Curriculum scholars: Embedding learning and teaching scholarship in first year academic identities

This practice report details an institutional innovation designed to enhance academic capacities for curriculum development, with a particular focus on the first year experience (FYE). The authors discuss the appointment of “Curriculum Scholars” in each of the faculties at James Cook University. This innovation can be seen as an example of third generation responses to the challenges of the first year in higher education (FYHE) (Kift, Nelson & Clarke, 2010). The report discusses the question of academic identity and the tension between a discipline-specific identity and identification with the scholarship of teaching and learning. The authors argue that this tension may have significant implications for the success of third generation approaches to the FYE. This tension is the focus of a multi-method research project being developed by the authors. The autoethnographical dimension of this project is described, inviting participants to reflect on their own journeys as academics engaged in learning and teaching.