Tell us about your contribution that has been recognised through the associate professorship.
I made my claim for an outstanding contribution through the Teaching and Learning (T&L) strand at three levels:
- designing compassionate and challenging learning experiences for all students.
- developing a departmental culture of excellence in teaching, learning, and assessment through playful and theoretically informed approaches.
- advancing pedagogy and research in graphic design education at a national level by co-founding a subject association – the Graphic Design Educators’ Network.
My claim for a significant contribution is through the Research and Innovation (R&I) strand. It centres on a growing body of research on design education and my role in spearheading a consortium of Art and Design sector bodies and institutions to identify the barriers to research for graphic design academics.
What does it mean personally to you to be an associate professor at Sheffield Hallam?
Being recognised for my contribution feels good, and it instils confidence to think more ambitiously about how to contribute to the field in the future. Writing the claim was valuable because I had to reflect deeply on my career, values, contribution and perhaps most challengingly, my impact over the past 20 years. This process has changed many aspects of my academic practice going forward.
Tell us a bit about your career story so far.
As the first in my extended family to attend higher education to study philosophy, I found it an educationally isolating experience. When I graduated, I got involved with music (very unsuccessfully) before returning to education as a mature student to study graphic design. This was a transformative experience full of generosity and wonder. In so many ways, both the good and bad experiences of higher education have shaped my approach to teaching ever since.
After graduating, I practised as a book designer for the cultural sector and began teaching part-time, where I became fascinated with design education. My practice and research shifted from designing artefacts to designing and researching education. I spent the next ten years teaching full-time on the BA(Hons) Graphic Design programme at Stockport College. This was a fantastic grounding in experimental pedagogy and working with students from disadvantaged and non-typical HE backgrounds.
I moved to Hallam in 2012, joining the Graphic Design programme as a Senior Lecturer and then becoming a Principal Lecturer – first as a Quality Lead and, for the last seven years, as the Teaching and Learning Portfolio Lead for Art and Design. I am currently working on a co-authored field guide to studio design education.
If you could go back in time and give yourself some career advice, what would it be?
Apply – Dare to apply for things earlier rather than waiting until you think you have everything. The application process – successful or not – is where you learn about your career.
Evidence – I once worked with someone who told me to keep a reasons to be cheerful file and save all the nice emails, student comments, and positive metrics/data.
Values – Spend some time understanding and articulating your values to yourself. Then periodically revisit the values and your career/work/role and ask – are you staying true to these values?
Mentor – Find a mentor or coach. I think a person who asks good questions, rather than one that knows all the answers, is most helpful here. Meet regularly and use this as a space to lift your head above the ongoing flow (of light and dark matter) that is contemporary HE – and look at what you are doing and where you might want to go.
What’s next? Tell us about how you want to further develop your contribution.
Completing a field guide to studio education – Critically, this work is reshaping the field of design studio research by conceptualising the design studio as a ‘messy object’ (Law and Singleton 2005).
Unfolding the Potential(s) of Graphic Design Research – To work with colleagues in SHU and across the UK to encourage and understand the potential and importance of graphic design research.
Deepening the integration of research and learning in Art and Design – To increase the opportunities for the productive and mutually beneficial integration of research and learning across the Department of Art and Design and the Art, Design and Media Research Centre (ADMRC).