. Most PVCs are drawn from the ranks of professors; typically have an Oxbridge, London or big civic background; and most are male. The role gains authority through influence, rather than command, and depends on academic experience and credibility to be effective. PVCs maintain a complex corporate‐academic web balancing two, sometimes contradictory, roles: one firmly academic, concerning cross‐institutional responsibility for core academic values and mission; the other more bureaucratic or executive, focusing on the burgeoning demands of accountability. The research cautions against a simple model of executive leadership. Understanding the needs of academic leadership and the contours of its practices remains paramount.