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Dr Alex Conner

Alex’s Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnosis and a lot of failing required him to understand what he COULD do. He used coaching to author his own success within the overall goals of the University. Alex now embeds non-directive coaching into education to support learners and colleagues in developing their own definition of success.
Year
2021
Institution
University of Birmingham
Job Title
Reader in Biomedical Science Communication

Alex’s career highlights on paper include his appointment to Director of Postgraduate Taught Education in 2018. Alex built a community of academic and professional service colleagues who have developed a fantastic profile of nearly 30 courses for the inclusion and benefit of students around the world. They developed a business engagement strategy for employability opportunities, 10 new programmes that build on their research excellence and an international recruitment strategy that increased income by £2m in just 2 years. Educational practice, leadership and research-focused teaching led to his Senior Fellowship, a Media Fellowship, election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and the development of a highly successful group of research students who have recently published a paper in one of the three biggest journals in the world. 

But by far the biggest highlight of his career was the feeling of failure that came with trying to emulate his perception of academic success. Alex was trying to be someone he could not be. Trying to develop skills he didn’t have and trying to fit into a neurotypical world with his neurodevelopmental disorder, ADHD. This failure led to his understanding of ADHD coping strategies and his reflection on what he is capable of (and what he isn’t). Alex had to be in charge of his own definition of success. That worked. This has developed into his whole academic approach using non-directive coaching to support learners and academic colleagues to author their own definition of success. Alex worked with them to understand their strengths and to achieve that success. That also worked. Self-authoring one’s goals for the benefit of higher education is the ultimate in inclusivity. Alex wants to dedicate his whole career to embedding this autonomy into every curriculum, not only personalising learning but personalising success. 

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