A letter to all readers of FYI 2024 

Dear reader, 

Welcome to Foundation Year Investigates 2024! 

We hope that this quick introduction gives you a sense of the themes of this edition of FYI. 

But first, the nuts and bolts of the Foundation Year: what you need to know.

Students enrolled on the Foundation Year at Birmingham Newman University can use it as a pathway into over twenty-five different degree programmes including law, the humanities, teacher training, nursing and business studies. That’s a lot of choice!  

Unlike other university courses, the Foundation Year at Newman is all about supporting students with enhancing their skills in a range of academic activities including essay writing, referencing, communication, digital and IT. The course also affords students the opportunity to grapple with new, exciting, and often challenging academic ideas in a supportive environment that helps them to develop a growth mindset. In addition, it offers students many opportunities to become part of the Newman community.  

The Foundation Year at Newman has grown dramatically from a modest cohort of thirty-nine students in 2017-18 (the first year the FY ran) to 304 students in 2023-24. That means that the current cohort of Foundation Year students at Newman represents around 11% of the total number of enrolled students at Newman! That’s a big statistic and worth celebrating, which is just what FYI 2024 intends to do. 

FYI 2024 – Celebrating the Foundation Year as a transformative experience 

FYI 2024 presents the work and experiences of past and present Foundation Year students and explores the idea of identity and transformation.  

Things to look forward to in this edition are interviews with former Foundation Year students, Alix, Michelle and Danielle, who all share their thoughts on how their Foundation Year experiences gave them a great start to their degree studies. 

The Foundation Year also gives students the opportunity to develop and express their creativity and learn to utilise it in their studies. In connection with this aspect of the Foundation Year, we are delighted to publish poems by Bobbie Deane-Cox and Kendys Kanco giving insights into aspects of their lived experience in connection with Newman. 

Joseph Harris, another of our Foundation Year students, gives us his view of Newman through a gallery of photographs. 

Samuel, Tamika, Claudine and Thomas feature in the Essay Showcase and share their reflections on the experience of writing essays. 

In addition, FYI presents a range of fascinating Digital Projects all created by Foundation Year students, including John Fagan, Mickayl Sonavaria, Samir Sultan and Datanu Emouwhe, which investigate different aspects of identity and how it has been transformed in the digital world. 

All our contributors have things to say that reflect the great diversity of experience and transformation that the Foundation Year supports. In the words of John Henry Newman, patron of the university, ‘To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.’ 

A quick note on navigating FYI 2024

You can click on the links here in the introduction or in the contents page to access all the above contributions. Or, access all the content in FYI by clicking  on the menu up in the left hand corner of this page under the heading 'Issue 2 Turning the Page'. 

We hope that you enjoy the read! 

Dr. Pushpa Kumbhat, Dr. Francis Hines & Dr. Rory Booth  - Lecturers in Foundation Year

 Birmingham Newman University