Teaching and transformation: The medium, the practice and the structure of geography in higher education: The conference as a learning experience

Snow over Great Britain sets the scene for the annual conference of the Institute of British Geographers. Hundreds of geographers converge on the University of Leeds from all corners of the British Isles and further afield, braving whirling snowstorms and the best efforts of British Rail. Annual chunterings about the timing of the conference at New Year surface once more, compounded this year by the vagaries of the calendar which bring the conference and the start of term into uncomfortably close proximity. Accommodation in cold undergraduate rooms, with narrow beds, elderly furniture and a meagre provision of 2-pin plugs and 60-watt bulbs, comes as a shock to the comfortable systems of academics cushioned by years of softer living.