As you may know, CHEP is the Centre for Higher Education Practice that was created in 2017 to ensure that there is co-ordinated, integrated and evidence-based professional development support for education, research and enterprise activities at the University of Southampton.
I was appointed to lead the Centre in 2018 and am determined to make it a Centre which supports staff across the university to achieve their potential and in so doing enable the university to achieve its strategic ambitions, despite the challenging times that Higher Education is facing.
I have worked in three Russell Group universities, undertaken research, education and staff development roles, including multiple leadership roles and I believe this gives me a good insight in the challenges and opportunities that academic staff face. I know, for example, that that there are important disciplinary differences between schools and faculties which mean we need to work in partnership with faculty and school staff to be effective.
Whilst we remain responsible for early career training for staff in education competence, it is our ambition to expand our impact, and provide signposting of resources and support for every member of university staff, in all areas of academic activity and at every stage of their career, alongside the design and delivery of resources in partnership with faculty staff.
A first step in this journey to realise our ambition to launch our new CHEP SharePoint site. We hope it will inform, inspire, celebrate good practice and provide something of interest for everyone.
Currently on the site you will find two thought-provoking pieces, one asking programme designers to challenge conventional thinking about the dissertation, and the other giving an opinion about working with students as partners.
In the Features section, you can find out more about what we can and need to do to improve accessibility for everyone, and there is a reflection on the challenges of essay mills. You will also find information about what we have been doing in CHEP, together with links to our website and events page.
We are in the early stages of the development of this site, and there is much more to come, but please do check it out and follow it.