Dr Ruth Windscheffel

Teaching

I lead Teaching and Learning Enhancement (TLE), a small, central team whose members work across all York St John's schools, collaborating with our academics and professional partners on a wide range of educational projects and initiatives.

My team manage the University’s two Advance HE-accredited routes to professional recognition against the Professional Standards Framework for Teaching and Supporting Learning in Higher Education (HEA Fellowship). These are open to all staff who teach and / or support learning. We also offer a wide-ranging annual continuing professional development (CPD) programme – including the annual 'Talk about Teaching' conference - to support the University's Learning, Teaching and Student Experience (LTSE) strategy and individual colleagues’ career development. I design and run staff development sessions in areas of my own expertise and in collaboration with other colleagues across the institution.

I work closely with the Pro Vice Chancellor: Education to develop and manage our annual LTSE action plans and on a range of strategic educational initiatives. I play an active part in ensuring we deliver high-quality institutional submissions for regulators and charter-mark awarding bodies (Teaching Excellence Framework, Access and Participation Plan, Race Equality Charter, etc.). I am Executive Officer for the University’s Education Committee, co-chair our Student Partnership Plus Strategic Steering Group and convene our Student Surveys Working Group. I mentor applicants, facilitate Action Learning Sets and review submissions on our Fellowship programmes and provide advice, support and arrange mentoring for those considering academic promotion. I am also co-chair of the YSJ Parents’ and Carers’ Staff Network.

I am a Senior Fellow of the HEA, and an alumna of Advance HE’s Aurora leadership programme for women. I am a staff Wellbeing Champion and a trained Mental Health First Aider.

Research

I have been an active researcher since 1999 and have an internationally recognised research profile as an historian of Modern Britain, having published a monograph, an edited collection, numerous highly rated journal articles and book chapters, and shared my research widely at conferences and events in the UK, Europe and the USA. I held successive research fellowships in History and Theology at the University of Oxford between 2004 and 2011, and was appointed Honorary Research Associate by the Department of History at the Open University for the period 2015-18. I was elected as Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2014 in recognition of my publication record and other significant contributions to the discipline.

My specialist work on nineteenth and twentieth-century cultures of literacy, reading, libraries, education and politics aligns closely with my research and scholarship in Higher Education pedagogy and practice. I am particularly interested in the theory and practice of personal academic tutoring; assessment and feedback; the role of hidden curricula in higher education institutions; inclusive, compassionate and contemplative pedagogies and practice; academic identity formation; and the experiences of women in UK HE.
I am an experienced masters and doctoral supervisor in History and Higher Education Academic Practice. I currently supervise candidates on Stage Two of our Doctor of Education professional doctorate programme.

Publications and conferences

Books, monographs and edited collections

Quinault, R., Swift, R. and Windscheffel, R.C. (eds) (2012) William Gladstone: new studies and perspectives, Ashgate. [11 citations – Google Scholar; 3 citations – Scopus]

Windscheffel, R.C. (2008) Reading Gladstone, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan. [30 citations – Google Scholar]

Book chapters

Windscheffel, R.C. (2022) ‘Exploring the values of personal tutoring via a level 7 academic practice module’ in Lochtie, D., Stork, A., and Walker, B.W. (eds) (2022) The Higher Education Personal Tutor’s and Advisor’s Companion: translating theory into practice to improve student success. Critical Publishing, Case Study 22.

Windscheffel, R.C. (2021) ‘Less is more: scaffolding learning to support individual success through a vibrant community of practice’ in Cleaver, E. and McLinden, M. (2021) A Launch Pad for Future Success: Using Outcomes-based Approaches to Scaffold the Pandemic Year and Build for the Future. QAA. Available online at: https://lnkd.in/dnHgZNZ

Windscheffel, R.C. (2018) 'Can we please keep talking…? The importance of sustaining inclusive dialogue about race and ethnicity in teaching and learning' in Boncori, I. (ed.), Race, Ethnicity and Inclusion: The University of Essex Reader, Naples: Editoriale Scientifica, pp. 183-204.

