Well, the 15th of August finally came and, as I arrived at Mithras (a form of Mithra – an Iranian God!) House, I was greeted by Colin, the caretaker, who had been expecting me. After 16 years of commuting from the Isle of Wight by Hovertravel (affectionately known as Bothertravel), a 15 minute drive to work, admittedly aided by my trusty satnav, was a lovely change. At my office, I was greeted by 20-odd boxes of books and framed pictures, etc. that have followed me from office to office. I must thank the lovely Faculty of Science staff at University of Portsmouth who packed them all up for me and arranged their transport to Brighton. Thanks to a very efficient PA, Carolyn, we managed to unpack quite quickly and then, as if by magic, a lovely bouquet of flowers arrived from Portsmouth to wish me well!
It will not be a surprise that my first week involved meetings with a number of new colleagues and, for those that I have not met yet, the video below is a greeting from me.
By day two, I had managed to navigate my way round the IT system, staff central etc. and, of course, the email system. I have not used Outlook for over a decade but it does not seem to have changed that much!
I was appointed at the end of February and have been visiting the University since then in preparation for my start. But, no matter how much you try to prepare and understand in advance, there is nothing quite like a lived experience, although the middle of August and Clearing week is probably not a typical week in any university.
I have tried to be ‘curious’ and ‘actively observe’ and I can already say that we are blessed with some wonderful people who have served the University for a number of years and are eager to embrace changes which could improve our position. This is an absolute blessing for me and I really look forward to working with these colleagues.
Many of my 1:1 meetings this week were with members of the Research Office team and, as an academic researcher who has drawn on the support of such staff at three other universities, I am extremely impressed by how knowledgable, engaged and supportive they are. I am also particularly impressed that there are almost enough musicians among them to form an ensemble – a bassoonist, pianist, violinists and choral scholars! I joined some of them for a drink on Wednesday evening and know I will have lots of fun working with them. I am a passionate believer in having fun at work!
Of course, the A-level results were out and, on Thursday, I popped over to the Clearing HQ at Cockcroft to see how we run this exercise. My special thanks to Carl Griffiths from Academic Services who spent some time with me explaining how it has been done this year, etc. It is very professional: to be able to say that calls are answered within 3 seconds will be the envy of many institutions.
I have also been introduced to a novel concept: ‘UniInfo’. My 300-odd emails on a missing trolley, available folders, tickets for V festival, needs for lifts, railcards and Southern rail, pub quizzes, etc. were not quite what I expected my inbox to be filled with but, apparently, there is a way to deal with it. Note to self for week 2: make sure I learn how to do this!
Finally, my gratitude to all of you who have welcomed me to the University community so warmly.
Professor Taraneh Dean
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