Aurora Day 1 – The Introduction

Today was my first official Aurora session. A half day introduction to the program with a guest speaker and a couple of short breakout sessions. It was well managed, with a slight issue that no-one had been sent an invite to the Connect network (Advance HE’s networking site) so some people were perhaps a bit over-eager in setting up WhatsApp groups for discussion.

Here are some thoughts I had about the introductory session (in no particular order):

• 10 minutes in our breakout rooms of 3-4 people didn’t feel like enough to chat through the topics in a natural way. Might need to be a bit more efficient in future, especially if sessions are just the same length of time.
• The Personal Development plan was much discussed, but I hadn’t really seen a template or anything in the Workbook other than a few short sentences recommending that we set one up. I’m not sure if I missed anything here.
• The people I met were all lovely and it was interesting to hear how different institutions are implementing Aurora.
• I’m debating whether to join any of the WhatsApp groups as I think it’s better to have work/home separation. I also think that I might struggle with processing things in the chat, when not actually in Aurora mode. I’ve made a note of the links in case I change my mind.
• The guest speaker (Sally Jackson) really resonated with people and I took away some interesting things to reflect back on, the core one which was the best advice she’d been given which was “Be less available and more visible” which I’ve since reflected on further.
• The facilitator was very enthusiastic and managed the session well. I’d have liked to have seen a little more drawing out of things the guest speaker said, and asking for more tangible advice that people could implement.
• I had to mute the chat as I wasn’t able to concentrate on the speakers when also reading through people’s posts. I found it difficult when distractions came up to pick up what was being talked about. As the session isn’t recorded and the chat isn’t retained it felt like I was missing out on some things – I’m going to have to learn to let that go. I’m glad it was an introduction and we can each work out what works for us as delegates ahead of the full day sessions.
• The guest speaker acknowledged that not everyone’s goal is to rise ever higher and it was nice to have that recognised.