Friday 24 February 2023 10:15am
New graduate research school (GRS) manager Bronwen Stephens is no stranger to the University of Otago.
A staff member for about 27 years, she started in the Fees Office, before moving on to the Business School after an OE and other short University roles.
Since then she has had a variety of roles, most recently as a lead administrator at Student Administration looking after the research, scholarships and graduation portfolio.
Through this role, she “rediscovered research”, she says.
It reminded her of some work she did 10 to 15 years ago with postgraduate students in the Business School, even though she was primarily dealing with undergraduate students.
Stephens has been working with the previous GRS manager Andrew Lonie, and other GR managers from around the country for the last year.
“When this opportunity [to apply for GRS manager role] came up, I sort of thought ‘yeah, it’s time for me to try and do a bit more and expand my responsibility and knowledge’.
Ready for a change she felt the role was “something I’d like to get my teeth into”.
Stephens feels her experience in the Student Administration team gives her good insight into some of the postgraduate research process, and she has ideas on how she would like to improve the GRS connection with that department.
“That connection with Student Administration (and Student Experience) is absolutely valuable and makes for a really strong relationship going forward.”
She also feels work could be done to improve the information available regarding the process for master’s students (Divisional based programmes/regulations), as the University already has a solid PhD process under the “ownership” of GRS.
Over time, knowledge around master’s administration had been “diluted”, and she would like to support people who coordinate master’s students and bring all their knowledge together.
She feels it is a good time to revisit and reassess some of the changes made to processes during the COVID-19 pandemic such as changing to online submissions for PhDs.
“We put them in in a hurry. Can we actually tweak them?”
It’s a process which will require eVision changes, and resources, she says, “but it’s something that I could be working on”.
- Kōrero by Koren Allpress, internal communications adviser