Rate My Professor Tony Harland

Tony Harland is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education at the University of Otago. He previously served as Professor and Head of Department at the Higher Education Development Centre (HEDC), now the Centre for Educational Design and Innovation in the Academic Division. Throughout his career at Otago, Harland has focused on enhancing teaching and learning practices across higher education. His research explores the professional identity of academic developers, the formation and growth of their expertise, assessment practices in universities under pressures of accountability and evaluation, the impacts of neoliberalism and austerity on academic careers, critical pedagogy, and the purposes of university education. Harland also examines the interplay between teaching and research, peer learning dynamics such as Vygotsky's more capable peer, and the role of values and slow scholarship in academic work. With a background in zoology, he has lectured in Ecology and chaired the Ecology Board of Studies, providing an interdisciplinary lens to his scholarship.

Harland has produced a substantial body of work, including books such as University Teaching: An Introductory Guide (2012), Values in Higher Education Teaching (with Neil Pickering, 2010), and University Challenge: Critical Issues for Teaching and Learning (2020). Prominent journal articles include Teaching to enhance research (2016), The assessment arms race and the evolution of a university's assessment practices (with Navé Wald, 2021), Academic developers' professional identity: a thematic review of the literature (with Yoko Mori and Navé Wald, 2022), Reconsidering Vygotsky's 'more capable peer' in terms of both personal and knowledge outcomes (with Navé Wald, 2022), and Reflections on academic austerity in the neoliberal university (with Navé Wald and Katia Caballero, 2025). Published in journals like Teaching in Higher Education, Higher Education Research & Development, and Studies in Higher Education, his contributions influence discussions on pedagogy and academic development. Harland has supervised numerous PhD theses on higher education topics, fostering emerging scholars in the field.