Lois Fitch

Lois has extensive experience in HE curriculum design, innovation and review and institutional review, as well as issues and leadership in quality assurance and enhancement and academic management.

She was RNCM’s institutional lead in the Higher Education Academy Degree Standards Project (External Examining) and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is also a role model on the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education Aurora courses and has acted as Chairperson for the 2021 Quality Board-Led Institutional Review of the Icelandic University of the Arts.

Previously, she has been Visiting Professor at the Katholiecke Universiteit, Leuven, and is currently Vice-President of the Royal Musical Association, and Chair of the Finance and Communications Committee

A musicologist, Dr Fitch pursues research interests in New Music, and the interdisciplinary relationships between music and other performing arts, focusing in particular on issues of notation/text interpretation and the performer’s creative process.

Lois has nearly 20 years teaching experience in Higher Education, covering broad topics including the History of Western Music from c. 1400, Interdisciplinarity in the Arts, Performance Studies, Aesthetics and Performance Art, and has supervised research students in these fields, including PhDs.

As Deputy Principal at RCS Lois provides academic leadership for RCS curriculum in learning, teaching and assessment as well as ensuring the robustness of the Conservatoire’s quality assurance and enhancement policies and procedures. Priorities include exploring ways of enhancing the student learning experience, leadership of the institutional anti-racism action plan, acting as a persuasive advocate for RCS students and staff at various external national and international organisations and building on the unique opportunities for collaborative and interdisciplinary practice and research at RCS. Lois has recently led on the development of the Conservatoire’s Strategic Plan 2030 and associated Learning and Teaching Strategy.  Lois is a Board Member of the Music Educations Partnership Group (MEPG) and a Trustee of Sistema Scotland.

Having benefitted from local authority grants and bursaries throughout her own schooling and student life, without which she could not have accessed Higher Education, Lois is committed to supporting and enhancing fair access to the Performing Arts at all levels in the Conservatoire.