Taking stock of an elevation
It's the middle of the year, and time for a moment of reflection this week. I've been celebrating with colleagues, friends and former students the promotion I achieved to Associate Professor. I felt it was the right time to go for it, and I now feel very proud for having achieved the upgrade. The whole process was an opportunity for reflection, for thinking about what I've achieved, for thinking of how I have carved out the career that I am enjoying in higher education. Also, to consider the way it gives me an opportunity to do and say and think about the kind of things that interest me.
Getting the promotion meant working this through in quite a structured way. The university’s framework for promotion criteria encourages members of staff to work in a range of different areas, arranged around different “pathways”. It asks us to consider what we've done “in the round”, and then think about where those activities might be evidence for having achieved certain aspects of the chosen career pathway.
While I was working through my PhD, that was the focus; my pathway was comparatively incidental. The PhD was completed in 2022, and this gave me an opportunity to work out what to focus my attention on next I changed to a different pathway, one which would have given me more of an emphasis on working with outside partners and developing research bids and contracts with industry. I think this was an attempt on my part to try and take the various elements of my work over the previous 15 years or so and to find the best home for them, retrospectively. However, while I was on that alternative pathway the actual decisions that I was making were not aligned with an “industry” way of thinking, and so about year ago I moved myself back onto a teaching, learning and pedagogy focused framework. I feel that this is the right place for me to be, and I feel that it is giving me an opportunity to put some emphasis and priority behind the kinds of work that I do enjoy doing.
So I'm now putting a lot of work into aspects of quality enhancement for example. Here I am working within a defined system, with excellent colleagues, to help people across the Business School work through their module and programme updates and amendments. It's an interesting part of the university processes, and it gives me access and engagement with people across the institution.
I think where I want to go next with this side of things is to say that the systems are valuable and the systems have their place to keep our programmes on track, but that they are also an opportunity to think about the philosophical side of education. The enhancement of learning, teaching and quality is about improvement of the student’s lives, making the most of the investment that’s gone into buildings and facilities, and developing ways of working to engage with colleagues from different parts of the university. In this work I can support them in the things that matter to them, and the things that matter to me, in terms of giving our students opportunities to learn in different ways, and to develop their skills and their experiences.
The past week, of sharing news about the promotion, has been very heartwarming. Close colleagues have been very happy for me. I has been lovely to contribute to a generally positive end of year feeling, as we've celebrated other people’s promotions and achievements. I posted my promotion news to LinkedIn overnight, and have received a lot of lovely comments in just a few hours. People have liked hearing the news, and this has been really positive for me too. I have had a sense of community, and of having contributed to a number of people’s careers along the way.
This blog post is to capture some of all this, as we get to the end of June 2025. My hope and intention is to keep posting to this blog over the summer, primarily through dictation in the way this post was drafted. I'll take this text. I'll work with it. I'll stick it up on the blog. I’ll find a photo and we'll go with it, but for now thanks for reading and I'll be back.