Windscheffel, R.C. (2017) ‘The Jezreelites and their World, 1875-1922’ in Shaw, J. (ed.) The History of a Modern Millennial Movement: The Southcottians, I.B. Tauris, 2017, pp. 125-149. [1 citation – Google Scholar]

Windscheffel, R.C. (2012) ‘Introduction’ in Quinault, R., Swift, R. and Windscheffel, R.C. (eds) William Gladstone: new studies and perspectives, Ashgate., pp. 1-12.

Windscheffel, R.C. (2007) ‘Politics, Portraiture, & Power: reassessing the public image of William Ewart Gladstone’ in McCormack, M. (ed.), Public Men: masculinity and politics in modern Britain, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 93-122. [18 citations – Google Scholar]

Journal articles

Windscheffel, R.C. (2019) ‘Case study on posters and group work: diversifying assessment on an MA in Academic Practice’, Educational Developments, Volume 20, Number 1, 13-16. [4 citations – Google Scholar]

Windscheffel, R.C. (2012) ‘Dancing to the Music of Time: Modernity, Secularization, and Incarnation’, Nineteenth-Century Prose, Volume 39, Numbers 1 and 2 (Spring / Fall), 49-57. [1 citation – Scopus]

Windscheffel, R.C. (2007) ‘Gladstone & Scott: family, identity, and nation’, Scottish Historical Review, Volume 86.1, Number 221 (April), 69-95. [8 citations – Google Scholar; 8 citations – Scopus]

Windscheffel, R.C. (2006) ‘Politics, Religion, & Text: W. E. Gladstone & spiritualism’, Journal of Victorian Culture, Volume 11.1 (Spring), 1-29. [9 citations – Google Scholar; 3 citations – Scopus]

Windscheffel, R.C. (2004) ‘Gladstone, Tennyson & History: 1886 & all that’, Tennyson Research Bulletin, Volume 8, Number 3 (November), 151-165. [Published as Ruth Clayton] [1 citation – Google Scholar]

Windscheffel, R. C. (2003) ‘Masses or Classes?: The Question of Community in the Foundation of Gladstone's Library’, Library History, Volume 19, Issue 3 (November), 163-172. [Published as Ruth Clayton] [3 citations – Google Scholar]

Windscheffel, R.C. (2001) ‘W. E. Gladstone: an annotation key’, Notes & Queries, Volume 48, Number 2 (June), 140-143. [Published as Ruth Clayton] [7 citations – Google Scholar]

Book reviews

Windscheffel, R. C. (2020) ‘Mary Gladstone and the Victorian Salon (P. Weliver) and Evolution and Victorian Musical Culture’ (B. Zon), Victorian Studies Volume 62, Number 3, 526-528.

Windscheffel, R. C. (2008) ‘The English Cult of Literature: devoted readers, 1774-1880 (W. McKelvy)’, Victorians Institute Journal Volume 36, 335-339.

Windscheffel, R. C. (2007) ‘Gladstone and Dante: Victorian Statesman, Medieval Poet (A. Isba)’ The English Historical Review, Volume CXXII, Number 498 (September), 1101-1103.

Windscheffel, R. C. (2007) ‘Slumming: Sexual and Social Politics in Victorian London (S. Koven)’, The English Historical Review, Volume CXXII, Number 495 (February), 272-274. [2 citations – Google Scholar]

Broadcast

‘Aged Premiers’, BBC Radio 4,The Long View, presented by Jonathan Freedland, produced by Harry Parker (28 minutes), 27 December 2023. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001trq3 

Conference and seminar presentations (selected)

2024 - ‘The City University’s Academic Wives’ Association: Women, power and sociability in the making of a new university for London, 1967-87’, Women and Worlds of Learning: an interdisciplinary conference focused on the place of women within higher and further education, The University of Oxford (12-13 April) (Peer-reviewed panel paper)

