We are pleased to have recently welcomed two new Development Consultants to the sparqs core staff team, Gloria Laurini and Patrycja Mitrut. Between them they bring a great balance of both experience and knowledge, and we look forward to working with them both.
Gloria joined us on 6th September, on secondment from Fife College Students' Association, from which she brings a hugely valuable amount of experience and expertise. She is currently completing her MA in Student Engagement in Higher Education at the University of Winchester and is a real advocate of our work, having worked with sparqs on a variety of projects over the last few years in her role at Fife.
Patrycja joined us on 11th October, from The University of Edinburgh, where she co-ordinated delivery of postgraduate courses at the College of Medicine and Vet Medicine. She is currently finishing her MSc in Digital Education, bringing with her valuable expertise which will complement the existing strengths of our team.
Both Gloria and Patrycja were involved in our annual 3-day Associate Trainer event at the end of August, and joined us at a recent planning day in September, so they have both hit the ground running! Their bios can be found on our staff page and their main work areas and responsibilities will be established over the coming weeks and months.
Now that Gloria and Patrycja are in post, we have updated our institutional contact list, so some of you may now have a new sparqs' contact. Gloria may already have been in touch if she is your new contact, and Patrycja will be in touch in due course if she is your contact, as she gradually takes over her allocated institutions over the coming weeks. And, of course, your previous sparqs' contact will also be on hand during the transition period.
In other team news, we now have two additional Associate Trainers in the team, Alan Buchan and Nurina Sharmin. Alan and Nurina worked with us last year to deliver sparqs' Course Rep Training, while employed as Student Team Members with Education Scotland. While college reviews were on hold during the pandemic, we were delighted to take up the opportunity to have them join our trainer team while Education Scotland had the spare capacity. Our thanks to Education Scotland for the arrangement, which we found extremely useful as we embarked on online delivery of our CRT. We are delighted that Alan and Nurina have now officially joined the sparqs' team, while also still working as Student Team Members. They will continue to deliver Course Rep Training in the coming year and their bios can be found on our staff page, alongside the rest of our fantastic Associate Trainer team.
We are delighted to have Gloria, Patrycja, Alan and Nurina in the team and know that sector colleagues will join us in extending a warm welcome to them all.
