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The University of Birmingham was recognised for its commitment to academic excellence
and innovation by being named as the Times and Sunday Times University of the Year for
2013-14. Our heritage as the first civic university, the original red brick, is now combined with
one of the most compelling and ambitious agendas in higher education. The university is now
ranked in the top 20 in all national league tables in the UK.
The university is committed to attracting to Birmingham the brightest and best young
academics from across the world. In 2011 we launched the Birmingham Fellows Initiative
and since then we have attracted to Birmingham over 60 of the most talented early career
researchers.
Building on this success we are now looking to recruit up to ten of the most talented
young teaching stars at lecturer or senior lecturer. These people will make up the first
cohort of Birmingham Fellows with a teaching focus. The new Birmingham Fellows will enhance
the reputation of teaching and learning at Birmingham. It will help us to recruit high
quality students, it will inform our approaches to assessment and feedback and it will further
enhance our established success in the National Student Survey.
Each Fellow will be based in an academic school and rooted in an academic discipline. In addition
they will bring experience and expertise that will have application and resonance across
the wider university. There are also other major developments in teaching and learning
at the university. This year we will launch our new Teaching Academy. The academy will
provide a focus for leadership, scholarship and innovation in teaching and learning. It
will provide a forum for members of academic staff to come together to discuss and share
good practice. The academy will promote the reward and recognition for excellence and
scholarship in teaching and seek to influence policy at national and international levels.
The University has also recently undertaken a major review of its undergraduate curriculum.
The new curriculum will be characterised by four overarching principles. The first of
these is a curriculum that will offer breadth, stretch, opportunity and challenge. We will
achieve this by introducing the new Birmingham Project that will bring together inter-disciplinary
teams of first year students to address topics of major national and international importance.
We've also reconfigured our joint honours programme structure to introduce more flexibility.
All students will have the opportunity for an international experience and to undertake
a language as part of their degree programme. It will be a curriculum that is personalised
and supported. All first year students will take part in a transition review. We have
an enhanced system of personal tutoring, a greater investment in small group teaching.
We've also opened this year the Academic Skill Centre that will support students in mathematics
and academic writing and we've invested £5 million in our careers and employability network.
The new curriculum will engage students in their learning experience. This year for example
we have seventeen student-led educational enhancement projects across the university.
We're also introducing grade point average as a way of characterising student achievement
and we'll also produce for each of our students an enhanced transcript at graduation. And
the new curriculum will be one that values and promotes excellence in teaching. This
is evidenced by the introduction of the Birmingham Fellows Scheme with a teaching focus, the
launch of the Teaching Academy and our new in-house journal, Education in Practice.
So this is a very exciting time for teaching and learning at the University of Birmingham.
If you are an excellent and innovative university teacher, we would be very pleased to hear
from you.