Developing academic leadership

The focus of this paper is on how we support the developing leaders through secondments or Teaching Fellow in Principle Lecturer level roles within a UK post 1992 higher education institution. The challenging conversations take the academic beyond their own subject area and into intimidating territory of other disciplines where pedagogic language and terminology may be different. The roles would, in the past, have been in the domain of the specialists within a centrally based Educational Development Unit. A series of development opportunities were created within the initiatives and by one of the Faculties to support the academics. This paper will summarise the preliminary findings in a longer term research project focusing on the development needs of emerging academic leaders. The experience of these teaching fellows will also be evaluated with a view to informing the development of a university wide approach to the development and support of new academic leaders.