Role requirements in academic recruitment for Construction and Engineering

ABSTRACT

Two ongoing and recurrent debates in the employment of academic staff are (1) how much industry experience should faculty staff have? and (2) what priority is given to research, teaching or both? Such debates take place worldwide and are particularly relevant to vocational subject areas. Through a statistical analysis of circa 200 job adverts for lecturer / assistant professor, senior lecturer / associate professor, and professor / full professor positions in Construction and Engineering posts in the UK, this paper investigates the essential and desirable attributes required for ‘research’, ‘teaching’ and ‘overall requirements’. The analysis shows institutions unmistakably focus on, and coherently recruit for research, but demonstrate very little reasoned approach to recruiting for teaching. Indeed, findings identify ‘administration’ as the key teaching priority. Further empirical analysis demonstrates no significant difference in recruitment strategy before and after the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework, despite its aim to put teaching excellence to the fore.

KEYWORDS:

• Construction and Engineering
• recruitment
• research
• teaching
• employment attributes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We note that in the UK there have been recent moves by many HE institutions to adopt US terminology for roles (e.g. associate professor instead of senior lecturer) and thus at this time of transition such titles are used interchangeably or in tandem by institutions. We note this here but for ease of reading we use the former terms of lecturer, senior lecturer and professor subsequently in the paper.

2 Here ‘Administration’ is considered under teaching attributes because this is how it appeared in the job attributes; we interpret the term ‘administration’ to relate to those administrative tasks related to the activity of teaching such as organising materials for online platforms, formatting examinations, as well as responsibilities such as being year co-ordinators, membership of committees and dealing with admissions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nick Pilcher

Nick Pilcher is a lecturer in The Business School at Edinburgh Napier University. He is the Programme leader for the M.Sc. in intercultural Business Communication and teaches academic writing in subjects. His research interests centre around education, language and qualitative research methods. He has published and contributed to work published in journals such as Qualitative Research, Psychology of Music, the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education and the International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics.

Laurent Galbrun

Laurent Galbrun is an Assistant Professor in Acoustics in the School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh (UK). His expertise covers the fields of building acoustics, environmental noise and soundscapes. He is Programme Director for the Graduate Apprenticeship in Civil Engineering at Heriot-Watt University. Professionally, he is a Member of the Institute of Acoustics (MIOA) and of the Acoustical Society of America (MASA), as well as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). He has won several teaching and learning prizes, including the Heriot-Wat University Graduate's Teaching Award in 2013 and 2017.

Nigel Craig

Nigel Craig is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader in Construction Management in the School of Engineering and Built Environment at Glasgow Caledonian University. Teaching interests include construction technology, construction process management, construction engineering and research methodology. Research interests focus on quality, cost/finance, IT, plagiarism and building surveying. He has published in journals such as Structural Survey: Building Pathology, International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis and Records Management

Mike Murray

Mike Murray is a teaching fellow in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Strathclyde. Mike is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and was awarded best Teacher in the Faculty of Engineering (2014) and Most Innovative University Teacher (2018) at the University Teaching Excellence Awards. He has contributed to work in journals such as Teaching in Higher Education, Higher Education Pedagogies, and Industry and Higher Education.

Alan M. Forster

Alan Forster is Associate Professor in the School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society at Heriot-Watt University. He is the programme leader for the M.Sc. in Building Conservation and has 10 years industrial experience in Building Surveying and building conservation practice. His research investigates traditional and low-carbon building materials; building resilience to climate change; building conservation; and building survey and HBIM. He has published extensively and has attained research grants from major funding councils, including, EPSRC, RAE, RSE & Innovate UK. Professionally, he is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Builders (FCIOB), the Chartered Association of Building Engineers (FCABE), the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and is also a full member of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC). He has won several teaching and learning prizes, including the Heriot-Watt University Graduate's Teaching Award in 2010.

Stuart Tennant

Stuart Tennant is a lecturer in the School of Computing, Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Building (MCIOB) and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) Teaching interests include, project management, construction management, construction technology and industrial workplace learning. Research interests focus on construction supply chain management, procurement, team working in the built environment and educational studies. Stuart has published in journals such as Building Research & Information (BRI), Construction Management and Economics (CME) and Teaching in Higher Education.