Penny Haughan started her career at Liverpool Hope University in Liverpool, England, as a lecturer in biology. Now, two decades later, she still explores growth and health—but instead of cells, her focus is student well-being and learning. She's also leading the way for her university's emerging advancement program.

To dive into advancement, Haughan (Livepool Hope's pro vice-chancellor of student life and learning) signed up for CASE's inaugural Canada Fundraising for Leadership Study Tour. Here, she shares what she learned and what challenges U.K. universities face.

How did you find your way to advancement and Liverpool Hope University?

I have worked at Liverpool Hope University for the last 23 years in a number of roles. I started as a junior academic lecturing in biology, which eventually led to me becoming the dean of sciences and social sciences. About eight years ago, I moved to the student services area as dean of students with responsibility for the student support and well-being teams and more generally the student journey. This was a significant move for me, and I had a very steep learning curve.

When you see it from a different angle, it is sobering to realise what you don't know about an institution you have worked in for a long time. Developing an understanding of all of the other aspects of student life, which are not addressed by academic faculty and are instead dealt with by service professionals, has been a very humbling experience for me. I have learned an astonishing amount and continue to do so every day. It has been useful for the student services staff to be led by someone with an academic background: it's facilitated us finding common ground between academic and service staff, which can be difficult in some institutions.

Last summer, I was made pro vice-chancellor of student life and learning. This has included taking up the embryonic advancement brief at Liverpool Hope through the leadership of our external relations team. I am therefore very new to advancement, as is the university.

What's the best part of your job?

Without doubt, it's the people who work in the student support and well-being teams, including my new colleagues in external relations. At the university we talk about "Hope People," and the members of these teams are truly that: they all go above and beyond to ensure that every applicant, every student and every alumnus succeeds. I am immensely proud to work with them.

What's one work achievement that you're particularly proud of?

Responsibility for the student journey at Hope. Last year Hope was awarded a gold badge in the Teaching Excellence Framework. This was a wonderful recognition of the hard work of all of my colleagues who teach and support students across the university. It has also helped us make a significant rise in the university league tables and rankings, which is great for our reputation.

What do you see as a key challenge facing educational institutions today?

The biggest challenge for higher education in the U.K. is the introduction of fees. Students are now paying in excess of £9000 per year in fees alone to study at a university. Once their living expenses are added, this means that most are in debt up to £50,000 at the end of a three-year degree. Starting your working life with such a significant debt is something that is very foreign to those of us lucky enough to be in the generation that received a free higher education from the state.

We need to be mindful that the outcome of this is not the expectation of receiving a good degree regardless of the level of engagement with studies or that the concept of academic excellence is not lost in a continual justification of value for money.

What was your favorite part of the Canadian Fundraising for Leadership Study Tour?

I really enjoyed meeting the staff from the four universities we visited. They were so generous with their time and advice. It was also really useful to be able to discuss what was said with my UK colleagues on the study tour, especially in terms of how it could be translated into a UK context. At one university, we were entertained by the vice president of the university foundation and the university's senior campaign director in her own home. This was such a generous gesture and reflects the generosity and friendship of the experience.

What's one big lesson from the study tour?

I came away with the confidence to give it a go. Advancement is in its infancy at Hope, and we don't have a huge team to work on it. What I learned was that it is scalable, so as long as it is carefully designed you can do a lot of the activities on a small scale to start with and build up to more when you have the experience of some initial successes.

This was my first experience with CASE but I will definitely be looking out for other opportunities, since I enjoyed the Canada Study Tour so much.

This article is from the June 2018 BriefCASE issue.