Professor Paula Hixenbaugh

National Teaching Fellow 2008 Paula Hixenbaugh has taught at all levels from primary school to PhD over the last 38 years and is currently Emeritus Professor of Psychology in the Psychology Department at the University of Westminster, where she has taught for the last 20 years. A fundamental fascination with learning and teaching and an overriding concern for the student experience has led her to constantly review and evolve her own teaching, to research aspects of the student experience and to develop innovative approaches to student support. Paula's work to develop innovative approaches to student support has transformed the way her own university provides personal tutoring and, in collaboration with colleagues, she developed a student e-mentoring package which has led to the introduction of e-mentoring in every department. This work has also had a major impact on other universities with more than 60 UK, and more than 50 international institutions requesting the e-mentoring training manual that she and her colleagues developed.   Within the last few years Paula has published two invited papers and co-edited the first book on personal tutoring in higher education to be published in a number of years and her work on personal tutoring has led to international speaking engagements. She has been instrumental in the instigation of the first UK conference on this topic and is responsible for a prestigious link with the National Academic Advising Association in the USA (personal tutoring is called academic advising in the US). In a recent letter from the Executive Director, he states, "We believe that your contributions to NACADA are a demonstration of your devotion to providing quality advising to your students, as well as a representation of your commitment to the profession of advising and the academic success of all students." Paula chairs a research group whose aim is to identify the factors leading to student success. The group is interested in issues related to the student experience of higher education.