iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈

Justin Colson @justincolson.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

At @ihr.bsky.social we can now offer PhD by Publication in History! For those with a substantial body of existing published research (within past 10 years), but without a PhD, should be of particular interest to #heritage professionals and independent scholars!

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Reposted by Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈

Kit de Waal @kitdewaal.com · 31/08/2025

Free online attendance at The Fantasy Summer School 2025, organised by the University of Oxford, and Bloomsbury Publishing, that brings together the expertise of scholars, publishers working with fantasy authors. Link here www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/oxford-blo... Please share :)

eventbrite.co.uk

Oxford-Bloomsbury Fantasy Summer School 2025 Online

Offering an insight into the past, present and future of the fantasy genre from leading scholars, writers and publishing team in the field.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

(actually yesterday -- there have been so many that the list has broken)

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

Today there have been c. 40 messages on the EE list from University of Suffolk's IT ticketing system. You can't email them to stop it - you can only log in (if you work there) to complain (and probably raise a ****ing ticket). Jeeeeeez. Just BLOODY WELL FIX IT!!

A full screen of email notifications from Suffolk with the same ticket ID.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

In the spirit of the External Examiners' JISCMAIL list, which has today reached new levels of social etiquette, I think we should all adopt this kind of robust communication style when dealing with the irritation of unnecessary reply-alls.

Snip from an email.
"Why the fuck tell everyone on the list, we all fucking know"

From: External examiners discussion forum <EXTERNAL-EXAMINERS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Today the university advertised my current job by accident to the entire staff. Can't make this stuff up.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Attending yet another emergency Senate this morning. Curious if Wales Online will be providing a live feed.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Always good to get the important updates about the university from the university - oh sorry, I meant the Western Mail. www.walesonline.co.uk/news/educati...

walesonline.co.uk

Cardiff University says school of nursing won't close in U-turn

The level of cuts and job losses has been scaled down

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

I picked Cardiff as a mature undergrad because of the range of choice & no compulsories after year 1 - did a lot of 10 credits & some 20s in stuff I was really interested in (incl Welsh Writing in English.) I loved my degree - enjoyed every minute of it. It doesn't look anything like that any more 😢

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

I'd really like to gather up all the elitist and unkind words we've encountered from admissions tutors while supporting adult learners with non-traditional educational backgrounds and then publish them. It wouldn't be pretty, but it would be so satisfying.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

@camillapriede.bsky.social I very much know I owe you an email - there's so much awfulness going on 😔

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Beautiful round-up of our annual Awards Ceremony at Cardiff University's Division of Lifelong Learning, celebrating our spectacular students and staff. I love working here - it really is the kind of place where lives are transformed through the power of education ❤️

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Look @learncardiff.bsky.social - our prospectus out in the wild (well, Penarth station haha).

Leaflet rack with an assortment of local info. Includes the Cardiff University lifelong learning prospectus.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

I've signed ten so far. I'm done in 😂😂

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Signing certificates ahead of our annual Awards Ceremony at @learncardiff.bsky.social this coming Friday - it's so wonderful to celebrate adult learning and all our students' fabulous achievements. ❤️

Pile of certificates to be signed. Text on them says "Dr Michelle Deininger, Interim Director of Lifelong Learning" plus the Welsh translation. Star Wars pen lying on top of the pile.

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Reposted by Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈

Rob Thomas @robthomasbirds.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Another blistering critique of senior management at Cardiff University: "...if we continue on this trajectory, we risk becoming a country that cannot afford to teach its own language, support its own culture, or train enough professionals to run its public services." nation.cymru/opinion/wels...

nation.cymru

Welsh universities are in crisis – where is the Welsh Government?

James Downs, Mental Health Campaigner A tidal wave of cuts is sweeping through Welsh higher education, threatening jobs, courses, and the future of entire institutions. Cardiff University’s announceme...

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Reading this in A History of Lifelong Learning at Cardiff University, 1883-2008, by Marian Williams, I am reminded of the people who have fought for adult education in south Wales. I'm proud to be one of that number.

Those at the helm - 1949-2008

Οver the past sixty years the Cardiff Centre for Lifelong Learning, as it is now called, has been extremely fortunate, not only in its recruitment of enthusiastic and committed teaching and support staff, but also in having a succession of directors dedicated to the cause of open access adult education and who have worked hard to establish, expand and promote Cardiff University's community engagement undertaking both regionally and indeed nationally.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

In 2009, the VC was being paid an astronomical £234k, 140 Lifelong Learning teaching staff faced redundancy, students were furious, & the number of courses threatened with closure was roughly equivalent to the ENTIRETY of what we offer now at LEARN (c. 250 courses). Cultural vandalism at its finest.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Researching the history of Cardiff University's Lifelong Learning provision, which has also included the last time cuts were made to humanities. The gist seems to be (a) tutors' rights were improved & pay went up so (b) the university cut off its nose to spite its face and made everyone redundant.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

I went on to win a £1000 prize for my grade average at the end of undergrad, distinction at MA, only person in my cohort to get AHRC funding that year for a PhD via the open competition. Yep, better keep the likes of me out. Think of the damage I'd do.(2/2)

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

In this new world order, I'd have never got in my with my "non-traditional" qualifications coming via adult education (non trad quals were also highlighted as something to avoid, alongside softening tariffs). 1/2

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Encountered some interesting wording recently - "holding the tariff", "not softening" when it comes to entry grades. A university that is only interested in la crème de la crème has lost its way. A university that doesn't adapt to support "non-traditional" students is, quite simply, elitist.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

What does this mean for the most vulnerable students and areas, such as lifelong learning and foundation years? The way we protect (or don't) these areas speaks volumes for our trajectory as a sector.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Let's keep those doors firmly propped open for the next generation to come. Even better, let's take the damn doors off their hinges.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Adult education programmes open doors to the most marginalised, the most disenfranchised, the people who missed out first time or couldn't see their own potential. I know it transformed me and I found a confidence I never thought I had. I'm holding onto that in the dark days ahead in HE.

