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The lecture entitled Teaching-focused academic careers in Higher Education: a misnomer? which will be delivered by Prof. Gabriel Cavalli (University of Leeds, UK) is being hosted by the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering at the University of Malta.

Abstract:
So called “teaching-focused” academic careers in Higher Education have been on the increase worldwide for decades. They respond to a range of internal and external pressures and issues on the sector. However, despite this decades-long process, the reality is that the sector has not settled on ways of supporting, recognising and developing “teaching-focused” careers alongside more established “subject-research-focused” roles. There are still tensions, disparity, and general disagreement. This is quite remarkable in a sector that prides itself in expertise, academic rigour, with education as its core business. At both sides of this argument, what’s at stake is what it means to be an academic. The talk will showcase and discuss the topic and make recommendations drawing from the UK context and the speaker’s own career and educational leadership experience.

Biography:
Gabriel Cavalli is Professor of Science and Engineering Education and Director of the Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence (LITE) at the University of Leeds (UK). Previously, he was founder of the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) Centre for Academic Inclusion in Science and Engineering (CAISE) and Executive Vice-Dean of Queen Mary Engineering School (QMES), a joint institute between QMUL and Northwestern Polytechnical University of Xi’an in China. His research interests are the impact of language in Science and Engineering education, hidden curriculum issues, and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning policy and impact. He is a polymer chemist by training.