Empowering programme leaders through institutional dialogue

Howson, Fiona

Abstract

Programme Leaders have a pivotal role within universities and how they carry out that role
can significantly impact on their programmes, their teams and their students. But the
Programme Leading role is rarely well-defined and as a result many incumbents express
feelings of isolation and uncertainties over their responsibilities and their position within their
institutions believing themselves to be unsupported and their work unrecognised. Some
question if they are leaders at all. The same concerns seem to hold true in both UK and
international institutions (Eriksson et al 2010). But despite the challenges and dilemmas which
Programme Leaders experience they remain committed to their students and to their subject
disciplines.
This session will use Programme Leaders’ voices to engender debate as to how they can be
empowered and supported by different groups - both local and central - within an institution
and by external organisations. The debate will be primarily enabled through the use of
Dialogue Sheets, a simple but powerful tool which stimulates conversations by structuring
discussion, encouraging contributions and logging outcomes. Dialogue Sheets were
introduced to SEDA in the workshop Placing Student Voices at the Heart of Institutional
Dialogue at the SEDA Spring Conference in 2008 (Flint and Oxley 2008) and were very
positively received. Since then they have been developed for different purposes and used in a
variety of fora at Edinburgh Napier University including facilitating inter-sectoral debate, for
team-building and to engage participants with key aspects of our LTA agenda in conferences,
seminars and workshops. The Dialogue Sheet developed for this session will provide quotes
and questions to stimulate debate and structured space for groups to record their views, ideas
and solutions.

Citation

Howson, F. (2011, May). Empowering programme leaders through institutional dialogue. Presented at SEDA Spring Teaching Learning and assessment Conference 2011 - Academics for the 21st Century, Edinburgh

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: SEDA Spring Teaching Learning and assessment Conference 2011 - Academics for the 21st Century
• Start Date: May 5, 2011
• End Date: May 6, 2011
• Deposit Date: Feb 27, 2020
• Keywords: Programme Leadership, Empowerment, Learning, Teaching and Assessment
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/975472