Celebrating our people: Justin Greaves

The Staff Awards are a great opportunity to show appreciation of the hard work that goes on day to day, here at Warwick! Find out more about our award winners and nominees in our series of interviews, highlighting their roles and achievements.

Justin Greaves, Director of Student Experience and Progression/Senior Teaching Fellow, PAIS

Tell us a bit about your role:

"My job focuses on all aspects of the student life cycle – from widening participation and leading on open day delivery, to enhancing the student experience for current students (through academic support, high quality feedback, one to one meetings, personal development etc.), and working with PAIS alumni (through careers talks and so on).
I have an academic background and am module director and lecturer for the core 1st year module – Political Research in the 21st Century. I am also an academic convener of the PAIS Student-Staff Liaison Committee (SSLC) and work with a wide range of academic and administrative colleagues, both within and outside PAIS, to deliver the best possible student experience."

Congratulations on winning the Student Experience Award for all your work on engaging and supporting students. Tell us more about your projects:

"I believe very much in an ethos of students as partners, collaborators and producers. I believe this can both enhance student satisfaction and students’ personal development and employability. Within PAIS, this is demonstrated by our extensive student ambassador and research assistant schemes, as well as the work of our SSLC. I gave a talk on this topic to the Learning and Development Centre/Warwick International Higher Education Academy in November (video available here). Linked to this, I am really keen that our students are able to receive the full benefits of learning at a leading research institution."

The Award highlights how you have gone above and beyond your role, what have been the key challenges of these project?

"People laugh (!) but I do see what I do, not as a job but a way of life. Improving the student experience has been a 24/7 focus (especially when you also consider my role as a Warden on campus!). I live and work on campus so students will speak to me and ask questions and give feedback whenever I am around campus, be that Rootes Grocery Store, in the Dirty Duck or by the Burger Van! I really don’t mind though as I love my job and feel so privileged and honoured to work here. I am sure my friends would say that the challenge is ensuring I leave time for myself too!"

The Staff Awards are a great chance for the University to improve and learn from staff initiatives over the year. If you could change one thing at the University, what would it be?

"Warwick is a fantastic place to live and work. It continues to get better and better. I do hope we continue to focus on high quality teaching and a distinctive Warwick student experience so that it is valued just as much as high quality research by all who work here."

What does winning a Staff Award mean to you?

"It sounds cheesy but it meant the world to me – yes, of course, on an individual level it was great to have my efforts recognised and to feel I have made a difference for students. However, what was even better, was knowing it was a recognition of all the amazing work we have done together in PAIS. Student and staff feedback has been crucial in all the enhancements and improvements we have made!"

A lot of staff and students took the time to nominate, if you had the chance what would you say to the people who nominated you for this award?

"It was amazing to be nominated by work colleagues but particularly special to hear I had been nominated by students too. I didn’t know this until the night of the awards when they tweeted me! It meant so much to me that they had nominated me, and I really, really appreciate their kind thoughts and time and effort they put into the nomination. Our students and staff are amazing in PAIS and this award is really a recognition of a fantastic team effort in the department. If I have made a small difference to the lives of our students, then that makes me really happy!"

We hope you enjoyed the Staff Awards evening. Any highlights from the night?

"It was a fantastic evening – Warwick at its best. It made me feel so proud to be a member of staff here and I do feel I have the best job in the world! It was great to see the achievements of so many colleagues being recognised – in particular, Shirin Rai, who has done so much great work in PAIS and beyond. It meant so much to me that PAIS Head of Department, Nick Vaughan-Williams, attended the awards too, and it was great to see such great representation by SU Sabbatical Officers! What was particularly amazing was students hearing on Twitter that I had won and congratulating me – in one case, revealing they had nominated me!"

Enjoyed reading about Justin? Hear from some more award-winning colleagues…