Spotlight on Clare Hewitt

What is your role at UCL and what does it involve?

I am Student Funding Manager and I head up the Postgraduate Funding Team. Basically we make sure students get the money they are entitled to, and that they know about the scholarship opportunities they can apply for. We also administer scholarships and advise departments on best practice for administering their scholarships. I also recently finished a secondment as Development and Operations Manager for WHEN, the Women’s Higher Education Network. I am also the co-editor of The Edit which is a member publication for WHEN. (All self-identifying women and non-binary staff members at UCL can join WHEN for free.)

How long have you been at UCL and what was your previous role?

I have been at UCL since 2014, and before that I was Assistant Registrar for Student Support at the Institute of Education. So I joined when we merged.

Tell us about your DEOLO role.

As DEOLO for Gender, I work with the SRS DEOLOs with a particular focus on promoting gender equality. One of the ways we did this in March was with our screening of Hidden Figures to celebrate International Women’s Day with an introduction by Professor Ijeoma Uchgebu. We also raised money for Solace, a women’s charity.

What's the craziest thing you've ever done in your life?

Recently I asked for and got a trapeze lesson for my birthday. So I went ahead and did it. It was really high up and not at all easy. I did spend some time hanging from the trapeze like a sack of potatoes while the instructor shouted “swing your legs”. I don’t think I would repeat the experience, but I always like trying new things!

If you woke up tomorrow as an animal, what animal would you choose to be and why?

I would like to be a cat because you get to sleep a lot. You get pampered, fed and cats so beautiful. Basically cats have us all under their thumb. They are not stupid!

If you had one free hour each day, how would you use it? 

As a mum of two, with the youngest being three and a half, I don’t really get any spare time til late at night when I should go to bed. It would be amazing to have one free hour a day. I would use it to do more yoga and exercise!

What’s your favourite place you’ve ever visited?

I really love Italy. I had a fantastic holiday with the family there on the Amalfi Coast. It is amazingly beautiful, the food is great, the people are wonderful and we hired a boat to take us along the coastline, just jumping into the sea whenever we fancied it. It was a day I will never forget.

What is one important skill every person should have? 

Everyone should be curious. Well actually everyone is. All children are curious after all. But for whatever reason this trait can be squished down as we become adults. I would encourage everyone to nurture their curiosity and encourage it in others. Curiosity in turn will lead to you acquiring plenty of other skills along the way.

Have you seen anything lately that made you smile?

Yes – I read about Khadijah Mellah winning the 2019 Magnolia Cup. Khadijah is 18, from Peckham and learnt to ride at the Brixton Ebony Horse Club. She has confounded expectations by not only winning as a 25-1 outsider, but also winning despite only sitting on a racehorse 4 months before that, and being the first person in the UK to run a competitive horse race wearing the hijab. It’s brilliant news at a time when the news is really grim to read. I am so pleased talented young women like Khadijah are getting opportunities to smash expectations. I want so much more good news like this please!

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever heard?

Look after the present, then you will have no regrets and the future will look after itself.  Also stop caring so much what other people think and be who you are!

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?

Most recently I was most proud of organising and holding the WHEN annual conference: Who am I supposed to be? It was a great day, attended by 120 women and so inspiring. What was lovely was all the really positive feedback afterwards from the attendees. I was proud that myself and my job share for the secondment role, Madiha Sajid, organised such a successful event together. Working part-time and also as a job share, you do face discrimination from people who think you are delivering less or think that because you aren’t full time you are less committed. So a success like this was a feather in our caps!

 If you could change anything within SRS, what would it be?

I would improve the facilities for agile working. I don’t mind moving desks as it means I can interact with different members of the team but it’s really annoying that each desk has its own quirks, you have to fight with a bunch of cables, sometimes crawl under desks to plug in power sources. If UCL is really committed to agile working then there needs to be investment in proper docking stations. And also more desks that can raise up so you can work standing up!

Please nominate another person to do this interview.

Kim Ashwell or Dan Potrykus SRS’ DEOLOs for Disability.