Course Directors

The Course Director role is a key role and one that many academics undertake at some stage during their time at ARU. Course leaders play a pivotal role at ARU and inspire trust and foster a sense of belonging and inclusion.

Course Directors' Toolkit and Course Directors' Network

We have created a Course Directors' Toolkit on The Heron and Anglia Learning and Teaching's work also involves the development of a Course Directors' network - contact [email protected] to join. Take a look at the Course Directors' Companion and the Course Directors' Induction resource.

Conference

This year’s Course Directors’ Conference will be held on our Chelmsford campus on Thursday 11 September 2025, from 10.00 until 16.00.

Theme: Cultivating a thriving course experience in the age of AI

How can we use AI to bring out the best of us and nurture graduate capitals?

This year’s conference will be a space for co-creating responses to the challenges and opportunities presented by AI from the perspective of Course Directors. How do we lead our course teams and students to make sense of AI, so that we are responsive, critical, creative in how we develop our course identities, embody the change in our disciplines and professions, and deal with change on a global scale?

Pedagogically, how do inquiry and problem-based methods help us? Can they help us to reimagine the ways we engage our students as people so that we do not allow technologies to determine us?

Answering these and similar questions together will reveal the value of the Course Director in leading rich and engaging courses.

Email [email protected] if you have any queries.

You can find keynote provocation videos and materials shared and produced during last year's conference on The Heron (sign-in required).

Forums

Each Faculty convenes its own Course Director Forums on a regular basis during the academic year. These provide an excellent opportunity to keep abreast of recent developments at ARU, and to share practice with other Course Directors. Contact your Director of Learning Teaching & Assessment for more information on the dates/venues for Course Leader Forum meetings in your own Faculty.

DLTAs by Faculty

AHESS – Hannah Durham ([email protected])
HMS – Michelle Hawkins ([email protected])
FSE – Adrian Scruton ([email protected])
B&L – Natalie Kite ([email protected])