In her early career she was helped to grow as a person and as a young professional. She eventually transferred to the School of Clinical Dentistry in October 2003 as a Grade 5 and has worked really hard progressing to a Grade 7 Administrator. Christine is now our BDS Curriculum Development Manager which means that she ensures that the curriculum set by the General Dental Council is covered adequately, that the course is quality assured, timetabled appropriately and that all activity is successfully co-ordinated. This is an enormous and complex task involving the timetabling of over 400 students. Christine has also been instrumental in the implementation of our new BSc in Bio-Dental Science and Technology programme.
Over the last year in particular, when Government policy was changing rapidly during the COVID Pandemic, Christine has been working far too many hours to help us get the timetable and assessment in place for our students. She would sort out complex timetables one week only for policy to force her to change them again the next week. Christine is one of our outstanding colleagues without whom we would have really struggled this last year. She has a no-nonsense approach to her work, largely due to her personal levels of perfectionism, but this is always to the benefit of the students and the School. Outside work, Christine plays music with Blue Street Brass which is part of Concord Youth Music. The key goal of this group is to teach music to children between the ages of 8 to 16 years who then perform under the name Concord Allstars. She is an outstanding member of our professional services team and is someone who we all go to when we need to figure out how to get something changed in our learning and teaching.
What is the one thing that has helped you the most in your career to date?
There are many people that have helped with my career to date. The encouragement I got from my first line manager, Elizabeth Dawson was immensely helpful. She always wanted me to continue with my professional education and I undertook many courses in those early years that helped me get to the stage I am now. I worked with two fantastic professors, Tony Payne and Stephen George and they taught me attention to detail was key (especially in formatting documents). Now if you ask some of my current colleagues about this they may say it’s a fault of mine to be a perfectionist!
What is the key thing that has hindered or challenged you to date in your career?
I have Neuropathic pain in both hands and feet and over the years this has proved very challenging, working in constant or intermittent pain is hard work both mentally and physically. I have tried very hard for this not to affect my work over the years but it did have an impact on my social life for a time and my work life balance was not as it should be. I was on strong medication for a while and still had pain until I sought help the other year from a private physiotherapist who worked with me. Although I am now off all medication I still suffer with pain but I am able to manage this.
What advice would you give to young female professional services staff starting out on their careers now?
I have given advice to colleagues before and it was the same that I was given. You get what you want out of work by the level of commitment you put in. Work hard, always seek new opportunities where possible. Don't think that you can't do something because someone on a higher grade normally does it. Don't put yourself down when things go wrong, you’re only human.