In conversation: Professor Rachel McLean

With end of year degree shows now in full swing and hundreds of final year Liverpool School of Art and Creative Industries students celebrating the completion of their studies, we caught up with Director of School, Professor Rachel McLean to find out her priorities over the next year, and what she is most proud of during her time working at LJMU.  

Tell us about your current role and what a typical day looks like for you? 

My current role is primarily as Director of Liverpool School of Art and Creative Industries, but I am also a Professor – conferred through the research route a couple of years after becoming a School Director.  It is hard to describe a typical day as no day is ever the same. There are, of course, the routine tasks that need to be completed every day; checking and replying to emails, signing off infobase leave requests, purchases etc, eDoc and Gap approvals, risk assessments. But there are days when I meet with staff in the school to write a research bid, or discuss a new programme development or a project that a local company would like our students to work on – exciting activities.

I represent the school and LJMU externally. I chair the Liverpool City Region’s Creative Industries Cluster Board which brings opportunities back to LJMU. I attend many events which make me really proud of our staff and students – book and exhibition launches, screenings, performances, industry liaison events.  Last week we held the Degree Show opening, the first degree show for the new school, which was a fabulous evening with both the ex Art and Design school and ex Screen School showcasing final year student work. That was a very special day. 

What project or achievement are you most proud of while working here? 

So many spring to mind! Recent ones include the redesign of the Drama programme into the new Performance and Production programme. The Drama team really took onboard the brief to redesign the programme using the spaces and resources we have (TV Studios, podcast rooms, investment in new technology such as media wall and new lighting kit) and to develop a new programme that moves to take performance out of the theatre as socially engaged practice. I am so proud of the team that they put heart and soul into this and, building on their established expertise, they developed a new programme with a USP where performance students work with students from other disciplines in the school to build skills that will equip them for future employment. This has also benefitted students completing the original Drama programme as we saw the last cohort complete this year. Many people, including members of ELT, have told me how much they enjoyed performances at the ROAR festival this year, and how the performances were of professional standard from the scripts to the acting and the tech design. I am so proud of the drama team. 

The AHRC Creative Cluster Music Futures project is something I am really pleased to be leading for LJMU. It is a large-scale collaboration between us, University of Liverpool. Liverpool City Council, The ACC Arena and AdLib. The project has brought £7.2 million to the city to grow the music sector across the city and is funding R&D, training, start-ups and scale ups as well as exploring how the sector can be more inclusive and sustainable. Collaborations on this scale is what we need to make Liverpool stand out as a creative city. 

On another note, I am also very proud of how the school merger has worked out. From perfectly natural initial concerns over how things might change, I have been incredibly impressed by how the Screen School and Art and Design School staff have seized the opportunities to collaborate and actively looked for the positive outcomes of the merger. Exciting times to come. 

Favourite spot on campus? And in Liverpool? 

This is a difficult one! I love the Redmonds TV studios – always something exciting happening in there, whether it is a new band performing as part of a breakfast TV style show, or a green screen magic carpet trip to capture the imagination of school students visiting for an outreach day- it is a fascinating space. 

I also love being in the Student Life Building which is always alive and bustling with staff and students.  

But my current favourite place is just outside the John Lennon Building. Look right and there is the Science Park. Look ahead and there is the beautiful Cathedral with the windows that catch the light and look different at each part of the day. Isabel Nolan’s sculpture ‘Where you are, what we are, with others’ based on plans for stained-glass windows stands between JLAD and the Cathedral. Looking across to Mount Pleasant you can just see the John Foster Building housing HSS and School of Law and Justice Studies as well as the performance and production team.  I love the idea that I am standing at the intersection of all these disciplines. Science, Art, Performance, Justice, Humanities, Theology, Philosophy and Architecture… with screen disciplines just a few blocks down the road! 

In the city I love the waterfront. It is so elegant and so globally iconic. I love seeing it in films. Makes me so proud to be connected to the creative industries in Liverpool. 

