Throughout an 18-year career at Leeds Trinity that involved teaching, leading academic teams, revalidating programmes, acting as an external examiner, listening to and teaching my own students, as well as revalidating and running an Advance HE accredited scheme and PGCertHE, I learned a great deal about what early career academics need. 

I learned even more during a short appointment at GBS as their founding Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching (Teaching Enhancement) where I was tasked with designing and implementing a teaching observation strategy and other CPD activities for teaching staff.  Regular dialogue with academics about their professional needs led me to conclude that an introductory book was needed to help new academic staff to grow and to feel more confident about teaching in HE.

I really enjoyed every minute of my own teaching career, but I found that, when I stopped teaching students and began listening more to early career academics, I felt quite surprised and worried at the number of times academics would use phrases such as: 'I'm not a true academic'; 'I'm not sure this is very academic but...' or 'I'm not sure whether this is ok to say at University but...'. The lack of confidence and indeed the absence of a community of support that early career academics genuinely need (even outside of what is offered through the structure of a PGCertHE, for instance) stood out to me so much that, along with trying to implement initiatives and mechanisms in my day job to support new colleagues, I decided to write an introduction to teaching in HE that might help those on the first rungs of the academic ladder to feel more supported as they read through the chapters.

The book, titled The Lecturer's Survival Guide: An Introduction to Successful Teaching in Higher Education, discusses and explains some of the basic methodological terms and approaches to learning that early career academics will need to 'get into' the language and practices in HE that are often taken for granted by more experienced colleagues and can lead to an 'insider-outsider' dynamic in the eyes of the new academics.

I try to demystify and encourage readers to understand why assessment tasks must not be a source contributing to the exclusionary practices that keep people in society - and our students in our classrooms where we work and study - in positions of inferiority or subjugation. However well-meaning we might feel we are to our students, without ensuring that they have sufficient 'tacit knowledge' to decode the assessment and the terminology of their subject disciplines, we can inadvertently be perpetuating the structures and behaviours that keep people from fully realising their potential as we are allowing a 'some know' and 'some don't know' dynamic to emerge in the classroom. 

In an attempt to promote 'good teaching' practice, throughout the book I flag the significance of having a commitment to developing values and behaviours as academics that guide who we are to our students and how we see our role. When we are values-driven in our teaching, we are naturally drawn into the field of reflection about what is 'just' practice for students and what would 'hold them in positions of inferiority' or disempowerment. I also suggest that it is this ongoing inner dialogue with oneself that can help us to reach a teaching KPI more effectively as we can begin to see KPIs as existing for a purpose that does in fact enhance student learning rather than something imposed without a purposeful rationale from beyond ourselves.

I suggest that our classrooms should - in an ideal world - mirror the kind of society that we would like to live in. In other words, they should be places of teaching excellence, where learning is the top priority and where each and every student knows the 'rules of the game' and feels empowered to ask and to trust their peers and their tutors for help and support should they need it. Values such as mutual respect, trust, literacy around religious commitments and observances that students might have as well as an understanding of diversity within a complex student demographic are all essential.  Furthermore, I suggest that we need also to provide personal tutoring - both academic and personal - that genuinely empowers students to feel confident in their subject discipline and supported fully as a respected part of the University eco-system.

I end the book with some advice and guidance about staying well in Higher Education.  It is so easy to become absorbed into the sector to such an extent that we feel we cannot take rest or find ways of nurturing ourselves as individuals. Developing values around self-care, time out from work, spiritual nourishment (for those who look for this) and a built environment that supports positive office designs are highlighted in order to give the early career academic a healthy support mechanism for continued engagement and success in their teaching career. 

Towards the final pages, I also give some tips and hints about the kind of leadership styles that we should consider if we are to ensure, as leaders, that our team is performing at its best in an environment that authentically supports well-being, high performance and people's personal stories and experiences too. My hope is that this small contribution will help someone out there to feel more 'at home' at University.

Much is said across the sector these days about the need for students to 'belong at University'.  Let's adopt ways of supporting early career academics that enable them to feel as though they 'belong' at University too. 

Dr Ann Marie Mealey is Director of Catholic Mission at Leeds Trinity University. For information about Ann Marie’s publications, blogs and articles, visit her profile.