This session highlights how recently published scholarship focussing on the importance of student engagement has largely overlooked the central role of the personal tutor in student retention and success. This paper re-examines the roles and responsibilities of the personal tutor and contextualises these with recent trends and developments in HE especially the TEF. It highlights how strategic investment in models of Senior/Enhanced Personal Tutoring can help to realise the potential of personal tutors as secret agents of change impacting positively on peer learning sutudent engagement and tranitional support. It also highlights the challenges of personal tutoring in an increasingly complex and changeable HE environment and considers how these may be overcome.
