Today, we are celebrating our 2000th Principal Fellow, Aniqa Khaliq, Senior Lecturer at the University of East London, who shares her reflections on her path to Principal Fellowship
Advance HE celebrates 2000 Principal Fellows
Advance HE’s Principal Fellowship recognise and support outstanding strategic leadership in teaching and learning across global higher education. With the fellowship community now approaching 200,000 members worldwide, we are delighted to celebrate the milestone of 2,000 Principal Fellows, publishing the reflections of Aniqa Khaliq, Senior Lecturer at the University of East London – the 2000th PF!
Louise Lumsden, Head of Fellowships (Teaching) at Advance HE, emphasises the fellowship’s broader impact: “Our community of Principal Fellows plays a crucial role in enhancing student outcomes across the sector. Through their strategic leadership and commitment to sharing innovative practices, they’re actively shaping how institutions approach teaching and supporting learning. The collaborative nature of the community means that successful strategies are shared and adapted across institutions globally. Congratulations to all our Fellows, in particular, today, to our Principal Fellows and to all those who have started their Fellowship journey. “
The benefits of Principal Fellowship extend both to individuals and their institutions. Fellows gain international recognition, enhanced career prospects, and valuable professional development opportunities. Meanwhile, institutions benefit from elevated teaching and learning profiles, enhanced leadership capacity, and improved global rankings.
As higher education continues to evolve, Principal Fellows are at the forefront of strategic innovation in teaching and learning, ensuring that student success remains at the heart of institutional development.
My journey to Principal Fellowship
The beginning
I never set out to lead – I just wanted to teach mathematics. However, whilst training as a secondary mathematics teacher, I was taken aback when so many students and adults held strong negative feelings about a subject that I loved. My intrigue steered me into researching how our pedagogical choices as mathematics teachers impacted student engagement and understanding of the subject. The success of my research resulted in securing my first role as a teacher educator 16 years ago, paving the way for me to lead others in establishing inclusive practices and develop high-quality teaching, learning and assessment strategies that engaged learners and catered for their changing strengths and needs.
Leading change – my route to Principal Fellowship
My journey to Principal Fellowship was only possible after I moved into leadership roles and had access to university-wide meetings, task and finish groups, and committees, where I could present ideas and proposals on how to integrate new ideas and initiatives in teaching, learning and university policies and practices to positively impact the university’s strategic goals of increasing retention and reducing the awarding gap.
As the school Director of Education and Experience and Cluster Lead, investigation into reasons for student disengagement and high absence rates highlighted the need for personalised pastoral support and a more flexible approach to accessing learning. This resulted in me leading university-wide discussions on structural changes needed to address the impact of high workloads, mental health concerns, chronic illness, disabilities and financial challenges on student engagement and accessibility to learning. This work led to the the approval of timetabling changes for course delivery and a more flexible use of blended online and face-to-face teaching methods.
Leading the Academic Professional Apprenticeship and becoming a member of the university-wide Apprenticeship Compliance Sub-Committee, I was able to contribute to shaping university policies, such as those on attendance and punctuality, aligning them with the needs of apprentices. The quality of apprentice support was also something I addressed as I led on the creation of the university-wide apprenticeship coach role, and subsequently led staff in developing bespoke coach roles as new apprenticeships were developed and validated. Through establishing strong partnerships with external stakeholders, I influenced how apprenticeship provision across the university could be refined and expanded in line with community needs, and how the University could work collaboratively with apprenticeship provider leads and employers in knowledge exchange, co-creation of programme content and developing the curriculum to enhance mentoring, coaching, leadership and other transferrable skills.
To support this leadership work, my engagement in continued professional development was essential. Networking with a wide variety of national and international groups, writing and speaking about my journey into leadership, and advising other institutions about inclusive teaching and learning practices in other institutions, enabled me to bring informed and innovative perspectives back into my institution.
Applying for Principal Fellowship
The writing process itself enabled me to take a step back and truly reflect on who I am as a leader and the impact that I have had on students, staff and teaching and learning as a whole. It brought to the surface my purpose and goal, which hasn’t changed much since I first stepped into a classroom, wondering how I could engage my students. However, it has developed into using my voice to ensure university structures and policies promote inclusive teaching, learning and assessment practices.
My advice for prospective Principal Fellowship applicants
- Speak to someone who has already achieved Principal Fellowship in your institution and ask them about their journey.
- If you aren’t in a formal leadership role, look at how you can contribute to changing policy, for example through university-wide committees.
- Network outside of your institution and join educational groups or networks. Co-create and collaborate with external stakeholders on projects which impact widely on student learning.
Your routes to Fellowship –find out more.
Festival of Fellowship: To celebrate a year in which we will reach 200,000 Fellows we invite all fellows around the world to share your stories and the institutional impact of Fellowship.
