The first event in our Programme Leadership (PL) webinar series took place on 18 January 2021. This session introduced the work of the Programme Leadership Collaborative Cluster, highlighting existing resources and support, and outlining how the Action Learnings Sets can be used to support personal development in the PL role.

Programme Leading has become a role prized for its opportunity to exercise academic agency and is increasingly understood as integral to career progression. In this webinar, which was held on 28 January 2021, we explored a suite of successful initiatives that support the practice and enhance the academic standing of programme leaders from universities across the globe. It considered what actions really make a difference for individuals, the programmes they lead and the students they support.

Led by Dr Jenny Lawrence (University of Hull), the session provided an opportunity for delegates to sharing practice and challenge the programme leaders to consider the pragmatic and practical steps they could take to seed cultural change in their specific institutional contexts.

The webinar recording is now available along with a sketchnote (click on the image to view a larger size). 

On 18 February 2021, Dr Andrea Webb (University of British Columbia) led this session and explored how educational leadership is understood within institutions and how it is supported and recognised in promotion and reward processes. It offered an opportunity to consider how programme leaders understand and frame the extrinsic and intrinsic value of their role as academic leaders. Participants were encouraged to exercise their own agency to make the most of the possibilities that a programme leadership role can open. A particular focus throughout the session was on the scholarship of learning, teaching and educational leadership as a source value, motivation and reward.

The webinar recording is now available along with a sketchnote (click on the image to view this at full size). 

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in universities promoting a more holistic approach to assessment and feedback. This programme-focused approach provides opportunities to support students so that they better understand how to move through their programme of study, and helps equip them with the skills needed to be self-regulated learners both within the programme and beyond. Our session of 18 March 2021 featured a panel of assessment and feedback experts from across the sector, who outlined the benefits of - and potential stumbling blocks to - a more integrated approach. The panel was led by Dr Kimberly Wilder-Davis (University of Glasgow) and included Dr Alex Buckley (Heriot Watt University) and Bryden Stillie (Edinburgh Napier University).

The webinar recording is available along with a sketchnote (click on the image to view this at full size).

Student-staff partnership can aid the work of programme leaders in a number of ways: helping them to build a learning community of staff and students, supporting the interpretation of data from the National Student Survey about their programme, and giving agency back to programme leaders, teachers and students. Our session on 26 April 2021 provided examples of how this can be done, and explored some of the key considerations and challenges such as ensuring the practice is inclusive and overcoming the challenges of time, role uncertainty, vulnerability and resistance to partnership. It featured a keynote from Dr Jenny Marie (University of Greenwich), along with presentations from Christine Haddow and Susan Meldrum (Edinburgh Napier University) and Rashid Aziz (London South Bank University).

The webinar recording is available along with a sketchnote (click on the image to view this at full size).

The final event in the collaborative cluster showcased the work done in the cluster's Action Learning Sets and synthesised topics that were explored in the previous events:

• thriving in change
• recognition and reward
• programme-focused assessment
• student engagement.

The event enabled 'on-the-record listening' and focused on the Programme Leader’s perspective.

Throughout the session, participants had opportunities to identify and describe collaborative relationships based on current and future needs, perform an evaluation of their team and its needs in the context of programme team growth-for-resilience, and practice valuing colleagues, services, and experts as potential programme team members.