“A great experience”: St Andrews hosts professional services staff

Joseph North
Wednesday 7 August 2024

The University of St Andrews hosted 25 professional services staff from the University of Padua, Charles University and the University of Bonn from 3-7 June, as part of efforts to support English language skills and boost connections with our European partners. Our visitors from the Czech Republic, Germany and Italy took a professional English course with the International Education Institute in the morning, and a varied programme of discussions, visits, presentations and team-building exercises in the afternoon. The programme was coordinated by the Global Office, and involved professional services staff from across the University of St Andrews. Saints Sport, Estates (Environment team), CEED, EDI team (Human Resources) and Global Office led activities, and many other professional services staff met with their counterparts from Bonn, Charles and Padua.

The week began with welcomes from Sam Lister (Director of the Global Office) and Alex Allen (Director of Extension Courses), the first lessons of the course and a student tour. On Tuesday, staff from Bonn, Charles, Padua and St Andrews participated in an ‘Olympics’ team building session organised by Saints Sport. Over an afternoon of archery, bowling, curling, dodgeball and much more, Saints Sport put our English communication and coordination skills to the test! With the red and blue teams emerging as joint leaders, Simona fired the winning arrow to clinch victory in the archery shootout.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Staff Week headed to Eden Campus. After an introductory talk by Quaestor and Factor Derek Watson MBE, colleagues got immersed in discussion groups led by staff from St Andrews. The Environment team (Estates), CEED and Equality and Diversity Inclusion (Human Resources) stepped up to lead discussion groups on the broad themes of Sustainability, Entrepreneurship and Diversity. These gave colleagues a chance to have an in-depth exchange about these topics in their universities, share ideas and explore points of similarity and difference. The group also visited the D’Arcy Thompson Simulator Centre, the Entrepreneurship Centre and the Eden Mill distillery, and met with St Andrews colleagues over lunch.

On Thursday, our visitors gave presentations about their areas of work and projects they were working on: degree quality, student support, international office projects, library training courses, technical and facility management, EU funding, innovation and managing a faculty through the implementation of the German government’s ‘Universities of Excellence’ project. This provided some fascinating examples of the varied work undertaken by professional services staff, as they serve students, staff and wider social needs. These were all discussed at the Staff Week dinner and at the final lessons of the course on Friday morning.

This Staff Week was the first time we have brought professional staff from all of our European strategic partner universities together. Bonn, Charles, Padua and St Andrews are all leading universities, both nationally and in their home regions, and all have student exchanges between one another. One of our participants from Bonn said “The staff week was a wonderful experience on all levels. The exchange with the other two universities (Padua, Prague) was an additional benefit, as it simply forced us to speak a lot of English and less German, and we were able to exchange ideas on specific topics. And it was a great experience for me to finally get to know the University of St Andrews for myself. I can definitely recommend this Staff Week to everyone.” Another participant said “I can wholeheartedly recommend the Professional Staff Week in St Andrews: It was enlightening to get to know this extraordinary university location better and it was great fun to get to know my colleagues from the strategic partner universities.”

The Global Office would like to thank all of the staff from professional service units and schools who contributed to hosting our visitors. Blair and Ros delivered a lively English course. Andy (Estates), Shruti (Ceed), Karen (Human Resources), Pamela (Human Resources), Lui (Saints Sport) and Matthew (Saints Sport) led engaging sessions for our visitors. Staff from the Library, Research and Innovation Services, Research Business Development and Contracts, Careers, Entrepreneurship Centre, Student Services, Global Office and School of Divinity found time to meet colleagues for a coffee, lunch or afternoon meetings. ACE delivered wonderful catering and accommodation at Agnes Blackadder Hall. St Andrews students also contributed to the Staff Week in discussion groups and student tours. Global Office Intern Roslyn provided much help with the busy programme of activities and answering questions about student life.

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