My first “career job” was as a curator at the British Library Department of Manuscripts before the library got its own building, when it was in the British Museum. I loved that job. I got to see and handle medieval illuminated manuscripts, Da Vinci’s notebooks, letters between Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton amongst other major historical documents. When I decided it was time to move back north, I secured a post as the media librarian at the Salford University. From there I moved to LIPA before it actually opened and took a lead role in setting up the Learning Resource Centre (my claim to fame is I got to wear Linda McCartney’s wellies to tour the site when it was under development). My next move (in 1999) was back to Salford to complete my PhD which was sponsored by United Utilities and explored how companies could use this new technology “the internet” to interact with customers. As a librarian I was pretty au fait with the internet, so this was a logical step. From there I got my first lecturing job in electronic business at Manchester Metropolitan University. As the WWW became more visual, interactive and creative, the fields of business and media began to merge, and my next move was to the University of Bolton to head up the Creative Technologies subject group.

After five years I was keen to move on to my next challenge and applied for a role as Reader in Digital Marketing at LJMU. Since moving to LJMU I have had so many opportunities. Shortly after taking up my role in Liverpool Business School, I successfully applied for the faculty role of Associate Dean Research. This was when the faculty was as it is now before LBS became a faculty – Business & Law, Art & Design, Screen, Education, HSS all in one faculty. I really enjoyed that cross faculty role and got to meet some really interesting researchers. From there, when Judith Jones (Director of Liverpool Screen School) retired, I applied for the Director role. I really enjoyed taking the relatively new Screen School forward with a fabulously supportive team. Now, as Director of the newly formed School of Art and Creative Industries I have enjoyed this first year and look forward to the exciting new chapter. 

Occasionally, this cross disciplinary route brings on the imposter syndrome, but I know that I wouldn’t be in my current role, as a Professor of Creative Industries, without that background, understanding of the challenges of a range of disciplines and sectors, and a curious mind that took me out of my comfort zone. 

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? 

The best piece of advice I have ever received, from Professor Tara Brabazon, though it is also a book now…. “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. Seize every opportunity and go for it even if you have self-doubt.  

Outside of work, what are you reading, watching, or listening to right now? 

I am currently reading an Adele Parks novel - “Both of You”. Adele Parks was recommended to me by a creative writing professor… escapism, to take my mind of work. And who doesn’t love a bit of crime fiction? 

My guilty pleasure is Coronation Street which I watch at the weekend on ITVX… a hangover from my youth – apologies for the Manchester reference. However, I am just watching Sheridan Smith in The Cage, created by Tony Schumacher and filmed in Liverpool. I drive my family mad by shouting out “that’s near my office” or “I’ve been to a meeting in that building”. So many amazing TV dramas and films come out of Liverpool. I really enjoyed This City is Ours too. 

What are your priorities over the next 12 to 24 months and how can staff get involved? 

My strategic priorities are firstly to continue to ensure the merger of the Screen School and Art & Design School is productive and brings about more new collaborations across programme development and research and knowledge exchange. The staff in the new school of Art and Creative industries are already supporting and involved in this. I am so proud of the way they have seized the opportunities. 

Next, I would love to develop more in-curricula transdisciplinary collaborations across the Faculties of Society and Culture and Health, Innovation, Technology and Science.  

With my own cross disciplinary background and knowledge of a range of sectors, I strongly feel that we could better equip our students for future employment by not working in silos. If students had the opportunity to work on a project with others outside their discipline – so for example, an artist working with a computer scientist, a writer, a project manager, a media production specialist and an actor what could we create, and how well equipped would those students be to go out into the world? There are really good examples of this approach globally; Carnegie Mellon University in the USA and Aalto University in Finland. This will need staff to come together with an open mind, not just looking to bolt current programmes together, but to start with a blank sheet and learn from the very few universities doing this already. I know that both faculty PVCs are in support of this. LJMU could be pioneers in the UK… or at least the North!