Anne Tierney
Faculty of Biomedical & Life Sciences
University of Glasgow

I have been the HEA Centre for Bioscience Rep for the Faculty of Biomedical & Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow for a little over a year. It's a role that I enjoy, and would encourage others to take up within their institution.

So, what does being a rep involve? Well, first of all, there are the regular updates and materials from the Centre. Every couple of months I get a box of Bioscience Bulletins, which I dispatch to our divisional offices, followed by an email to staff letting them know that the latest edition has arrived. FBLS has close to 200 academic staff, not all of whom are involved with the Centre directly, so if the Bulletin can find its way to new readers, it may encourage them to find out more. Similarly, I forward the Centre emails to all academic staff, highlighting items that I think may be of particular interest within the faculty, such as events, grant proposals, or calls for case studies. I always appreciate when someone emails me back to say that they are interested in one of the events.

There is also the opportunity to disseminate practice via the Centre, both personally, and through encouraging colleagues. The Centre has many opportunities to involve staff, through presenting at conference or writing articles and case studies. I organised, with support from the Centre, an event in August last year for Scottish HE Biology teachers, and I was overwhelmed with the response, both of attendees, and volunteers to talk at the conference. It was a real opportunity for staff across Scotland to get together and discuss the issues that affect us as teachers in higher education, as well as sharing the good practice we all implement as part of our jobs. I was also thrilled when two groups of undergraduate students from Glasgow got the opportunity to talk at Centre for Bioscience events; one group, who were funded by a small Centre for Bioscience grant, talked about enquiry-based learning at the event in Glasgow, the other group were invited to this year's Reps' Forum to talk about the first year experience in a large cohort.

An important aspect of being a rep is contact with the Centre. The team in the Centre for Bioscience are always helpful and encouraging. They will organise local events and give advice. The reps are also encouraged to meet. There have been meetings for Scottish Reps and there is an Annual Reps' meeting for the whole of the UK, which gives a large group of Reps the chance to get together to exchange practice, and pinch the best ideas. It's also a way of making contacts in other institutions and potential future collaborations. Oh, and it's a great social occasion too.

So there you have it. Being a rep involves some work, but it's not too much, and it is enjoyable. It has given me the opportunity to meet like minded people who care about students and teaching development.

Damian Parry
Health and Applied Social Sciences
Liverpool Hope University

3 years ago, after serving 7 years as a post-doc, I reached the stage in my academic career when I had to make a decision: either to brave the teaching side of academic life or head off into industry - I opted to stick with academia.

Since I had next-to-no experience in teaching I took a position as a Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow both to gain a little expertise at teaching and that increasingly important 'Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education'. I opted to take this route in an institution that was more directed to teaching and now sails under the banner 'Teaching-Led, Research Informed'. For Bioscientists at UK Universities career progression has pretty much always involved a direct step from the 'bench' to the lecture theatre, and the logic of this has rarely been contested. In reality the step from conversing with an 'eppendorf' full of your micro-organism of choice to talking to a room full of students is quite a leap, and, whilst in the 'olden-days' one could mumble at a board for 60 minutes before sending the youngsters on their merry way to make sense of a topic, today we need to interact, discuss feedback, stun an audience with multi-media displays, ensure they understand it and (potentially most alien of all) offer competent PDP! It was in making this move I initially found the Centre for Bioscience so invaluable, and this is one of the key reasons I take the rep's job seriously and try to spread the word - many a time have I had my finger snapped off while offering the New Lecturers resource folder to a recently arrived colleague!

Since becoming more involved with the Centre I have had opportunities to attend events around the county, from Newcastle to Southampton, and have received invaluable guidance in topics from Ethics to Feedback via Practical Work. Potentially the most useful guidance I have gained has been through attending the Reps' Forum, an annual event at which those who care passionately about how to develop Bioscience Learning in Higher Education can share their experience at the 'chalk face', both in the now familiar Swapshops and in discussion over coffee and dinner.

The post has been invaluable in gaining support in wading through the language of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, which, to the un-initiated is an alien tongue. It enables me to draw on the experience of more seasoned members of the academic community, ensuring that I make my own new mistakes, rather than just rehearsing those made by previous generations!

In return the role is far from arduous, it involves browsing through a few emails and documentation sent and trying to ensure the content arrives on appropriate desks to offer the best opportunities for sharing expertise, without the reps this information would rarely reach those who need it. For example if one has a colleague who has expressed a particular interest in developing feedback, then they need to know that they could benefit from attending an event on feedback, or if a colleague has been working on a particular novel assessment pattern, then they may value the opportunity of sharing it with an interested audience.

I whole heartedly recommend taking up the role as Bioscience Rep, the benefits are significant; both in terms of practical support in Learning and Teaching and in Personal and Professional development, whilst the role is far from difficult with great support from the dedicated staff at the Centre!