Student Support and Experience Manager

This is an exciting chance to be part of a progressive and cutting-edge University in a beautiful location, where you can really make a difference. The University of Plymouth is a great place to work, with excellent opportunities for career development and progression for staff, as well as striving to put students at the heart of everything we do.

Our Student Services department provides support, advice and guidance to our student population to enable them to flourish and succeed during their time at University and beyond. Our services include mental health and wellbeing services, support for those with a health condition, impairment or disability, faith and spiritual support, bursaries and hardship funds, enhancing the international student experience, and student disciplinary and conduct matters. The success of our students with health conditions, impairments or disabilities is particularly important to us, and we are committed to continually improving the experience for such individuals.

Working as a member of the Student Services Management Team, you will strategically lead the provision of student support on a wide range of topics and the overall student experience. This includes managing our front of house, 'Student Hub' service, as well as leading the teams in disability support, international student experience, and student funding and finance. In managing these teams, you will oversee compliance with regulations and legislation, and management of bursaries and scholarships (including managing a financial budget).

The role will involve close working with faculty staff, to ensure staff know how to signpost to student support and receive the right guidance. This may include providing training and creating online tools to facilitate pastoral support of students, as well as writing or contributing to policy development.

The right candidate for the role may not have worked in higher education before, but will bring innovation and creativity with excellent leadership skills. You'll be transforming the services within the department and delivering an excellent student experience. We're looking for candidates who have experience of managing high-volume customer service environments and know how to motivate and lead multi-competency staff to deliver an excellent student experience.

Core to our service is promoting wellbeing and good mental health. So, in addition to being able to effectively lead and manage a service, you will be passionate about wellbeing and able to weave this into the service delivery, ensuring our services meet the needs of students and supports them at key points of the academic year (such as welcome and induction) or when they need it most (for instance, when problems arise).

You'll be an excellent team player and able to problem solve and plan work at a strategic level, working sometimes on projects outside of your own area of responsibility or expertise. You'll be comfortable and calm working under pressure.

Please demonstrate how you meet the essential criteria outlined in the knowledge, qualifications, training and experience elements of the job description in your supporting statement.

For an informal discussion please contact Neil Gillett by email at neil.gillett@plymouth.ac.uk  

Closing Date: 12 Midnight, Sunday 29^th October 2023

Interviews are likely to take place week commencing Monday 13^th November 2023.

This is a full-time, permanent position, working 37 hours a week.

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