Joanna Royle (@RoyleJoanna) joined the team in #PGRTowers as Researcher Development Adviser when there was a massive change to university life (otherwise known as March 2020): a lockdown and swift shift to working at home, online, for staff, students, and PGRs. And as she tried to meet colleagues and get accustomed to her new role, she took on the challenge of leading PGR@Home, bringing together experts from across the university to develop resources for PGRs. But who is she? What brought her to the role? And what effect will her work have on PGRs?

I (Danielle, PGR Office Intern) sat down to interview Joanna, get to the bottom of these questions, and introduce her to my fellow PGRs (some of whom have already met her through events like the PGR@Home Friday Chat Cafes). The interview has been formatted to be blog-friendly, including paraphrasing, so any direct quotes are in quotation marks.

Who is Joanna, outside of work?

‘When I’m not banging the training and development drum, I can be found hiking in the Kilpatrick hills and beyond. I’m on my bike a lot. About a decade ago, I cycled Land’s End to John o’ Groats: slowly but with perseverance! I go to a lot of live music gigs, or at least I do when it’s not shut down. Usually once or twice a week, I will be out at one of the music venues in Glasgow, often one of the smaller ones. I’m a passionate attender of Celtic Connections every year, and I’m really hoping that it’s going to be on in 2021.’

‘When I can’t be out and about on a bicycle or at a gig, I quite enjoy doing crochet. I’m not very good at it, but I enjoy making large, multi-coloured, woolly things for friends and loved ones…. I read a lot (don’t we all?). I mostly read for fun now. I haven’t read much history in recent years, although I am in fact reading a book that one of my old PhD colleagues recently published on the Normans.’

I also have an ‘elderly and grumpy cat called Eleanor, who was named after Eleanor of Aquitaine, and has grown up to have exactly the same overbearing personality, and who basically runs our household.’

What was your journey to joining #PGRTowers?

‘At 18, when I was applying to university, I desperately wanted to come to Scotland. I had this super-romantic idea of the Scottish Highlands and the heather and the hills and the music: which in all honesty, I’ve never got over! The day I visited Glasgow Uni actually started off quite inauspiciously: it was February and raining. I was missing a party, and our beautiful university was covered in scaffolding! But I met Dr Marilyn Dunn - who years later became my PhD supervisor - who blew me away with her passion for history and for her students. I came away knowing this is where I wanted to study, and with a model of the kind of passionate, enthusiastic educator I wanted to become.’

I did all my History degrees at UofG, including a PhD on medieval religious women. Then I started teaching at Glasgow International College (a UofG partner), where ‘international students come to do a foundation year preparing them to go on to their undergraduate or postgraduate degree.’

‘I’ve spent the last few years working in skills development’ and a few years working as a learning technologist. I’ve been ‘particularly interested in how to move academic and professional development to online and blended formats which allow for more self-paced learning, better accessible learning, more ways of accessing learning channels…I also completed a Masters in Higher Education Practice, with a particular interest in teaching excellence.’

That’s what I bring to the role: ‘a background in professional development, a background in learning technology, and a particular interest in what makes great training.’

How was it to start your position as the government and universities responded more strictly to the pandemic?

‘I think in a funny way, for me, it came with…an advantage. Because when you start a new job normally, everybody else knows what they’re doing, and you don’t know what’s going on. Whereas I started the day of lockdown, so nobody knew what was going on. And I felt almost in a community of peers, of everybody trying to find new ways of working, new ways of supporting our PGRs, and new ways of adapting what we’ve got.’

But on the other hand: ‘I don’t feel like I’ve been able to build the quality of relationships with my colleagues as I would’ve done in an office setting where you’d have a little bit of chat and banter about what you did at the weekend or a funny thing that you saw online.’ It’s also not necessarily ‘fun’ to work from home, ‘although I’m really lucky because we do have an office in our flat and I’ve still got a proper desk from when I was a PGR myself’.

What are you most excited for?

Covid-19 has accelerated, and made necessary, the implementation of something I was already excited to bring to researcher development. I’m looking forward to ‘varying the delivery formats that we have for our workshops to make more use of technology-enhanced learning, to make them more accessible, and engaging.’ This includes bringing workshops and other training into quality online formats.

Of course some of the development opportunities we offer just simply cannot be moved online. They depend on that face-to-face environment. I’m making a judgement call on where we can provide a quality product online and where we can’t. I think it’s something that’s going to take quite a lot of critical thinking and raw honesty.’

What are the biggest challenges?

My answer could be the same as what I’m most excited for!

More seriously: ‘I don’t want PGRs to be coming to any of our competitions, workshops, residentials, or anything else because they feel they have to, because they feel it’s hoop-jumping. I want them to come because those things are great and valuable and helping them to develop as scholars and in their professional skills for the future, not just to tick a box. The challenge lies in delivering on this ambitious goal’.

Outside of the behind-the-scenes training development, how can PGRs expect to see you involved in the community?

‘What I loved most about my last role was the time that I spent with students in the classroom or in one-to-one tutorials, and I don’t want to lose that from my current role…As I’m rethinking the program we deliver, I’m also thinking about how to fit in spaces where I am part of the facilitation team. I’d like PGRs to know my name and my face, to feel like I’m someone they can trust, someone they can come to and ask questions and offer ideas for more development…I’m thinking through ways that I will be a person that they know as involved in developing their skills, not simply administrating somebody else doing that’.

For example, PGR@Home! The Friday Chat Cafes ‘have been just the most wonderful way to touch base with PGRs. I’ve absolutely loved doing them. I’ve loved meeting the people and starting to put faces to names and starting to create some spaces where we can share experiences and feedback and ideas on various development issues. That’s something I’d like to continue. I don’t know if they’ll continue in the same format, but that might be one of the possible routes I take to being a real face in people’s lives’.

Last week, we published ‘Our Approach to Researcher Development This Coming Year (and How You Can Help)’, which more thoroughly considers the question of what researcher development will look like in the coming academic year. One important part of putting the resources, workshops, webinars, etc. together is the ideas of, feedback from, and concerns of UofG PGRs (such as topics to cover that you haven’t seen offered, aspects of PGR life you are struggling with, or things that have worked/not worked in virtual workshops/webinars). To get in touch about these, you can email Elizabeth Adams or Joanna Royle or tweet them (@researchdreams and @RoyleJoanna) to share your ideas.

You can also get in touch anonymously through this (short) survey, which also includes questions about interest in PGR Community events (such as alternatives to the usual in-person events like the PGR Bake-Off).