My Job

Angela Jones
Assistant Director of Student Support (Disability)
Student Support

What are your main duties?
I co-ordinate the work of the Disability Team to ensure provision is available for disabled students.

What is your busiest time of year and why? September and October are our most hectic time as we try to make arrangements for 150 new disabled students and review arrangements for 350 returning students.

How long have you worked at the University?
10 years

Where (if anywhere) did you work before joining the University and why did you leave?
I previously worked for an FE and HE college as a Faculty Administrator, before that I worked for Social Services. This job is an ideal combination of the two roles.

What do you enjoy most about your job?
I enjoy contact with the students - working with people makes every day different.

What do you like about working at the University?
The people, especially those in the Disability Team and Student Support, however, everyone at the University is friendly.

What do you dislike about working at the University?
Some things can be slow to change.

What facilities on campus do you make use of, e.g. sports facilities, social venues etc?
Mainly those that serve or sell food! We’re an office that marches on its stomach.

What has been your biggest work-related challenge this year and how did you solve it?
New legislation requires the University to prepare a Disability Equality Scheme with an action plan to address equality issues. Using information on accessibility provided by disabled students and staff has been essential to identify what priorities should be.

What would you change about the University if you were Vice-Chancellor for a day?
I’d allocate a budget to the Estates Management Section to enable them to address physical access issues - disabled students face other disabling barriers at the University, however, this is a visable barrier and money is a contributing factor in enabling changes to be made.

Whereabouts is your office and what is it like?
Student Support (4N.6.2) is over the SU bar on level 6. It’s a busy open plan office. We look out over Square 3 so it feels at the heart of the campus.

If you were to enrol as a student at the University, what would you study and why?
History - it fascinates me (and feedback from the students I’ve worked with from the department has been excellent).

Describe a typical day at work.
The nature of the work means that days aren’t really typical. I can predict there will be a lot of e-mail and telephone enquiries and advice either direct to students or discussions with other advisers or staff from departments and sections who are working with students. There always seem plenty of meetings too.

Does your job take you off campus much and if so where to?
Not much, sometimes I attend meetings at Loughton or with my peers at our partner institutions to share good practice.

What other job in the University would you like, and why?
I can’t think of anything I’d like to do more than this job.

How long does your journey to work take?
I live in the centre of Colchester so it’s 20 minutes door to door.

Who would you most like a one to one with, and why?
Today it would have to be Bert Massie the Chair of the Disability Rights Commission - he’d be able to advise on the Disability Equality Scheme!

Do you have a claim to fame? E.g did you go to school with someone famous, have you ever appeared on television etc?
I’ve taken a dance class by Wayne Sleep (okay, that’s not very much of a claim to fame but I did get some individual tuition).