From small acorns do big trees grow: common interests, shared goals, and collaboration in Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies Alison Dickens and Kate Borthwick Subject Centre LLAS, University of Southampton This is the story of a HEA Subject Centre – LLAS Our work is informed and guided by direct input from an active community which has grown steadily over the decade since our creation. Members of this growing LLAS community of HE staff and students have participated in hundreds of events, written thousands of words for us in our publications, created digital and paper resources to be shared through our website and conducted research into key fields in LLAS. The LLAS team has expanded from a starting point of 3, to 26, and we currently coordinate 4 major UK and European projects. So this is our story – the highlights from the last ten years inextricably linked to the story of our LLAS community.

Overview In the beginning… Challenges in the sector: how can we make a difference? Why Study…? Initiative Where are we now? Collaboration and other LLAS initiatives First of all, I’m going to talk about how we began, and paint a picture of how we started out ten years ago, and then as we move forward we start to see challenges posed to the LLAS community, and I’ll talk about how this revitalised our work – by focussing particularly on the ‘Why Study? Initiative. Finally I’d like to highlight the effective collaboration that runs through all that the SC does, and mention some current initiatives which you might like to become involved with.

In the beginning… a small team first steps community engagement listening to needs

Challenges in the sector

Challenges in the sector Falling student numbers Languages departments closing A cry for help! Long-term future of languages in HE threatened

Why study languages…?

HE language students in the UK – First Degree ↑ 2% on 2007-08 ↓ 3% on 2002-03 Degree students across all UK HEIs (Open University not included) First degree, other undergraduate, postgraduate research and taught All students, UK, EU and overseas Full time and Part time Studying language as Single, Joint, Major, Minor or Triple Honours Time series: 2002-03 to 2008-09 Headcount analysis (not Full-Person Equivalent) Data notes The accuracy of the data depends on how individual institutions code and report their figures to HESA. The data are rounded according to the HESA rounding rules for published data. Total numbers and percentages are calculated on the raw data. The Standard Registration Population in HESA data has been changed in since 2007-08. Consequently, in year-on-year comparisons, the whole group of part-time postgraduate research degree students had to be excluded from the samples. The estimation of such students is around 1,000 in each year before 2007-08 (480 in 2008-09 and 500 in 2007-08). Data from HESA

In the beginning… …was the LTSN Where we started: staff numbers; duties and roles; photos? Logos? How academic staff became involved? 2004 became part of HEA.

There is a wide range of material on HumBox, from videos to audios, to powerpoint presentations, images – and what are termed ‘single resources’ often have several activities attached.

The Future for LLAS: Continuing hard work Collaboration Community Sharing The future for SC and the community.

Further information and resources Contact: llas@soton.ac.uk Join the HumBox humanities community at www.humbox.ac.uk Thank you for listening!