04 December 2023 - CISG-PCMG23 Reflections - Ian Millard
I am one of those unlucky souls who have narrowly missed attending a UCISA conference over the last ten years of working in the HEI sector. This year was to be my year. One thing I was looking forward to resolving was the long-term (mild) dispute which had been gently simmering in the office over the correct pronunciation of UCISA: was it 'You Sizer' or 'You Kaiser'? To my unbound relief conference cleared this up for me; 'You Sizer' it was! The other question to be resolved was after largely hiding away at home for 3 years to avoid Covid, how would joining a large gathering of a couple of hundred people in an enclosed space for a few days help or hinder this endeavour?
We arrived after a mercifully on-time train journey and a swift stroll from the station accompanied by the rumbling sound of our roller-suitcases dragging behind us. This was a cold late Autumn day so I was very glad to see friendly welcoming faces and a wall of coffee making facilities and a wall of warmth coming from the heating. This set the scene for the three days, we were nicely cosseted with food, drink and comfy hotel facilities. No complaints here.
The room allocated to the suppliers' stalls was quite compact and lunches and refreshments were served there, but it least meant that it became a good forum for discussion, although because of the flow around the stalls those set-up on the left tend to be neglected by delegates. We tried to rectify that by making sure we visited the potentially more neglected reps - and we were very glad we did as we had some useful conversations (and cool merch!)
My biggest takeaway was that the quality of the presentations was very high. These are my peers from across the country who have busy professional lives and their ability to entertain, intrigue and engage with the audience was very impressive. Clearly, the best one being from our own University - Bath Spa, no doubt helped by me not having any direct involvement...
My top recommendation for someone attending a CISG-PCMG Conference for the first time would be to: Network! Feel the cringe, leap right in and introduce yourself to some delegates. These are your peers probably troubled by spookily similar challenges that you are. Universities may each have their own different potentially unique selling points but the issues around implementation, integration and maintenance of systems supporting the day to day running of the university I'd say are eerily replicated in tens of locations around the country. This is certainly my experience and I came away realising I had shared some really valuable conversations with colleagues from other universities about the relief of common successes and of some other mistakes avoided, if only. The really good thing was that I had the sense of time running away and there not being enough time to see and do everything, of making new colleagues and a desire to see you all next year, if they let me out.
And finally, did I get Covid? A: Yes! (although it was thankfully only mild :-) )
