Cross-Faculty programmes have often been challenging to implement at BU which has meant many great ideas for new courses have not come to fruition. To address this issue, a group of stakeholders from the Faculties and Professional Services have worked together to fix the problematic areas which has now provided the flexibility for cross-Faculty collaboration to occur.
I am delighted to share with you that we have a Cross Faculty Programme Manual which sets out the principles of how such programmes will operate, having now eradicated the most common issues. These include addressing problems around:
- Receiving income from students (Faculties will now receive income for the unit they supply)
- Staffing resource (agreed staffing principles are in place including the use of Part Time Hourly Paid if a staff member can no longer resource a unit)
- Responsibilities for quality assurance (agreed principles around responsibilities for unit QA are now in place).
I hope this news inspires you to go ahead and explore the cross-Faculty programmes you may have been thinking of developing. If you would like support in linking with another Faculty to develop your idea or assistance with how your programme could operate, the Fusion Curriculum Steering Group can assist you with this. The group has representatives from all Faculties and relevant Professional Services and aims to help BU in developing innovative cross-Faculty Fusion focussed programmes. Please do get in touch with Iain MacRury (Chair) to find out more.
