When my twelve year old called me a nerd recently, I pointed out that ‘nerd’ pays the bills. And then pointed out that he was an even bigger nerd than I was. And then we laughed, high-fived and went to do our respective homework because that’s how we roll. Clearly, he’s not wrong. And gaming …
Am I the greatest forensic anthropology lecturer in the world? No. But do I get up every day, go to work and strive to be the best lecturer that I can? Also no. But I do make a token effort to get people to learn. This can take different forms, depending on the context and …
Well, it’s official. Tim Thompson has left the building. And entered another one. 100 metres away. On the same campus. This seemed more dramatic when I started… As some of you may know, the School of Science, Engineering and Design is no more. We’ve had a bit of a restructure here at Teesside, and the …
Croeso! Which Google Translate reliably informs me means ‘Welcome’ in Welsh. I’m in Cardiff, FYI, so this is not as random as it seems. I’ve spent the last couple of days down here in Wales working with colleagues at the University of South Wales. Last year, Dr Stewart Eyres (Deputy Dean of Computing, Engineering & …
One of the things that I’ve been trying to do since taking on this AD role is improve the learning spaces in our School. We’ve got great labs, but our more flexible spaces are poor by comparison. To be honest, it’s been a key aim of my annual L&T plan for two years and strongly …
So, I almost knocked over both Emily Thornberry and Floella Benjamin in one day… Forensic science is in a challenging place at the moment. The well-publicised closure of the national Forensic Science Service and the rapid marketisation of forensic provision has left the sector a little winded. Combined with the complexity of contracting out forensic …
Read more “House of Lords Science & Technology Committee – Inquiry into Forensic Science”
Last night, I was thinking a lot about giving lectures. This is not unusual, but this time it wasn’t the content that interested me, but the mechanics of lecturing. Three things happened over the past two days which brought this to the forefront of my mind. First, I’d come back from a fantastic 2-day leadership …
It’s been very quiet on campus recently (a little too quiet…), but that was all shattered last week as our new students arrived at Teesside. That’s right, last week was Welcome Week! It also marked the first Welcome Week where I’ve been actively involved in crafting the week (well, I say ‘actively’ – it’s largely …
Last night a team from Teesside headed down to the bright lights of the big city for the inaugural Higher Education Academy and Times Higher prize-giving for the Global Teaching Excellence Awards. The awards were devised to allow institutions to demonstrate their continued and innovative commitment to teaching excellence for their students. And unlike awards …
There’s no point in having a blog if you can’t get things off your chest. So here it is for this week – I’m being driven mad by the number of people asking me if I’m now off for six weeks like teachers. I’m not a teacher! I do not have a gaping summer vacation! …
Read more “For the love of God, I do not have a six week summer holiday…”