I am married to Rob and we live in Lewes with our 11-year-old daughter. I am a member of LOS Musical Theatre and the Cliffe Bonfire Society, both of which give me excuses to dress up and perform. I serve my community and my church in the voluntary post of foundation governor at our local primary school.
My degree was in music. I hadn’t heard about arts or academic administration until I was at university, but as soon as I was aware of administration as a career, I began building my portfolio of skills and experience through voluntary and student union posts as well as vacation temp work. The early part of my career was in arts administration, including around five years working for Glyndebourne Festival Opera and then a similar amount of time for the Royal Academy of Music, which also served as my introduction to academic administration. I then spent a couple of years working for a lawyer who specialised in pop music and about five years as a PA in the events industry. During the latter period I realised that I really wanted to work in the public sector and find a career where I could make a difference to others, not just help people to make money.
In late 2006 I saw an advertisement for a post at BSMS which seemed a perfect fit for my skills. Thankfully the interview panel (Peter Dennis, Prof Kevin Davies and Prof Mel Newport) felt so too. The thing that really made it happen, though, was that Dr Anthony Chalmers, who was one of the early members of BSMS faculty and now has an Oncology Chair in Glasgow, was a neighbour and fellow musical theatre performer. I mentioned the advertisement that I had seen to him and he gave me lots of support and encouragement and, totally beyond the call of duty, was my audience for the dress rehearsal for my interview presentation. I’ve been here since the first cohort was in Year 4, so I’ve been responsible for supporting, in some way or other, every undergraduate student at BSMS. I’m now in my third BSMS role, which means I’ve been involved in pretty much every element of the undergraduate course at some point.
I’m the Quality and Placements Manager for the undergraduate course in Medicine and for the last two years I have also been in the role of Project Manager for our expansion project, Project 200. With these two roles there is very little to do with the undergraduate course that doesn’t interface with me in some way or other. There’s a quality aspect to every module and every initiative and there are student placements in every year of the course. Project 200 covers absolutely everything, but especially curriculum development and building our NHS placement footprint.
I am really motivated to make a difference for our students and my colleagues. I don’t personally have the capacity to save lives and make lives significantly better for people, but our students and my clinical colleagues do, so if I help them, I’m playing my part in the bigger picture. I’m also pretty competitive and want to help BSMS to be the best possible place to study medicine.
I love organising things and problem-solving, especially using spreadsheets. I always try to think like a student when we are discussing curriculum and other changes, so that I can influence things to work better for them. I really enjoy working with students; there’s a new challenge pretty much every day. The team of student reps, with whom I work most closely, is always brilliant and my colleagues are completely inspirational. Everyone is so dedicated to what they do.
Development work for Project 200 has now reached Year 5 of the course, with the new Year 4 curriculum now in delivery stage, so that’s all pretty exciting. There’s lots of new quality work as we’re in our first year of a new General Medical Council Quality Assurance Process and our Periodic Review from our parent universities is imminent. But it’s not just the big things that are important. Right now, it’s crucial to keep a really close eye on student feedback to ensure that we get the little things right as we find our new normal for teaching and learning post pandemic.
I can’t identify a single professional highlight, but keeping most of the balls in the air during the current pandemic feels a pretty big achievement, especially given the number of new challenges that seem to have landed on my desk during the last couple of years. The cyclical nature of administration tends to lend itself to a series of small wins, rather than anything particularly massive.
The qualities I admire the most are kindness and generosity of spirit, willingness and strength to overcome adversity, loyalty and dedication, the ability to listen, think and speak without prejudice or personal agenda, wisdom while managing difficult situations and determination to seek justice throughout the world. Wherever I see these qualities I am inspired.
The advice I would give to my younger self or other women starting out on their career? It’s okay to be yourself and follow your own dreams, not what others think you should or could do. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Sometimes things fall into place, but if they don’t then it’s up to you to make the right things happen. Focus on what makes you happy and hopefully that will make others happy too. Look for work that interests, inspires and satisfies you, find a great mentor, go the extra mile (if and when you can), but remember that work is only part of life and not the most important part. It’s generally not possible to have it all despite what you may have been told at school, you need to take responsibility to make good choices for yourself.