A day in the life of...

Monday 6 February 2012, 10:54am
by Sam Higham

A Day in the Life of VP.Education at KUSU.

10am: Arrive at the office at 10am (unless of course someone in the University has decided that a 9.15am meeting is a good idea, which happens rather often).

10.01am: First thing is to check my diary to see what meetings I have for that day, and then plan accordingly (I use post-it notes; these need tidying regularly)

10.05am: Its email time. Depending on the time of year, there can be as many as 50 to check at the start of the day, all need reading, a few need replying to.

10.30am: This is where it all gets varied. More often than not I will have at least one meeting during the day, so I try and get as much work done in the office as I can before it, as the meetings themselves have a tendency to run on from 1 hour to anywhere up to 4 and a half.

10.31am: Facebook. This seems like a strange thing to be doing, but social media is an easy way for students to get in contact, there are often private messages asking anything from “what time is the bar open today” to “I think I’m getting kicked out of Uni, please help.” These all need to be answered and followed up if needed.

10.40am: Read University Papers. For every meeting there will be papers to accompany it, these all need to be read (where relevant, which is almost all of them) to check there is nothing that is contentious. If there is, I highlight it and write next to it what I am going to ask in the meeting/ what I will argue against. Once a month there are a Faculty Learning and Teaching meetings, each faculty has their own, and there is a separate one for Foundation Year. That’s a total of four meetings, each over 2 hours long, each with papers. Luckily a lot of the papers are repeated, so you only have to read those once, even then this can take an hour or so.

11.40am: Manifesto check. At the start of every week I check to see how things are progressing with anything I have promised on my manifesto, if things aren’t progressing then I list some things I can do to achieve them, making them realistic for that week. Sometimes as little as a single email to a person, or a much a writing a paper to take to University Learning and Teaching Committee (the second highest meeting I sit on).

12pm: I normally take a half an hour lunch break between 12pm-1pm depending when a meeting is, although this normally involved spending 5mins eating and then getting back to work.

12.05pm: Facebook check. If you have responded to any students in the morning it’s a good idea to check if they have responded. Sorting out problems quickly means they don’t pile up. If it is something that the Independent Advice Unit (IAU) can deal with more effectively then I refer the student on.

12.15pm: Living the high life I normally pop down to barista to get a discount coffee to kick start the afternoon.

12.20pm: Ask Advice. At least two or three times a day I will be doing something that I am not 100% certain is going down the right track. This will give me two options. One, ask another member of the Sabb team, one of them can normally give me some advice or at least tell me I’m on the right track. Two, send a JISC. JISC is a mailing list which will allow you to email all other Education Officers in the country that are signed up to it. With one email you can gauge opinion from loads of other Universities about anything, whether its specific policy or idea, or you need to see if anyone has managed to tackle a problem you are facing. It can take some time, but the responses are normally very helpful.

12.35pm: Meeting with Marilyn Andrews (Pro Vice Chancellor for Education and Student Experience). This meeting has once a month and is probably the most productive one I have. Marilyn is incredibly student focused and is open to exploring new ideas to enhance the curriculum, part of my job is to look out for these things and bring them to her so we can explore whether it would be something that can be deployed at Keele (prime example this year is recording lectures). I can then discuss with Marilyn how best to proceed, sometimes I go away and do more research, sometimes she will put together a meeting with other people that would be interested in developing it. Meetings with Marilyn are scheduled for an hour but can often run on for two.

2pm: Having discussed things with Marilyn I spend my time directly after the meetings (which always inspire me to do more) researching whatever has been discussed and documenting it in a specific folder on my computer (at the time of writing I have 35 folders each containing various word and excel documents.) Often there will already be research done on any specific subject, web searches and a JISC normal come in very useful when doing broad research.

2.30pm: Student Discipline meeting for Pharmacy (this is just an example, it can be in any subject). If the IAU are really busy they sometimes require either VP Education or VP Welfare to represent students in cases of Academic Misconduct. This requires reading over the case, and a meeting with the student beforehand (this can take ten minutes or several weeks depending on the complexity of the case). Within the meeting itself it is my role to support the student and also argue points on his/her behalf if the student would like me to. Reading through all the rules and regulations for the University is a must, and if used correctly in a case can change a verdict from a student getting withdrawn from the University to just a minor disciplinary matter. If there is anything that I don’t understand about the case I ask one of the IAU advisors beforehand.

3.30pm: Work theoretically finished a 4pm, if I am leaving on time then I will spend the final half an hour tying up loose ends or preparing meetings for meetings the following day. This is the point at which I need to make sure all emails that needed a reply have been replied to so this doesn’t back up.

4pm: Go home.

This is just an example of one day, it is important to note that it almost never happens a smoothly as this, things often crop up at the last minute, meetings overrun etc. There are also days that are much more exciting than this one, planning campaigns for example. Although we are all contracted to a 30hr week, I can’t remember the last time I did less than 35 (Over Freshers we all reached in excess of 70).

 If after reading this you have any question please send me an email (vp.education@kusu.keele.ac.uk) or come see me in my office (top floor of the Students’ Union in the Elected Officers Corridor, my door is bright blue.) and I will be happy to answer anything about the role of VP Education at KUSU.