The John’s Chronicle’s series of getting to know college staff members continues as Luca Hughes Joshi speaks with assistant principal, Kate Fox-Robinson. Discover her passion for poetry, water sports, and all things Johnian.
Give us an overview of your role here in college:
I’m the Assistant Principal – which has a wide range of tasks associated with it. The main part of my job is taking responsibility for student support in college, with another part being dealing with student enrichment, outreach to local schools, open days, and so on.
Sounds like quite a hybrid role. And I also know you deal with room allocations – what is the process behind doing that?
I’ve worked here for almost two years, so I’ve only been involved with two cycles of admissions. As soon as we get the list of students after A-Level results day, we then send out a series of letters to our incoming students. One of these communications is the room preferences form – which has had differing levels of detail over the years. People coming to this college know that there is a chance of having a shared room – we simply don’t have the facilities to accommodate everyone in a single room – but we try our best anyway to suit people’s individual needs. Then once we have received everyone’s responses, we print them all out, sort them into piles. And it takes a while – even with three of us working on it! It’s inevitable that not everybody’s needs will be met by this process, but we try our utmost best to do so.
So, onto some more personal questions now…
What is your favourite book/author?
That’s a really tough question – I just love books. You know that collected bookshop in Durham? That is my happy place.
You’ve just answered one of my next questions there!
Maybe he’s not my favourite, but for the sheer number of times I’ve read and re-read his books, I’ll say Alexander McCall Smith. My favourite book of all time though is ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’.
Ah yes, that’s up there for me as well – an all-time classic.
And then onto films, what’s your favourite one?
Richard Curtis’ ‘About Time’. Without a doubt.
Agreed, truly a masterpiece of a film – like most of Curtis’ are.
Let’s move on to some more college specific questions:
What makes John’s John’s?
Compared to all the other sectors that I’ve worked in – I’ve worked in different types of employments and teams – John’s has been a very welcoming, empowering and enhancing experience as a staff member. What’s nice about John’s is it’s a smaller organisation within the context of a larger organisation. Working for a larger organisation i.e. the whole university has its challenges, but since John’s only has about 80 members of staff, it means that we are very positive and tightly-knit.
You’ve touched on the fact that you’ve worked in multiple sectors during that last answer – care to expand on that?
I don’t know if you’ve come across the term ‘squiggly career’ but that’s pretty much what I’ve had up to now. There’s a tendency for students within the education system to be channelled in a particular way – go to university and there after your career will be straight forward – that’s the general rhetoric that gets thrown around. That’s not been my experience – I came to Durham (I was at St Mary’s college) and after graduating, I’ve worked in several different fields. From being a community worker for children with disabilities, to working for NHS mental health and bereavement services at Newcastle Hospital and now this job. So, I’ve been in the charity sector, the healthcare sector and now the education sector.
What’s your favourite spot in John’s?
The Student Support Office window has a picturesque view of Linton Gardens. The view is never the same across the year – and besides I can see the comings and goings of people outside of John’s. Perhaps this seems a bit dramatic, but when I was working in healthcare during the pandemic it was a very constrained job in not particularly ideal conditions. So when I arrived here and saw my office I was so happy to see I had a window in my office!
I’ll follow that up by asking for your favourite spot in Durham:
Baths Bridge – which is the pedestrian bridge near Hild & Bede close to where the old swimming baths were. If you stand on that bridge and look towards The Racecourse there truly is a fine view.
Tell us something people don’t know about you:
Only a couple of people know about this as last year we did a charity auction – where I suggested to auction off the experience of coming with me to swim in the North Sea. I’ll frequently go to the likes of Seaham or Roker. A student did actually buy that experience at the auction – albeit in the summer rather than the winter.
There’s clearly a strong water sports culture amongst the staff in John’s! Some of the other members of staff who I’ve interviewed here (Marija Huljak and Liz Kent) also were big fans of it.
Everybody’s into water here. There’s a lot to be said for Blue Mind thinking – about the power of water. I’m happiest in life whenever I’m near water. It doesn’t matter what type: it could be a loch, a river, or the sea – as long as there’s water, I’ll be at peace.
Another thing that most won’t know about me is that I write the occasional poem. This was something I started when I had more time on my hand in the pandemic and I put them all on a blog. Looking back on these, they give a really nice overview of what happened during the pandemic.
So will we see you reading out one of your poems at a formal anytime soon?
Perhaps – it would need to be at the right moment though. It is my belief that poems are best when they are read out loud – when there were memorial services in the NHS during COVID, some of my poems were read out, which was quite an honour!
Favourite memory from your time in John’s? Or an amusing anecdote?
There’s many an anecdote but I’m not sure they’re appropriate for print!
Last winter – and it will probably happen again this year – college held a carol service at the Cathedral ahead of Christmas. What was lovely about it was that everybody met on the steps outside Reception and there were lights, wreaths, fake snow and carol music being played out of somebody’s window. It felt incredibly communal and was a really beautiful, sentimental moment.
Favourite dish from the dining room?
The caesar salad. Officially in life, you shouldn’t eat fried bread, but you can eat fried bread in that without feeling guilty as it’s in a salad!
I’ve got my pull-out quote right there!
Thank you very much Kate for an excellent interview.
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