Teacher audit

* Name: Tracy Harwood

* Age: 39

* Job: Senior lecturer in marketing/ teacher fellow (institutional and national), faculty of business and law, De Montfort University, Leicester.

* Salary: £34,2

* Qualifications: PhD in negotiation of buyer-seller (business-to-business) relationships, BA (Hons) in marketing with computer science, from De Montfort.

* Background: A number of years in industry managing my own business; various executive management roles in commodity trading and publishing; I mentor for the Graduate Enterprise Scheme and am an examiner for the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.

* Percentage of time spent teaching: 30 per cent. I teach on modules including customer management, introductory marketing and marketing management. I do a few guest slots on marketing for different non-academic events.

* Percentage of time spent on red tape: 40 per cent. I lead a postgraduate programme, which takes up a fair bit of time ticking boxes. I also sit on a couple of active committees (teaching and learning, diversity) and chair the faculty's Widening Participation Action Group.

* Percentage of time spent on research: 30 per cent. Invariably the time I have on this gets squeezed, but I try to take at least a day (plus) each week to develop my main areas of customer management in business-to-business contexts. I also conduct research with colleagues in teaching and learning.

* Teaching bugbear: "Listening" to the student as if they were the only stakeholder in the delivery of higher education. This has created an increasingly process-driven and mechanistic approach to teaching and learning. I have lost count of the number of forms I have had to fill (and ask my students to fill) that profess to "assure quality" when all they do is measure what is easy rather than representative.

* How would you solve it? I would consult with all stakeholders on what is really important and not be afraid to scrap what doesn't add value.

* Worst teaching moment: My first lecture - I had overprepared and insisted on covering everything, mainly because I was so nervous I couldn't think around the points I wanted to make... poor students, I still remember their glazed eyes.

* Best? I mentored a group of students developing a business under the Graduate Enterprise Scheme. They won the Graduate Enterprise Company of the Year. I also enjoy handing over at least one lecture session for students to present to a couple of slides each that I have used during the year.

* My teaching tip : Know when to keep quiet and let them work it out for themselves.

* Outside interests: Hill-walking, roller-blading, motorcycling and horse sports - I am a keen dressager, although currently without the essential partner.