Annual Report
A Head for Business
Professor Sandra Dawson, recently admitted as Master of Sidney Sussex College, manages to combine this demanding role with her post as Director of the Judge Institute of Management Studies Photo: Perry Hastings |
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I like to get up with a clear notion of the key issues and priorities for the day. It is not unusual for me to have five meetings in a day, so last thing at night I check the papers I need. The alarm goes off at 6.30am. We're still in the process of moving into the Lodge at Sidney, so there are lots of things in boxes, and decisions to be made about where to put them. I am thinking about this as I get up.
People who live and work with me know I am a great note writer. Wolfing down a plate of cereal, I scribble reminders, requests, and thank yous, to leave on the kitchen table and my secretary's desk. I make sandwiches for my son, Tom, the youngest of the family, who is at sixth form college and then it's off to the Judge Institute on my bicycle, to arrive before 8am. I really love that five minute cycle ride, whatever the weather - even though I'm on my fourth bike in Cambridge: three of them have been stolen in four years. Each time I lose one I get an even older one.
An Early Start
Being Director of Cambridge University's business school means keeping in close touch with the business world as well as the academic world of teaching and research. I check my e-mail and telephone people I know are early starters. This is a good time to catch them, and can save that irritating game of telephone tag when each person returns a call only to find you've missed the other yet again. I catch up with my secretary at the Judge and at 9 o'clock I have my first meeting to discuss a British Council funded programme for Hong Kong executives interested in entrepreneurship in high tech companies. I talk with a colleague about the company visits she's organising, the receptions we will hold and lectures they will attend.
Enterprising Award
We have recently heard that our bid to the Department of Trade and Industry to set up the Cambridge Entrepreneurship Centre has been successful. The bid involved working closely with local entrepreneurs and experts from the science and technology faculties. Now we've got £2.9 million to develop the partnership between science, engineering and business to create and support future generations of entrepreneurs. My next meeting is with the Centre's programme managers to discuss the first meeting of the executive committee and recruitment of a director.
Then it is back on my bike to Cambridge Station to catch the 11.15 to London. On the train, editing a draft paper, my thoughts turn to my research area, health management and policy. With colleagues at the Judge and the Nuffield Trust, I'm working on a 'health futures' project to identify the main social, scientific, political, and economic drivers for change in health in the next 15 years, and then, as if that is not enough, we are considering their policy and managerial implications. I go by tube to the Nuffield offices just north of Oxford Street where, over a sandwich lunch, we agree how to finalise our interim report for consultation. At 2.15 I take a cab to Goldman Sachs for a brief meeting with a member of the Institute's Advisory Board about an alumni event and our fundraising strategy.
Back on the 3.45 train to Cambridge, I check with my secretary at the Judge. No unexpected issues or problems there, so I cycle back to Sidney. Tom has got home. We exchange, in family shorthand, enough words to know we're both alright and I go to see my secretary, Maggie. Coming new into Sidney this summer, means there's a lot to learn about the College and I rely on Maggie for guidance on when things need to be done. I deal with urgent messages and emails and dictate some letters.
Catching up in the Kitchen
My husband, Henry, who is a quantity surveyor and project manager, gets home just as I am leaving for an evening organised for Fellows and students to meet the four candidates who have been short-listed for selection as our new College Chaplain. Over an informal dinner, the candidates switch tables so everyone has a chance to meet them. Just after 9pm I return to the Lodge and find Henry and two of our children sharing a cup of tea - the Dawson drink - round the kitchen table. Both our daughters are at Cambridge University, one a graduate, the other an undergraduate. Even though we're all busy with very different lives, it's a great bonus to have unexpected encounters as we bump into each other in town.
At about 10pm I go back to my desk, finally able to get down to the paper I am trying to finish. My luck is in on this night and a couple of hours just disappear with what, at the time, seems reasonable results. But I know that when I return to the draft in a day or two, it will no doubt be the subject of my revision pen. I can always see ways in which I think I could do better, and find it difficult to stop when things may be 'good enough'. I am strongly motivated by wanting to do a good job - whatever the job - and sufficiently optimistic to believe I might succeed. Last thing at night, there are papers to check for the morning, reminder notes to write for myself, for Maggie, and for a few other unsuspecting people as well. If I am lucky, it won't be too long after midnight when I get to bed.
