International Students’ Suggestions for What Universities Can Do to Better Support Their Mental Wellbeing

This article aims to expand understanding of how to support international students’ mental wellbeing in Australian higher education. It presents findings from a study which explored international students’ own suggestions for how universities could improve their wellbeing. Qualitative responses were analyzed from 601 international students at one large, metropolitan university in Australia. Findings emphasize the relationship between course experience and student wellbeing and suggest that universities could improve international students’ wellbeing by focusing on improving their learning experiences and fostering a sense of belonging.

THE ROLE OF PRIVATE LAW IN PROMOTING SOCIAL JUSTICE

The first contribution published in this edition is an abridged version of the inaugural lecture delivered by Professor Eltjo JH Schrage on 24 August 2009 in Port Elizabeth. The Faculty of Law is honoured that such an internationally esteemed jurist accepted the appointment as first Honorary Professor of the Faculty of Law in 2009. Prof Eltjo JH Schrage was born in Groningen. He studied law at the University of Groningen, where he obtained his doctorandus, a degree which is analogous to our master’s degree. In 1975 he defended his doctoral thesis entitled Libertas est facultas naturalis. Menselijke vrijheid in een tekst van de Romeinse jurist Florentinus (Human liberty in a text of the Roman jurist Florentinus). His academic career commenced in 1969 at the Free University, Amsterdam. In 1980 he was appointed as professor at the Free University in Roman Law and Legal History. In 1998 he became the director of the Paul Scholten Institute at the University of Amsterdam. Some of his other academic appointments include the following:• Chairperson: International Study Group on the Comparative Legal History of the Law of Restitution;• Chairperson: International Study Group on the Comparative Legal History of the Law of Torts;• Visiting Professor: University of Cape Town;• Visiting Fellow: Magdalen College, Oxford University as well as visiting professor at Oxford;• Visiting Professor: University of the North (now Limpopo) in Polokwane; and• Visiting Fellow: Trinity College, Cambridge University as well as visiting professor, Cambridge. Prof Schrage has published extensively in International journals in Dutch, English, German French, and Italian. He has edited, written and contributed to more than 30 books, and written more than 100 articles. He has been the supervisor of numerous doctoral students, including Prof Marita Carnelley of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and erstwhile member of the Faculty of Law, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and Prof André Mukheibir, Head of Department, Private Law of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. He was also the promoter of the honorary doctorate awarded by the University of Amsterdam to the former chief justice of South Africa, Arthur Chaskalson in 2002. Prof Schrage has also acted as judge in the Amsterdam court since 1981. Prof Schrage is married to Anneke Buitenbos-Schrage and the couple have four children and one grandchild.

Cultural Competency Activities

This study examines the impact of a cultural center on students’ views and perceptions of their own cultural competency learning and ability to manage their college experience at a large metropolitan university. This exploratory analysis highlights the views of ten students who frequently engaged with a cultural center. Emerging themes include: (a) how students at a metropolitan university defined cultural competence; (b) challenges, difficulties, and problems participants experienced interacting with people from other cultures (e.g. nationality, ethnicity); and (c) successful interactions participants experienced with people from other cultures. Findings and discussion from this study suggest: (a) identity, exposure, and critical awareness; (b) navigating and negotiating conflict; and (c) engaging cultural resources are the skills students develop, through experiences with a cultural center, that impact their ability to manage their college experience. This project studied a culturally mixed group of students using personal experiences, interviews, and focus group discussions to describe meaningful and defining moments. This study and its findings are noteworthy because there is little research in this subject area. All participants were frank, cooperative, and candid throughout the process. They offered insights and shared information regarding cultural competency at Metropolitan University (MU).

Art in Education – Treasures Within and Treasures Between Us

This special issue of Nordic Journal of Arts and Research is a collection of articles based on selected papers presented at the conference Art in Education held at Oslo Metropolitan university in august 2019. Our goal with the conference was to create a widely based international venue for exploring the many ways in which art becomes meaningful and powerful through ways of teaching and arts promotion. A key intention was to include both artists, academics and teachers and to stimulate encounters that cross conventional disciplinary barriers. The two partners organizing the conference were Kulturtanken: Arts for Young Audiences Norway, and the Faculty of Education at Oslo Metropolitan University. The mobilisation of both the artistic and scholarly networks of these two organizations laid the grounds for three days of stimulating interaction, art experiences and discussions

Final Year 5 Students’ Exit Evaluation of the Asia Metropolitan University MBBS Program

Introduction: An exit evaluation study by the final year graduating students was done Just prior to the completion of the third batch of the MBBS program at Asia Metropolitan University (AMU).Objective: (1) To determine whether the MBBS program had enabled the students to (a)attain the eight Program Learning outcomes (PLO); (b)to achieve the eight major competency areas expected upon completion of the program; and (2) To look into the strengths and weaknesses of the program from the graduating final year students’ perspectives.Methods: A descriptive study was done among 18 medical students who were doing senior clerkship posting. A self-administered questionnaire including one open ended question was used for the study. Informed consent was obtained from the participants, assuring them on confidentiality. Data gathered were analysed using SPSS version 23.Results: Most of the students (77%) feel that the program had enabled them to attain each one of the eight Program Learning Outcomes(PLO); between 60-78% achieved competencies in each one of the eight major areas expected at the end of course. The strengths included experienced lecturers, smooth implementation of the program, well designed curriculum while weakness was deficiency in clinical skills, training facilities, number of lecturers, case mix and adequacy of clinical exposure. The weaknesses include readiness to be a self-directed learner.Conclusion: Majority of the students attained each of the eight (PLO) competencies. The strengths were identified and discussed. The study has paved the way for a more detailed indepth study with more samples among the future graduating batches.International Journal of Human and Health Sciences Supplementary Issue: 2021 Page: S12

Scrapbooks and Women’s Reading Practices

In this chapter, my focus shifts from women’s roles as writers to their roles as readers and consumers of the cheap weekly press, 1820–60. I first examine scrapbooks held by John Rylands Library and the Harry Page Collection at Manchester Metropolitan University, which have much to tell us about how middle-class women read: their processes of selecting, copying, arranging, and editing printed scraps in creative ways. I first explore some of the challenges that arise when reading women’s scrapbooks and then demonstrate methodologies that help us begin to unpack their meanings, especially their relationship to the cheap popular press, which served both as a creative inspiration and a source of content. In the next section, I examine a type of content that was particularly ubiquitous in scrapbooks: poetry. The frequent appearance of verse in women’s albums corresponded with the proliferation of poetry in miscellaneous columns and other popular publication formats during the early and mid-Victorian periods. Finally, I examine a remarkable scrapbook from the 1850s that provides an enticing view of the broad range of periodicals and books middle-class women read—and how they used these disparate materials to imbue their leisure time with meaning.

Perils of Fundamentalism in France

Caroline Fourest is a French feminist writer, film director, journalist, radio presenter at France Culture, and co-founder and editor of the magazine ProChoix. She has been a columnist with Charlie Hebdo and Le Monde and has written several influential essays on the political and religious right in France and the US. She is the author of a biography of the far-right politician Marine Le Pen and of a number of books including In Praise of Blasphemy: Why Charlie Hebdo is Not ‘Islamophobic’, Brother Tariq: the Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan and most recently The Offended Generation. Stephen Cowden teaches in the School of Social Professions at the London Metropolitan University. He is an editorial collective member of Feminist Dissent.