Professor Barbara Dexter

National Teaching Fellow 2010 Barbara went to the University of Derby as a mature student in 1999, studying for a PhD, which was sponsored by the Institute of Leadership and Management. Within a few months she had taken on a full-time teaching and programme leadership role, building on ten years of teaching experience in further education. Her teaching draws on extensive personal and work experience including the civil service, I.B.M., accountancy, and voluntary work for The Princes Trust. She qualified as a Chartered Management Accountant at the age of 40. Since 2008, Barbara has been on secondment as Quality Enhancement Manager. Her current role is one of academic leadership for the University, contributing to strategy development and implementation, in matters relating to teaching and learning. She was the University of Derby's first Senior Teaching Fellow and has been awarded nine excellence awards by the University. These cover teaching and learning, business in the community and service to students. Five relate to work undertaken with Derby City Council on The Leading Manager programme. Her underlying principles are based on servant leadership - whereby leaders and teachers regard themselves firstly as serving others. This is not in a subservient way, but instead emphasises empathy, care, and concern for the growth of others within a supportive environment. These principles apply equally to supporting the growth of colleagues. As one colleague put it, "Barbara is dynamic, supportive and inspirational in her approach to learners". An ex-student said; her "enthusiasm, conscientiousness and commitment are unsurpassed in terms of her teaching and supervision of research study. Always having a focus on learning rather than teaching, she engages students in novel ways and draws out their tacit knowledge". An advocate of high-quality research underpinning teaching, her research interests are eclectic and cover leadership development, organisational change, public sector management, continuous professional development and careers. She has had numerous national and international conference and journal publications, and is working assiduously with colleagues to develop their own professional practice.