Bangor University accredited to award HEA Fellowships

The University is delighted to announce the success of the Bangor University Continuing Professional Development Framework, which has this month received its accreditation from the Higher Education Academy.

The scheme has been developed jointly with Aberystwyth as one of a number of Aber-Bangor Strategic Alliance projects. It formed the Reward and Recognition strand of the Aber-Bangor Learning, Teaching and Widening Access Strategy. It is the first jointly accredited scheme by two independent pre-92 universities in the UK.

The accreditation allows the university to confer its own HEA Fellowships across all categories of the UK Professional Standards for Teaching and Supporting Learning in Higher Education, namely: Associate Fellow; Fellow; Senior Fellow and Principal Fellow.  Fellowships constitute a CPD route to a recognised teaching qualification in Higher Education. This internal route will greatly enhance the University’s capacity to increase the percentage of its staff holding a recognised teaching qualification, ahead of the funding bodies’ intention for HESA data against this metric to be published at institutional level within three years.

Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT)’s Head of CPD (T&L), Ms.Sue Clayton, led the development at Bangor and is currently rolling out monthly induction sessions for eligible staff to begin the process of recognition, together with advanced training for a pool of reviewers who will assess applications across both institutions. She is thrilled with the response that the scheme has already received from a wide range of staff across Bangor. Sue said: “It’s very exciting to see this scheme in place. The benefits to the University metrics are significant, but essentially it is a means by which experienced academics from across the disciplinary spectrum will inevitably be talking with colleagues about their great teaching. The sessions we have already had reveal the joy to be found in teacher-talk, just talking about teaching and learning. It’s all about that, really.”

The PVC Teaching and Learning, Professor Oliver Turnbull, said: "It's very good news that we are now able to accredit our staff locally – making the entire process much easier to manage, and allowing us to increase the number of staff accreditations. Clearly the process has required a great deal of work, and it's terrific to see the approval in place".

Publication date: 14 October 2014