Our vision and educational priorities
“Our approach is one which puts community at its heart. We envisage a supportive community as a basis for challenging students to achieve their full potential, and for this potential to be realised in ways that make a positive social impact."
- Peter Miskell and Elizabeth McCrum, Pro-Vice-Chancellors (Education and Student Experience)
As a university, we have a straightforward purpose: to foster communities of learning in which staff and students work together to develop knowledge, ideas, and skills that serve the needs of wider society. Excellence in teaching is central to such a purpose, and at the University of Reading this is reflected in our core educational priority areas:
- to be a genuinely caring and inclusive community of learning
We take it as self-evident that learning requires openness to new ideas and to different ways of thinking about and experiencing the world. We aspire to create an environment that respects and supports the needs of individual learners from all backgrounds and in doing so enriches the wider collective student experience. For us, a diverse and inclusive learning community is at the very core of what it means to be a university.
- to provide an excellent learning experience
We strive for excellence in the quality of our teaching and the quality of our students’ work. Learning opportunities, assessment and feedback are carefully designed to provide the scaffolding that students need to be challenged and achieve their full potential.
- to ensure that learning is impactful
We support our students to get the maximum impact from their studies, to benefit from their learning in a way that advances their future professional careers. Impactful learning also benefits wider society. We work with employer organisations to address local skills gaps and equip graduates with the tools to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing our societies – sustainability, diversity and inequality.
