One day in the life of the VPEA

6.30 am
Get up. I had a lot of reading to do over the weekend for this week's meetings, but only upon settling down with my highlighter and Family Guy last night did I discover I'd picked up the wrong pile on my way out on Friday. I have a shower, some toast, a cup of tea and head into work.

8.05 am
Arrive in the office. Mugs aren't looking too nice, so wash them as my computer loads. Discover that half the papers I need to read for my 2 o'clock I haven't even printed yet; seventy two sheets later, I sit down with my cuppa and get reading.

8.28 am
There's building work being done on campus, and has been for about three weeks. The pile driver appears to be acoustically directed at my office window and is driving me slowly insane. It's cold in the office as the heating has been off all weekend. What I'm reading is a document entitled the School of Education Self-Evaluation of Quality Processes; more on that later...

9.30 am
Set off to Starbucks for our weekly Sabb catch-up. It's pretty much the only time in the week we'll be all together in the same room at once, and we use it to get out of the office and let each other know what we're working on and what's coming up in the week ahead.

10:41 am
Back at the desk; a bit more reading before my 11 o'clock...

11.17 am
Well my 11am was going to be on looking at the first draft of the Student Voice Report, a QAA style document we are going to be producing annually, critiquing the University from a student point of view. However, it's been a bit delayed and everyone who was going to be in the meeting is snowed under, so we're postponing it til the end of the week. Answering a couple of emails and reading my School Quality Review documents some more!

13:11
Just had a chat with someone potentially running for my position next year. Very encouraging! Still ploughing through these documents, off to get some lunch in a minute to munch as I read.

13:51 pm
Off to a School Quality Review pre-meet for Education. This is where a team of academics, plus myself, goes into each school on a five year cycle and reviews all their quality assurance processes. Takes a lot of time and trees, but means we can be sure your degree is worth the paper it's printed on. I'm going to be leading on the Student Admission, Support, Guidance and Progression section, since students are my area of expertise. We meet to discuss what we want to ask the school on our day long visit there next month.

15:00
Leave the meeting a little early, to meet a group of school children at the Guild. They're from a local school taking part in a Physics Factory project, a specialist teaching lab that gives pupils without access to physics labs and teachers at their own school the chance to study there twice a week. The pupils were on a day long visit to the Uni to see the physics department, and I've been asked to give them a tour of the Gulid and to tak to them about student life.

16:00
That went well! Back at the desk now, daunted by tomorrow's trip to the Medschool as part of their School Quality Review. A lot of reading and prep to do for that. Off to get a coffee, sit on a comfy chair and figure out what I'm doing in it. Probably going to have to read for Wednesday's Learning Environment Group meeting and prep for the Student Rep Staff Liason Contact Forum I've got then too, since tomorrow I'll be out of the office at this day long meeting.

19.28
Spent a while booking tickets to a friends wedding and chatting with the sabbs, and most of the time trying to read up for tomorrow's Medicine PGT review. Tons still to do, think I'll get some fresh air and carry on at home. Also just recorded an Audioboo with Fabian on the National Student Survey!