A photo of my Western Mail article called "Opening Doors and Breaking Down Barriers", which is a shorter version of a piece I wrote for Woman's Wales (Parthian Press). The picture is too small to see the detail of the text.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

I've written about the journey from that course, via Oxford's Cont Ed to Cardiff and eventually a PhD and then to teaching on a parallel programme to the one I found on that leaflet all those years ago www.walesartsreview.org/redux-workin...

walesartsreview.org

Redux: Working Class Voices | Michelle Deininger

Today is exactly 4 years since the publication of Dr Michelle Deininger's piece 'Working Class Voices' - a deep dive into the class system.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

I distinctly remember standing in the shopping centre, pulling that leaflet out of a load of local information. That leaflet literally changed my life. I wouldn't have known what to look for online and I ended up enrolled a year or two later on a Certificate of Higher Education with OUDCE.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

I'm reading a book (The Lost Bookshop) where a character stumbles into a library and ends up with a load of information about adult education & going to university as a mature student. Reminds me of finding a leaflet about Oxford University's Dept of Continuing Education c.2001 in Cowley Centre.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Not my university sending out feel good news stories via the alumni newsletter and forgetting I also work in the midst of this shit storm. How many of those good news graduate stories will come from other institutions in the future because we've cut our degrees to the bone?

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Reposted by Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈

Richard Martin @mimosacymru.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Some voices are voicier than others. I don’t like to criticise fellow professionals but for the university body for Welsh universities to be saying *nothing* about the unfurling catastrophes is a total abdication of responsibility. #Cardiff #Wales www.uniswales.ac.uk/voice-univer...

uniswales.ac.uk

The voice of universities in Wales | Universities Wales

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Reposted by Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈

Ulla Rajala @ullamr.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Only 12 signatures needed for 1,800 in the Save the Latin Excellence Programme Petition. Have you signed and supported Latin in state schools? Sign at chng.it/tSYnmxZ4Rd

chng.it

Sign the Petition

Save the Latin Excellence Programme - keep teaching Latin in state schools

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Some days, I forget that I'm a humanities academic & not just an HE senior manager who worries myself awake at night about cost-cutting & the impact of voluntary redundancies in an increasingly uncertain context - these opportunities bring joy in bleak times & connections with like-minded people.❤️

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

I keep replying to "I hope this email finds you well" with "no, everything feels quite sh*t at the moment / everything is a bin fire" so it was good today to temper that with an awesome book & symposium invitation and being asked to give a training session for working-class postgrads. (2/3)

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Been feeling very dispirited this week with work, having spent a lot of time advocating for mature students and not feeling heard. While the future might include shiny things that don't exist yet, we must keep nurturing what's in front of us, especially the most disenfranchised groups. (1/3)

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

"the pen was faulty" -- that's hilarious (though clearly not for small you)

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

John Lennon the Tenth? This is very darkly on brand, though.

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Reposted by Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈

JL George @jlgeorge.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Question for writers out there, specifically those with experience pitching a short story collection anchored by a novella: How did you approach writing a pitch for it? Individual pitches for each story? A longer pitch for the novella followed by general mention of the stories? Something else?

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Me: FFS why is my f-ing monitor off and my laptop battery not charging GRAGHHHHH {Minutes pass, swearing continues} Also me: ahhhhh...

A plug that is switched off at the wall.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

I did not do this graffiti in a friend's toilet but I may have aided and abetted the culprit. It's impossible not to with this brand.

An Anker speaker with an added "W" at the beginning to spell wanker. Next to a book called "I never knew that about Wales".

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Reposted by Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈

Effin' Birds @effinbirds.com · 29/11/2024

A painting of a bird beside the text "this crap is overwhelming"

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

He's probably still in his pants, lounging in fury. I am tempted to go to work in my dressing gown.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Having been awake 2.15 - 5ish, I then overslept. Smalls (12, not so small anymore) lay in bed in protest for a good ten minutes because I wouldn't allow a sick day (he's not sick) and now will definitely be late for school. Good start all round.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I then put on a sleep meditation and it came out the speakers so loud I jumped out of my skin. Calm working well here.

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Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈 @drdeininger.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

My work wellbeing app says this today. I'm currently suffering from insomnia (again) exacerbated by... the stress of work. There's another wellbeing app that's available but only the first 1000 to sign up can have it.

Text says: Learn to say no to requests that are unreasonable, rather than suffer regret and stress.

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Reposted by Dr Michelle Deininger 🌈

Jay 🦋 @jay.bsky.team · 23/11/2024

Did you know there’s a site to search for starter packs of people to follow? Built by @mubashariqbal.com blueskydirectory.com/starter-pack...

blueskydirectory.com

Bluesky Starter Packs - Bluesky Directory

Browse a list of Bluesky Starter Packs. Discover and connect with your community on Bluesky

829117433854