2020 - ‘The teacher training context’, New approaches to the teacher training of doctoral researchers, London, Society for Researching Higher Education (SRHE) (Friday 24 January) (Invited paper)

2019 - ‘An exploration of how postgraduate research students who teach experience the research and teaching nexus at a UK university’, Higher Education Conference: Exploring the research-teaching-praxis nexus [HEC2019], Amsterdam (28-29 October) (Peer-reviewed panel paper)

2019 - ‘How do we successfully champion an “integrated academic practice” model through the development of postgraduate/early career researchers?’, REDS Conference 2019: Identity, Agency, and Choice – personal approaches to researcher development [REDS2019] (18 October) (Peer-reviewed panel paper)

2019 - ‘Promoting success in group work on an academic practice MA’, The Tenth annual Learning at City Conference 2019: Promoting Student Success [Learning@City] (3 July) (Peer-reviewed panel paper)

2017 - ‘Can we have us on here? Recognising collaborative practice in professional development frameworks: possibilities and problems’, SEDA Conference, Cardiff (16-18 November) (Peer-reviewed paper)

2017 - ‘Engaging Students with Criteria of Assessment’, University of Essex Teaching and Learning Conference, Colchester, UK, 12-13 January (Plenary Conference Presentation)

2016 - ‘Out of the mouths of babes: Child preaching and print media in late-nineteenth-century sectarian practice’, ‘Sight, Sound and Text in the History of Education’, History of Education Society/ANZHES Conference, Abbey Hotel, Malvern, UK, 18-20 November (Conference Paper refereed)

2016 - ‘“Are you talking to me?” Personalising learning to enhance the student experience’, Academic Development Workshop Programme, University of Essex, 14 April (Workshop facilitator; programme organiser)

2016 - ‘Teaching First-Year Students’, University of Essex Teaching and Learning Conference, Colchester, UK, 7-8 January (Plenary Conference Presentation)

2011 - ‘“There is great rebellion in this state against ye”! The Jezreelite Mission to the American Midwest in the 1880s’, ‘Christianity and Migrations’, Spring Meeting of the American Society of Church History, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, 7-10 April (Conference Paper refereed)

2009 - ‘A Question of Humanity? Gladstone, Armenia, and Islam’, ‘Gladstone 200 Festival’, Gladstone’s Library, St Deiniol’s, Hawarden, 12 September (Invited Public Lecture)

2009 - ‘Images of Gladstone’, ‘Gladstone Bicentenary International Conference’, University of Chester, 5-8 July (Invited Keynote Lecture)

2009 - ‘Embodying the ‘Chosen Handmaid of the Lord to finish His work’: Esther Jezreel and the New Southcottian Woman, 1875-1888’, ‘“The Bridegroom cometh!”: Prophets and prophecy in the long eighteenth century’, Nottingham Trent University, 24 June (Conference Paper refereed)

2009 - ‘Gladstone and the Politician as Reader’, ‘Reading in the Age of Gladstone’, University of Liverpool, 23-25 January (Conference Paper refereed)

Professional activities

I am engaged in a wide range of professional activities both within and outwith York St John University. Many of these are integral to my educational work detailed above.

Here is a selected list of some of the other professional work I do and the positions I currently hold:

• 2024 - Advance HE, Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) assessor
• 2023 - Converge, Strategic Advisory Group Member
• 2022 - Cathedral Universities Learning and Teaching Network, Co-founder and co-chair
• 2022 - Heads of Education Development Group (HEDG), Member / institutional representative
• 2021 - The University of Liverpool, External Examiner (MA Academic Practice)
• 2020 - UK Advising and Tutoring (UKAT), Advisory Board Member and institutional member
• 2016 - The Murray Bequest, Birkbeck, University of London, Trustee
• 2006 - Gladstone’s Library (Hawarden), Life Fellow