 Hi everybody and welcome along to another episode of UCAT Conference television. I'm Column Cronin from the Adventures in Advising podcast and today I am delighted to be joined by the opening keynote speaker Dr Celia Greenway. Celia how are you? I'm fine Column it's actually quite a grey day in England but I'm feeling sort of quite as you can see from my orange top I'm feeling quite bright and vibrant myself. Well I'm glad you got the memo on the bright church. I was hoping that would be the case. It's delightful to have the opportunity to chat to you and we will delve into your role as Director of Student Engagement at the University of Birmingham. We'll talk a little bit about what maybe delegates can expect in that opening keynote but before we get to that can you talk to me a little bit about how you came to work in higher education. Yes I think probably I mean it's very interesting often academics become academics because they've been very good at a subject and they've excelled. I'm probably the converse of that. I owe the whole of my life to Mrs Thatcher so the whole of my career is to do with Mrs Thatcher's decision to introduce the national curriculum in 1989. So I was a classroom teacher in 1989 I was teaching good old fashioned cookery which most people don't know about me actually I was a home economics teacher. And I'd only just started teaching and Mrs Thatcher banned my subject. So I had a baby. So this probably seems sort of so how did you end up being a leading academic. Well what happened to me was that the local primary school along the road employed me because I had a degree in food science. I discovered what I didn't know I discovered I was very very good with four year olds that I got the four I got the fourness of four year olds. So this led to me then doing a master's degree in child development and psychology. I then became very interested in the training of people that worked with young children. I was working with nursery nurses that had just been mums and I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But I was interested in the lack of qualifications and the sort of accidental roots that people became early years teachers in the way that I had that I'd become an early years teacher by accident. So that made me go back to thinking about how I could use my child development background and my practical experience to have a greater sphere of influence I guess over developing teachers. So I was in a primary school as a primary teacher. I then did some evening work as some people do lecturing at NFE college and that led me to then working at the University of Birmingham and probably I have a more and more security route than most. What happened to me was that my friend was training athletes at the University of Birmingham and said why don't you become a lecturer. There's a job going as an early years specialist. And I said well why would I want to do that because at that stage I had a management role actually in NFE college where I was training nursery nurses. And for those people in HEE will know that the money at that stage this is 2005 the salary wasn't particularly good. I couldn't really see the reason to move. But I went along for the interview out of curiosity and I guess the rest is history that I joined the university in 2005 as a practitioner. I didn't have a doctorate. I didn't have a publication. I'm a very unusual route to being a strategic lead in a Russell Group University. I worked very hard and very quickly to get my doctorate. I did it within a minimum period of registration and submitted early. I really enjoyed academic work more than I anticipated. I worked in the field of initial teacher education. So I've trained around about a thousand teachers and I've now got people that have worked with me say from 2005 onwards and now train teachers themselves. So one of my I suppose loveliest things is that I've now got a community of practitioners working in Birmingham, the West Midlands and beyond that I've trained and really work their hardest to give children the best start. And I've loved that work. But that has I think it's really quite interesting because my early years work has dominated my work at the university. Although I'm now responsible for other things that theoretical background and the work I did and my doctorates which was looking at inspection in early years has really influenced how the rest of my career developments has formed. That's really interesting and I love hearing about how people come in to higher ed and as you said it is very often a circuitous route. But that's what kind of brings I think so much to higher education when people do come in from different paths and certainly really interesting to hear about yours and about like that community of practitioners that that now exists. And then if we look at say your current role at the University of Birmingham director of student engagement, can you talk to me a little bit about that and what that looks like. Yes, so that's been it's been a really, really great opportunity for me. I was leading education in the School of Education. And this role came up, which is a role at DPVC level. And I thought, here's my opportunity actually to do something that impacts on the whole institution. And the role was to lead a change in personal academic tutoring and to develop student representation, which, which really goes well together. It was a new role newly created. And I applied and I applied with a sense of what I wanted to do actually. And I what I wanted to do was to move tutoring from something that was perhaps considered as an addition to something that was central to what students did. So what I, what I wanted