7 minute read
A New Chapter
Ulster University Vice Chancellor, Professor Paul Bartholomew, tells Emma Deighan that despite moving to a hybrid teaching model during the pandemic, community and bricks and mortar settings will always be the priority.
Professor Bartholomew was appointed to the role just as the pandemic took hold, which presented a massive challenge for the former NHS Diagnostic Radiographer.
With the £364m Belfast Campus due to launch and a new medical school in Magee opening its doors to students, he faced a series of challenges from the onset, but today those hurdles have spawned many new beginnings for the high-ranking educational institution.
“We’re always motivated by doing the right thing for students and staff,” he begins.
“Our staff responded magnificently to the pandemic, with teaching moving online until the beginning of this year when we introduced a more hybrid way of teaching and during that time we had many achievements.”
Among those achievements were surging industry rankings and awards.
Ulster University was shortlisted in a small pool of five (out of 135) UK Universities for the most prestigious accolade in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide: the ‘University of the Year’.
It was also included in the top 50 universities for the first time in the Complete University Guide (CUG) 2022 League Table. After a third successive rise in these rankings, Ulster University rose 16 places from 60th (2021) to 44th (2022) out of 130 UK universities. This is the highest rank the University has achieved in the Guide’s 15-year history.
It was also placed second in the UK for postgraduate researcher satisfaction in the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES 2021). The national benchmarking exercise surveyed postgraduate research students from 89 universities across the UK about their postgraduate research experience.
“We’re not an institution that chases accolades,” Professor Bartholomew says.
“We are focused on enhancing the experience we provide and if we do well, we say thank you and we’ll take it. We’ll continue to do the best we can for staff and students and as long as we continue to do the right thing, we’ll be in a good place.”
Behind the scenes that commitment to doing the best they can is evident with the Magee, Coleraine and Belfast campuses undergoing significant investments while Ulster University’s course portfolio’s expansion is garnering praise.
A new chapter was marked at the Magee Campus in Derry-Londonderry when the newly refurbished building welcomed the very first 70 students to its new School of Medicine.
“We had a full uptake for that course. What we’re trying to do there is take a cohort of students that will continue to work and stay in the North West,” says Professor Bartholomew.
Twenty eight students in the course are from ROI, with three international students, two from England, and the rest from NI. “That’s an outstanding achievement,” he adds.
The Magee Campus’ new medical school will add to the University’s reputation for excellence in life sciences and the City Deals projects in the North West will attract funding to build on the campus’ interdisciplinary research prowess and in turn deliver economic benefits for the region.
Ulster University is also relocating its undergraduate health sciences provision from Jordanstown to Magee, while a new paramedic degree has also started on the campus.
“We’re really building a hub in the North West for health sciences but we also have fantastic capability in data analytics too and we’ve recently opened an £11m teaching block to ensure that campus continues to have the highest levels of student satisfaction,” he says.
Most of the university’s Jordanstown Campus’ courses will relocate in due course, with the bulk of them heading to the new Belfast campus.
That facility opened this term and will return a £1.4bn contribution to the NI economy.
“Teaching began on the new campus this academic year and is catalysing and reimagining of the teaching and learning experiences that are deployed across all of our campuses, accelerating innovation in how we do things.”
This campus will help bring focus to the Belfast Regional City Deals projects, including the Screen and Media Innovation Lab (SMIL), which will help to maximise the benefits of this sector for the Belfast Region, and beyond, by providing a dedicated physical infrastructure to support the rapidly expanding activity in virtual video and film production.
“There will be a lot of research and innovation which will have a direct impact on industry,” says Professor Bartholomew.
Meanwhile the university’s Jordanstown campus is still the focus of many programmes until they move to their new locations.
“Going forward, we will still retain facilities there, but with a much smaller footprint.”
This includes the more practical facilities, including expansive outdoor spaces, for sports-discipline students and for the provision of sports facilities for the wider student body, while the rest of the site “will become an asset over time that we will sell in due course.”
Meanwhile the Coleraine campus will retain its identity as a UNESCO centre through the School of Education, “being an internationally
Ulster University Vice Chancellor, Professor Paul Bartholomew.
renowned leading voice in education” with “outstanding provision in biosciences, pharmacy and optometry”.
And thanks to investment in a new digital learning degree and Marine Science degree, the Coleraine campus will continue in its new chapter.
Professor Bartholomew says his goal is to consolidate Ulster University’s identity as a regional institution that works with industry and creates the best in future talent while delivering outstanding learning experiences for students and working experiences for staff.
He continues: “We are Northern Ireland’s regional university and that’s our distinctive characteristic – we’re a multi campus university that is committed to our regional footprint and the impact it has on the communities in which we operate and the wider society of Northern Ireland as a whole.
“We demonstrate good value with a benefit to cost ratio of 7:1 and we remain committed to the people-centric excellence that places us in the top quartile of universities in the UK as well as continuing to engage with business partners.
“We also want to work with schools to attract more students to stay and study in Northern Ireland. We are aware two out of three students who study outside of NI don’t come back and although we are doing more to lower that figure, we’re still seeing around 3,000 students going across the water yearly.”
He continues: “I would conclude that all graduates of Ulster University have boosted value to give to any employer. We prioritise employability; we’re constantly engaging with employers and using our integrated curriculum design framework to produce graduates who are change-makers, world class thinkers and doers. While studying at Ulster students acquire the skills and knowledge to make an immediate and tangible impact wherever they work. And that’s evidenced in the continued demand for our students from our partnership organisations like PwC, Randox and FinTru – to name just a few.
“We also have one eye on the economy and what industry needs, including STEM talent, but we don’t get too blindsided by just responding to what the economy of the moment needs. Our university has to have an eye on the economy of the future, taking a broader view, and that means not only being responsive to the now, it means investing across the piece – investing in sustainable futures for all.”
And he adds, online learning, regardless of its role and importance during Covid-19 will not replace a full-time educational model at the university’s campuses.
“Although there are certainly some lessons that have been learned in how to design teaching provision during the pandemic and even though my own career is based in that area – my research area is computer supported collaborative learning – I firmly believe that learning is a social activity that is best enacted within a face-to-face environment.
“That’s not to say the skills and staff development over this period isn’t something we would seek to make best use of but it’s not my agenda to move to a hybrid model. We will of course continue to augment classes with technology as it make sense for students and staff but I believe it is important to create communities of learning and we’re taking steps to make it life-enriching for students.
“It’s not just about what happens in the classroom: it’s important that people can come out of lessons and be excited and talk about what they’re learning, participate in the clubs, the night life and be part of the regions they study in. That’s why we continue to invest in our buildings and our communities.”
