Head of School returns to Malaysia

This March, Professor Warren Barr, Head of the School of Law and Politics, made a return visit to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to meet with the law departments of our existing Malaysian partners and to also explore possibilities with new potential partners.

Professor Barr’s trip followed a successful visit in November 2022, and underlines the importance of our international students.

Meeting with Law Faculty Staff, Faculty of Law, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM)

The first order of business was a meeting with colleagues from the National University of Malaysia (UKM), about potential collaborative arrangements between Cardiff’s law department and UKM Faculty of Law. This was particularly exciting, as it would be our first collaboration arrangement with a public university to teach law.

HELP University UK Recruitment Fair & Guest Lecture

I next headed to the HELP University UK recruitment fair, which saw steady interest in law and other subjects for study at Cardiff University. I also gave a guest lecture to Year 1 law students on a research topic involving the use of Shell charities in terrorist financing.

BAC Land Law Lecture

Day 2 of my trip saw me back at Brickfield’s Asia College (BAC), lecturing Year 2 students in Land Law. The topic was an overview of exclusive possession. This was my first teaching experience in BAC representing Cardiff, and my first in-person teaching session there since October 2019. It was great to be back, and students were, as I remembered, engaged and a pleasure to teach.

Taylor’s Law School Briefing & Meeting

It is always a pleasure to visit Taylor’s wonderful lakeside campus, and my purpose this time was twofold. Firstly, I delivered a subject talk, highlighting why Taylor’s students should chose the School of Law and Politics as their UK Transfer partner. This was conducted online, as students were out of term time. I was also at Taylor’s, to meet and talk to Dr Harmahinder Singh, Head of Taylor’s Law School, about possible research collaborations between Cardiff and Taylor’s staff, as well as about issues of transnational education.

Cardiff offer holder event

The final event of the second day was to take part in a bespoke offer holders event at the One World Hotel, Petaling Jaya.  This took the form of a talk, co-presented by Sian Keepin of the University’s International Team and myself, followed by a lively Q&A session with Cardiff offer holders and their parents or friends.

BAC Consortium Meeting and Staff Development Workshop

On Day 3, I had the pleasure of chairing the 23^rd UK Transfer Partners Consortium meeting at BAC’s PJ campus. Matters discussed were varied, including BAC’s future education plans, as well as key updates from all Consortium members.

This was followed by another Consortium Staff Development workshop, which I again chaired. The workshop, which had presenters from the UK Consortium partners, and from BAC staff, considered 3 broad issues: (i) Differentiating between plagiarism and poor academic practice; (ii) legal skills preparations for students; and (iii) designing effective questions for Framework for Higher Education Qualifications for England, Wales and Northern Ireland (FHEQ) Level 4 & 5 assessments.

BAC UK Education Fair

On Saturday 18 March 2023, BAC held its second UK Education Recruitment Fair. There was amazing interest for law programmes at Cardiff University. Sian Keepin and I were kept busy from 10am until 6pm! I also gave a subject talk in the morning, highlighting why students should chose Cardiff as their preferred UK Transfer partner.

Sunway University Business School

The final appointment of the trip was on Monday 20 March 2023, meeting Dr Linus Andrews about possible collaborative arrangements between Cardiff and Sunway. Sunway currently does not have a Law School, but there is considerable teaching in commercial law related subjects as part of the business school offerings.

Reflections

It is always amazing to be in Malaysia, as people are so friendly, and, as my colleagues in Cardiff will attest, teaching Malaysian students when they come to us is an absolute joy. It was great to be talking about possible research collaborations too, and I look forward to growing the areas of work we undertake together with existing and potential new partners.

It was a pleasure meeting friends, old and new, as well as prospective students.

My thanks, as always, to friends and colleagues for their wonderful hospitability and for hosting these events.