Dr Nick Gee
Provost and Chief Academic Officer
MA (Oxon) PGCE EdD
Dr Nick Gee serves as the Provost and Chief Academic Officer, providing strategic leadership and oversight of the University’s academic provision. Nick is responsible for academic portfolio delivery and innovation, ensuing alignment with our Mission to serve the common good by advancing social and economic prosperity through excellence in teaching, research and knowledge exchange.
Since joining the University in 2015, Nick has held several senior leadership roles including Head of School, Dean of Faculty and Executive Dean, with a primary focus upon providing an outstanding student experience. Alongside his management responsibilities, Nick’s research interests include outdoor learning, subject knowledge, and evaluation within higher education, and he has authored over 70 scholarly/academic journal articles. Nick also has significant international experience within HE, including leadership of British Council-funded projects and consultancy on behalf of the UK Department for International Trade and the Thai Ministry of Education. He previously worked at the University of East Anglia for over 12 years, latterly as Associate Dean within the Faculty of Social Sciences.
Nick currently leads the academic portfolio innovation sub-strategy to create agile, distinctive and coherent provision, responsive to local and regional skills needs, and structured around strategically-focused routes into the education, nursing/allied health, professional business services and applied humanities professions. This approach ensures we build upon our strengths to deliver person-centred learning, whilst also widening access and meeting our commitment to social purpose, digital transformation and sustainable development.
Nick has supervised doctoral students to completion in various fields including outdoor learning, geography education, educational leadership and mentoring. In addition to doctoral supervision, he also supervises dissertations and provides specialist input to several undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
Much of Nick’s research has focused on the social impact of outdoor learning, considering individual participants and group dynamics. He has also published research on the motivations and strategies adopted by students completing course evaluations, the conceptions of subject knowledge in Geography and how subject departments influence ITE placement experiences. Additionally, Nick has undertaken funded research into Young People who are NEET in West Norfolk (Co-investigator) and on Global citizenship provision within ITE (Principal investigator). He is a peer reviewer for journals including the Cambridge Journal of Education, Higher Education Research and Development, the Journal of Further & Higher Education, the Journal of Experiential Education, and the Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning.
Gee, N., Parrish, A. & Puttick, S. (2023) Towards a typology of secondary school subject departments. Teacher Development, 23/5, 563 - 579. DOI:10.1080/13664530.2023.2258106
Puttick, S. & Gee, N. (2020) Thriving Subject Departments. In S. Capel, J. Lawrence, M. Leask & S. Younie (eds.), Thriving and Surviving: the essential companion, Routledge.
Kampouri, S., Montgomery, A., Howell, E. & Gee, N. (2019) How does social constructivism as displayed in contemporary educational settings compare with the Grossetestian view of the development of human knowledge. In J. Cunningham & S. Puttick (eds.), Robert Grosseteste and Theories of Education: The Ordered Human, Routledge.
Gee, N., Mullan, J., Quickfall, A. & Puttick, S. (2019) Geography. In D Pope (ed), Understanding Subject Knowledge for Primary Teaching, Sage.
Gee, N. (2019) Contested perspectives on the social impacts of a residential fieldtrip. Journal of Experiential Education, 42/4, 321 – 335. DOI:10.1177/1053825919860208
Puttick, S., Paramore, J. & Gee, N. (2018) What ‘geography’ doesn’t (but ought to) mean to primary trainee teachers in England. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 27/2, 165-178 DOI: 10.1080/10382046.2017.1321304
Gee, N. (2017) A study of student completion strategies in a Likert-type course evaluation survey. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 41/3, 340-350 DOI: 10.1080/0309877X.2015.1100717
Gee, N. (2015) The Residential Fieldtrip: An example of the impact of outdoor learning on social relationships. In M. Bryant (ed), Social Relationships and Friendships: Perceptions, Influences on Human Development and Psychological Effects, Hauppauge NY, Nova Publishers
Gee, N. (2015) Creating a temporary community? An ethnographic study of a residential fieldtrip. Journal of Adventure Education & Outdoor Learning. 15/2, 95-109
Gee, N. (2015) Microclimates, Wideworld GCSE Geography Review 27/1
Gee, N. (2015) Tourism: honeypot surveys, Wideworld GCSE Geography Review 26/4
Gee, N. (2015) Coastal Management, Wideworld GCSE Geography Review 26/3
2020 Educational opportunities in the UK. International Research Collaboration Cell Guest Lecture, Galgotias University, Uttar Pradesh, India
2020 Studying abroad; staying ahead in contemporary times. International Guest Lecture Series, Manav Rachna University, Faridabad, India
2018 Recontextualising school subject content. South East Asia Teachers’ Professional Development Competency Framework Capability Showcase, The British Ambassador’s Residence, British Embassy, Bangkok, Thailand
2017 Contrasting participant perceptions on the social impacts of a residential fieldtrip. Oxford Ethnography & Education Conference, New College, University of Oxford
2016 Approaches to assessment. International Guest Lecture, ChongQuing University of Education, China