The Academic Enhancement and Attainment Team is a group of nine women (one Dean and eight Senior Lecturers) who deliver the University’s Academic Enhancement Model (AEM). The team works with course teams to enhance student experience and eliminate the University’s awarding gap. AEM is UAL’s strategic approach to improving student experience and eliminating awarding gaps and is central to the delivery of UAL’s OfS Access and Participation Plan and is a metrics focused enhancement framework. The team refer to an awarding gap to move away from student deficit models and towards a social model that emphasises pedagogies, curriculum, assessment and learning environment as key sites of change.
Established in 2017, the team provides educational development support to courses that fall below UAL benchmarks in NSS and attainment. They develop pedagogies in attainment, social justice and anti-racism, towards a common goal of student equality, inclusivity, achievement and excellence. The team have invested considerable time into establishing ways of collaborating. They adopt co-design, arts practice-led enquiry approaches, decolonising and appreciative enquiry expertise. This approach strengthens the team’s knowledge which, in turn, informs the collaborative work with course teams.
The team is located with the Teaching, Learning, and Employability Exchange led by Professor Susan Orr, NTF, PFHEA and Dean of Learning and Teaching Enhancement and includes: Siobhan Clay, SFHEA, who is an Educational Developer and coordinates AEM across UAL and co-leads AEM at Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon with Jheni Arboine; Liz Bunting and Carole Morrison, AEM Senior Lecturers and co-leads at London College of Fashion; Cath Caldwell, AEM Senior Lecturer at Central St Martins; Vikki Hill, SFHEA, Educational Developer: Attainment (Identity and Cultural Experience); Gemma Riggs, Digital Resource Developer; Dr Emily Salines, SFHEA, AEM Senior Lecturer at London College of Communication; and Dr Clare Warner, Educational Developer: Attainment (Curriculum and Assessment). In March 2020, Dr Danielle Tran joined as Associate Dean: Academic Enhancement.
Collectively they have expertise in: creative pedagogy, educational research, assessment, languages, attainment, design, social justice, change-theory, student belonging, outreach, race and ethnicity, psycho-social phenomena, advertising, fine art, educational policy and practice, decolonial theory, teaching and leading in schools, humanities and the further education sector.