Dr Colin Creasy
Associate Dean for Staff & Student Affairs
From a very early age I always had a fascination for mathematics and it led me to study mathematics at A level. I studied both pure and applied maths at Leicester University in the early seventies and soon realised my real interests lay in applied mathematics. I therefore decided to embark on a Masters degree at the University of East Anglia in Theoretical Mechanics and am proud to say I published my first mathematics research papers at this time. This lead on to a PhD researching the mathematical modelling of rubber-like materials and, after being awarded my PhD in the mid-seventies, I became a research fellow – still at the University of East Anglia – before taking up my first lecturing post in mathematics at Plymouth Polytechnic.
There I successfully introduced a part-time applicable mathematics course involving a distance learning element. I stayed in Plymouth for 9 years before moving to the Department of Mathematics (which was then in the Faculty of Business) here at Northumbria as a Principal Lecturer in the mid-eighties. The next year I experienced the first of many internal moves when the Department of Mathematics became part of the Faculty of Engineering. During my first year, I created the university ACCESS project to widen participation in higher education for science based subjects and improve the flow of students into university from less traditional routes.
Along with the other maths staff I experienced several mergers with other university departments in the early nineties before we became part of the School of Informatics as part of a university-wide restructure that replaced Faculties with Schools. For a couple of years I was seconded for part of my time to Academic Registry to set up the quality processes for the University to ensure the franchise programmes that were running in other countries were of a suitable standard. In the mid-nineties I became Deputy Head of the School and enjoyed this role for several years before a further restructure resulted in me becoming Associate Dean for the School of Informatics. Several years later, the School merged with the School of Engineering to become the School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences and I am now Associate Dean for Staff and Student Affairs.
The main focus of my job is to make the school run as smoothly as possible for both staff and students. This is essentially a dual role. On one hand I try to enhance the experience of staff and students while on the other hand I have to deal with the discipline issues when things go wrong. I also work with others on marketing the School and recruiting home students. Over the past few years I have been very active in student well being, leading several university task groups and chairing the University Student Wellbeing Forum as well as working closely with staff in the School to enhance the student experience. I also still teach mathematics (dynamics, algebra, elasticity and mathematical modelling) and was involved, through a PhD student, with Patch Antennae. This was the forerunner to the automatic toll systems you may have seen on motorways.
The main thing I like about my current role is the variety, in that no two days are the same. As clichéd as it sounds, I like the idea that I can have a positive effect on people’s experiences by helping shape policies within the School. Away from work, I have a very old house that my wife and I are renovating. While quite time consuming, we have enjoyed this so much that once the house is finished, we might sell up and do it all again!
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