Tania Sourdin #curious
Tania Sourdin is the Dean of the Law School. Just days into her time at UON, Tania made a commitment, in the name of curiosity, to getting out for coffee/tea with colleagues outside the school.
Q: Why did you think this commitment was an important one to make? It is important to have conversations that are not too directed and that are informal to get a better sense of what we could do better.
Q: How are you progressing? I think reasonably well. I am branching out to meet with a range of external people who all have some good insights and some great ideas.
Q: What response(s)/reaction have you received from those around you? I think people have been very positive about having a short informal chat rather than attending a more formal meeting.
Q: Have any new ideas/possibilities emerged? Are you exploring them? Yes – lots of new ideas about how we could develop our teaching especially in the postgraduate area and also our research and how some small changes could support more research activity in Law.
Q: Are you sharing your learnings with your team or others? How are you doing this? I am pretty new to Newcastle so at this stage many of the conversations are really helping me to better understand how the Law School is perceived by those who have contact with it.
Q: How has it helped you in your job/delivery of NeW Futures initiatives? I think it helps with new initiative areas as the conversations can naturally touch on all key areas.
Q: Have you noticed any changes within your team? eg. others following your lead
Not yet but it is early days still and I have not yet made my approach known.
Q: Is it something that you expect to keep doing?
Yes – I have switch completely to green tea to reduce my caffeine levels and that is helping! It will be even easier to do this in NewSpace where and informal chat with stakeholders can be easier to arrange.
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