Professor Anthony Croft

National Teaching Fellow 2008 As founding Director of the Mathematics Education Centre at Loughborough University, Tony has had a long and varied teaching career which began in a sixth-form college before he transferred his skills to higher education. Tony is respected within the sector for his pioneering work in mathematics support, championing the cause of those students, studying in a wide range of disciplines, who find the mathematical demands of higher education particularly challenging. In 1996 he established Loughborough University's Mathematics Learning Support Centre which rapidly became a success, and provided a model that many other universities have followed. Resources developed by Tony and his academic partners have been made freely available through projects such as mathcentre and mathtutor and other resources are widely distributed through the Higher Education Academys Maths Stats and Operational Research Subject Centre (MSOR). Tony's work received external recognition in 2005 when, in a collaborative venture with colleague Duncan Lawson (Coventry University) he bid to establish a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. A significant boost, the bid was successful and he was awarded £4.85 million to develop sigma - Centre for Excellence in the University-wide Provision of Mathematics and Statistics Support. sigma has had a huge impact at both Coventry and Loughborough Universities which now boast superb student support facilities, drop-in centres, private and group study areas, interactive classrooms and much more. Sigma funding and expertise has also been used to establish new centres at Bath, Sheffield and Leeds Universities and Tonys influence throughout the sector has been far-reaching and substantial. Over the years Tony has co-written many very successful mathematics textbooks that are now used extensively in higher education institutions throughout the UK and around the world. Just last year he was awarded a Personal Chair in Mathematics Education from Loughborough University in recognition of his commitment to improving the student learning experience of mathematics and statistics. In 2008 Tony was succeeded as Director of the Mathematics Education Centre at Loughborough University by Dr Carol Robinson, but retains responsibility for directing the work of the sigma CETL.