to change was that I wanted people to feel that there was space to do tutorial work, that it wasn't a hurried conversation in a corridor, that it was actually a designated space and time for all students, whether they be first year undergraduates or indeed part-time PGT student, that every student had a personal tutor, and that every student knew what the tutorial was for. So it's been, I've been doing it now since 2018. It was a three year appointment. So in fact, it's been an unusual three years, as you can imagine, because I've spent a year of it sort of working from my dining room. But in that three years coming up, we've really transformed practice at the University of Birmingham. I mean, people that were at the summer UCAT conference will remember we received the institutional award for innovation in tutoring. We've done an awful lot in a very short space of time, but we've done that by going back to the early years focus by developing that community of practice. I work very closely with a role that existed before but didn't have a clear role descriptor. I work with a team of senior tutors and the senior tutors lead personal academic tutoring in their school, and that has made a significant difference to the way that we approach tutoring. I think the other thing to say is that it is a strategic role. So the institution really has put importance on personal academic tutoring. Everybody now has clear role guidance, not just the tutors, not just the senior tutors, but also the students know what tutoring is for, what it's about. So I think it's been a really, really, really interesting time, as you can imagine. I mean, the pandemic has made tutoring even more crucial than it was before. I mean, I've been quoted saying that I consider tutoring to be pivotal to the student journey, and I do. I really must emphasise this, that that's the early years thing, that everything and everyone's important, the holistic nature of personal tutoring. It can't be overestimated the importance that the relationship between the students and their tutor, particularly in these difficult times for students. So at Birmingham, we don't just see it as an entitlement. We live it, we do it. Students come to tutorials they attend and they attend because they want to. And I think that's really important. And in fact, this year, and I will talk about this, not in my opening keynote, I'm also doing a paper, which is about the group tutorial system that we've used at Birmingham this year. So we've moved from having three individual tutorials a year to every student, undergraduate and PGT student having a weekly tutorial. And we wouldn't have been able to do that without that central support and without that acknowledgement that the tutorial is important. So that's my role on, I'm still actually though an academic and I think that that's also what's really important is that I'm 60% director students engagement. The rest of the time, I still lecture, I still see students, I run a weekly group tutorial group, I have personal duties. And I think it's really nice for me to see the things that I've written about happening and unfolding around me. And as I said, originally this job was for three years, I've loved doing it and I'm going to do it for another two at least. Those people that aren't familiar with Russell Group universities, we do things on sort of like crop rotation that we take on roles, we learn things and then we stop doing them and go back to academics. But I can honestly say I love this job. I really love it. I love the impact that good tutoring has on the students and I don't feel my job here is done. I feel the things that I've learned from the pandemic and the things that working together as a community have enabled us to do can help us during, I won't say normal times, but when we return to a more normal campus, the things that we've learned this year that we can apply in a tutorial system will really benefit our students. I think I've sort of gone on and on there a little bit about how much I love my job, but I really do. I really relish it and I really enjoy the community of practice from working with the senior tutor group. And several of them are talking at the conference this week as well. And I think that that's really nice that we reflect the institution that we actually are using research and tutorials to inform our tutorial process. We're all very committed to UCAT and the institutional membership because of that initially, because we like the fact that it develops our practice, but also it enables us to be active researchers. Yeah, and this I love the fact that as a strategic leader in the field that you talk with such passion about the work about students and that you still meet with students. And that's really important and great to hear. And one of the things I've always been loved what Birmingham, the University of Birmingham does. I've been to UKISA conferences, Amashi conferences, now the UCAT conferences. And each one of them I always see is there somebody from the University of Birmingham presents because they're always doing really interesting work and that continues. And I suppose delegates are now going to get the opportunity to hear from you. As you said, you're presenting a paper, but also the opening keynote. And we are obviously pre recording this a little bit before the conference, but can you talk to me maybe about what, you know, some of maybe the teams that you will be looking to cover in that opening keynote. And I have to say, it's, for me, it's been, it's a privilege. It's a privilege to continue to work with students, but it's also a huge honour to have been asked to do the opening keynote. And if we go