Julie Irwin

With a career trajectory from emergency nursing to higher education, Julie's foremost aspiration is to provide strong leadership that transcends disciplines to create innovative approaches to learning and teaching that truly enhances the student experience. Through strong, effective transformational leadership for change she has created innovative frameworks, which now provides the foundation for curriculum design. Julie's leadership has resulted in significant enhancements to the way that staff development is delivered at Bucks. Julie led the Realising Engagement through Active Cultural Transformation project, investigating the impact of curricular and co-curricular activities on student engagement and experience. This project has provided findings that have informed enhancements to guidelines for student engagement activities at Buckinghamshire New University (Bucks). Impact of work As a result of the enhancements, in 2016, 60% of academics held a teaching qualification, placing the University in the top 30% of UK institutions (HEFCE 2016). She leads the Bucks CPD scheme and the Bucks Fellowship Scheme. Julie created the Action Learning for Enhancement in learning and teaching initiative to complement more traditional forms of learning that develops teaching excellence. She is keen to champion the contribution of non-academic staff to effective student learning and has encouraged and supported many professional services employees (PSE's) to seek HEA recognition. 15% of all PSEs now currently hold Fellowship of the HEA. Plans for the future Julie's strong leadership has had a tangible impact on learning and teaching, by keeping the learner firmly at the heart of what she does. She influences individual, institutional and sector wide agendas and, if successful, would use NTF status to take transformational leadership to the next level, further developing teaching excellence and increasing the positive impact on the student learning experience.