Our change champions are an integral part of our change programme. In this blog we speak to Dawn Ingham, PA to the Vice-Principal for Learning and Teaching, about her role as a change champion.
Please tell us about your role.
I work with Prof. Karl Leydecker and I love my job! It’s probably – aside from cake decorating – my favourite of all the roles I’ve held. I work almost paperless, which gives me more time to do interesting things that aren’t printing and collating. My job consists of liaising, supporting meetings, organising travel and managing emails. I’m also coordinator for the National Student Survey here and it starts on 5 February 2018. Karl is the most inspiring person I’ve worked with in my whole career and he’s very supportive of me getting involved in things where I have time, like being a change champion.
What made you want to be a change champion?
The change champion role fits nicely with the structures and review processes I have undertaken previously. I enjoy attending quite a few meetings because I can see progress from one meeting to the other. Similarly, I embrace change and I am happy to speak up for myself and others. Change champion brainstorming sessions encouraging staff to come along, to listen and to be heard are great. Seeing people develop is very important to me; encouraging and supporting them all the way is my goal, and to be a trainer and/or project manager at the University is my objective now.
What benefits do you see OneUniversity bringing?
The benefits of OneUniversity will be having one central hub for information. When I joined UoD you could find information locally but if someone had duplicates elsewhere it created problems – there were too many systems. Now we’ll have up-to-date, readily available and centralised information. It will save so much time and that can only help people.
Fun fact about Dawn:
I love designing and creating edible works of art, and seeing the smiles on people’s faces when they see and taste them.