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Lia Blaj-Ward

Associate Professor

School of Arts & Humanities

Staff Group(s)
Arts and Humanities

Role

Dr Lia Blaj-Ward (SFHEA) designs and facilitates academic literacy provision for international students in the School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment and the School of Art and Design.

Lia supports NTU's in-house Advance HE professional recognition scheme through mentoring colleagues and assessing applications. She also mentors colleagues on the Advance HE Aurora programme (see a reflective piece on her experience as an Aurora mentor here).

Lia contributes to NTU's TILT through reviewing funding applications and co-chairing, with Dr Rose Gann, a TILT Practice and Scholarship Group focused on advancing recognition for learning, teaching and scholarship careers in higher education. Lia recently benefited from TILT sabbatical funding for two projects (with Charlie Pratley, Sarah Johnson, Andy Love, Aneka Bartley and Paul Havelin), focused on student-staff co-creation of life-relevant learning resources and experiences. A number of published outputs from the projects are forthcoming.

Currently, Lia co-supervises one EdD student (Faith Nightingale).

In 2021 Lia received a Vice-Chancellor's Teaching Award.

Research areas

Lia's research and publications focus on academic literacy and practice in higher education.

External activity

Lia is an assessor for the BALEAP Accreditation Scheme and currently the accreditation scheme Chair (2022-2025). She set up and coordinated BALEAP's funding scheme for 2020 (Narratives of Innovation and Resilience) and the 2019 Collaborative Practice initiative. Previously, Lia held various roles on the BALEAP Executive Committee (most recently Treasurer, April 2017 - April 2020).

Lia peer reviews book proposals and journal article manuscripts and is Associate Editor for Higher Education Research and Development (https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/cher20).

Lia was external examiner for Coventry University's MA in Academic Writing Development and Research (2017-2021).

Since  2019 Lia has designed and facilitated bespoke week-long work experience programmes for pre-18 students from a local girls' school (see account by 2020 participant here).

Sponsors and collaborators

Lia has led and completed projects funded internally by NTU TILT and externally by BALEAP.

SDGs

The main UN Sustainable Development Goals which inform Lia's work are: 4 Quality education, 5 Gender equality, 13 Climate change, and 17 Partnership for the goals.

4 - Quality Education Badge 5 - Gender Equality Badge 13 - Climate Action Badge 17 - Partnerships For The Goals Badge