from the fact that, you know, I was a teacher, and to actually be an opening keynote. So what I consider to be a really important conference for the sector for me is a huge privilege and it's a huge privilege to reflect the views of my community and indeed the students that I work with. And the theme is includes inclusion. And I've been working on a number of projects which I will talk about to delegates. So I'm looking at the keynote. The opening keynote is being a reflection on my practice, but looking at some of those overarching theoretical principles connected to inclusion. So one of the things that delegates may be aware of is that Birmingham have had a very vibrant. This is Birmingham, the city, as well as the university had a very vibrant approach to diversity. And one of the messages that I really want to get across in my keynote is that inclusion is indeed about everybody. We can't pick and choose the characteristic that's part of the equality act that we do need to think about when we're approaching inclusion as that very thing that it is about every one of us and that we all need to be committed to providing a diverse and welcoming environment to our students. So I am going to go through ways of removing barriers between academics and students. I'm going to look at how to create a welcoming environment in the tutorial space. And I think one of the things that has really become very apparent to me is how intimidating it can seem to students from entering particularly an environment like Birmingham, which is a Russell Group institution and talks all the time about its history and its research intensive approach. I think for a student coming from a comprehensive school background and perhaps a disadvantaged background, we need to consider how difficult it can be walking into a professor's office for the first time for their first tutorial. So I've done a lot of work about that. So I'm going to be looking at that. I've also been doing some work about accessibility. And I think that's also really important. I think the one thing that I've learned through the pandemic is that online isn't necessarily bad and that you can build up quite, not quite, but you can build up a very successful relationship online with a group of students and with an individual student. So I am going to reflect a little bit on that and share some of the good practice that we've gained from this year. I think as well I have been heavily influenced by school practice and that will come over. So one of the things that happened in Birmingham recently was the No Outsiders campaign that schools were running. And I think that will be of interest to the delegates because we've tried to adopt that approach at Birmingham. And I think that has resonance for the rest of the sector because we don't necessarily overtly say how we're being inclusive. The school sector does do that and it does do a big thing about everybody being welcome. We seem to think the job is done when people arrive that they will automatically know you're welcome. But I think we need to do more about that. I think we need to also emphasise your first generation, don't be, don't be daunted by university. You're black. It's important that we recognise that people, if they don't see themselves reflected in the community that the university is, don't automatically feel welcome. So I think that we need to create the right tutorial environment so people do feel welcome and that it's tokenistic to say that we're all the same because we're not all the same, but it's recognising those differences and being explicit about what those differences make to a students experience that does indeed actually make inclusion work. And I think that gives you a flavour, again, of my passion for the subject and actually my determination that students feel welcome. And I do think we as a sector need to look at that. I think we have sometimes put barriers up in the way that we are researching. We've got our office hours, we have our research hours, but we need to think about when a student actually wants to engage. So it isn't just in term time, we do need to think about the fact that we need to produce that inclusive, holistic approach to higher education and that tutoring is a, we've used the phrase golden thread at Birmingham, that the tutoring is the golden thread that connects our activity. And I think we've got that something that students really need to appreciate that we are committed to that as a sector and that UCAT actually through its commitment to improving the tutorial experience for students could transform their time at university. And by providing an inclusive environment, we will make everybody feel part of that transformation. Well, I am really looking forward to it. That has certainly whetted my appetite. So for those watching this, the opening keynote will take place on Tuesday the 30th of March. And there is a lot to look forward to over the course of the entire conference. You can check out the UCAT website. You can see plenty of social media channels there. Please do look to get involved and keep the conversations going. I want to thank you very much, Celia, for taking the time to chat to me. I wish you continued success in everything that you were doing and hopefully in the not too distant future when travel is possible. I would love to get the opportunity to visit the University of Birmingham and see some of the work that you are all undertaking there. Thank you very much and it's been a huge pleasure to be able to talk about my work very briefly this morning and I cannot emphasise how much I am looking forward to doing the keynote. Fantastic, Dr Celia Greenway, thank you very much.