Departures
It is with regret that we announce the departure of our Director, Professor Philip Martin, who is leaving us at the end of March to become Dean of Humanities at De Montfort University. Philip joined the Subject Centre at its inauguration, on secondment from the University of Gloucestershire.
Judy Simons, Chair of the Advisory Board, comments, ' Philip has been an inspired Director. Under his leadership, the English Subject Centre has helped to raise the profile of the subject and has made a real contribution to debates on learning and teaching. In particular, the report series has provided much needed information on national recruitment patterns and on careers for English graduates. Staff in English departments across the UK have benefited from his initiatives and often from his personal advice. Philip will retain an involvement with the Centre until his successor is appointed. We all wish him well in his new post.' The Subject Centre is in the process of selecting a new Director and interviews are scheduled in April.
Service Restructuring
The Final Report of the Teaching Quality Enhancement Committee (TQEC) on the Future Needs and Support for Quality Enhancement of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education was published in late January www.hefce.ac.uk/learning/TQEC/final.htm. The report proposed bringing together the LTSN, ILT and HESDA into a new organisation provisionally entitled the Academy for Advancement of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. The report highlights the need for discipline-based teaching support, but is unclear exactly how this would be structured in the new organisation. We are however confident that the role of the Subject Centres will continue from 2005, albeit in a revised form and under a new organisational umbrella.
Deliveries
Siobhán Holland, the Project Officer Academic Liaison is going on maternity leave in mid-March and will return in July. We will make temporary arrangements to cover her work in her absence.
Arrivals
There has been a new face in the Subject Centre since the beginning of March when Dr Christie Carson became the new Project Officer, C&IT. Christie joins us on secondment from the Department of Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway University of London. Her role is to support those developing the use of IT in English teaching across the UK. Christie is Co-ordinator of the Centre of Multimedia Performance History and has research interests in contemporary intercultural theatre, the work of Robert Lepage, Shakespearean design and multimedia applications for the study of theatre history. She is co-editor of the Cambridge King Lear CD-ROM (Cambridge University Press, 2000) and has published articles in Theatre Journal, Digital Creativity, Convergence and Literary and Linguistic Computing.
Newsletter Issue 5 - April 2003
© English Subject Centre