SEI staff are very pleased to announce that a new External Quality Advisor has been appointed to the SEI Management Committee (Board of Studies). He is Dr Andrew Mein, Academic Editor, St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, and Senior Lecturer in Biblical Interpretation in the St Andrews School of Divinity.
Andrew was born in Edinburgh and brought up in the Episcopal Church. He has spent most of his working life in the realm of theological education. He studied theology at the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, and Oxford again, then served for twenty years on the staff of Westcott House, Cambridge, variously as Old Testament Tutor, Director of Studies, Vice-Principal, and Senior Research Fellow. He also had various roles on Church of England national committees. After Westcott, he spent 2017-20 lecturing in Old Testament at Durham, where he served on the Common Awards Management Board and as one of the University Liaison Officers; he was also a diocesan vocations advisor.
In 2020 Andrew returned to Scotland to work in the University of St Andrews School of Divinity, for the most part on the development of a new online and open-access encyclopaedia of theology, which will launch later this year. His main teaching and research interests move between the theology and ethics of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in its ancient contexts and the later reception and interpretation of biblical texts. Particular areas of focus include the books of Ezekiel and Psalms, and the Bible and warfare; in the past few years he has written extensively on the use of the Bible in the First World War. Among his wider professional responsibilities he was editor of Bloomsbury T&T Clark’s Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies (formerly the Journal for the Study of the OT Supplement Series) from 2004 to 2020, and is a founding editor of the reception historical monograph series Scriptural Traces.
The Quality Adviser, someone external to the institution, acts as a critical friend, sitting on the Management Committee and keeping a watching brief on curricular matters: facilitating the review process, prioritising action and helping to shape up the Annual Self Evaluation (ASE) return.
Quality Advisers normally serve for a period of three years. Since its inception, SEI has been served by two excellent EQAs: Martine Somerville, Academic Co-ordinator, Yorkshire Theological Education Partnership, and the Revd Canon Cathy Rowling, Principal, Lindisfarne College of Theology. We know that Andrew will continue in this fine tradition and look forward to him joining us in October.
(Photo by permission of Dr Mein)
