Andrew joins land management team

Posted 16 October 2012

Harper Adams University College has welcomed a new member of the team to the Land, Farm and Agribusiness Management department.

Andrew Black MRICS, has recently taken on the role of Senior Lecturer, specialising in rural land, property management and valuation.

He will be teaching students on Rural Enterprise and Land Management (REALM), Rural Property Management, Agri-Food, Business and Agri-Business courses.

Andrew, from Shrewsbury, said: “I graduated from the REALM course in 2002, so after a 10 year break it’s really good to be here as part of the teaching staff”

“Joining Harper Adams is a tremendous opportunity to give something back to the institution that gave me such a strong start to my professional working life.

“I’m delighted to be joining the team and hope to continue developing the strong practical approach that the courses have here.”

Andrew’s professional career includes working alongside clients such as the Church of England, the Crown Estate, Network Rail, Ministry of Defence and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. He has worked as a Senior Surveyor at Smiths Gore in the Edinburgh and Lichfield offices, and most recently, as an Associate Partner at Carter Jonas in Shrewsbury.

It is through his role at Smiths Gore that he established the Rural Professional Practice Award for second year Harper Adams students – an assignment that sees students work on a real-life case study for the chance to win a cash prize.

He is also an APC (Assessment of Professional Competence) assessor – the qualification required to become a Chartered Surveyor.

Andrew added: “The aim for my new role is to help maintain the fantastic employability of Harper Adams students, and I intend to do this by keeping them in touch with industry.

“As an APC assessor, and now lecturer, I will be able to guide the students from their first day on campus right through to when they achieve Chartered status.

“I hope my knowledge will help to assist them through this process and provide industry with even more first class, practical-minded and professional graduates”

Aside from his work as a surveyor, Andrew is also a Senior Officer and Ambulance Technician for St John Ambulance.

His father, Geoff Black, also lectures at Harper Adams as Principal Lecturer in finance and related subjects.

Andrew, who has a three-year-old daughter, added: “Six months after I started as a student, my father asked if I would mind if he joined the teaching staff; it was fine with me, and in fact he ended up teaching me in the second year.

“This time, I made sure I asked if he minded me joining him!”