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25 Years of Criminology at UON: Looking Back
This year Criminology at UON is celebrating its 25th Anniversary! Exciting times! In line with the celebrations, the Criminology Team have organised a number of events as part of these celebrations. Ranging from the ‘Changing the Narrative’ VAWG event, organised by Dr @paulaabowles and the Deputy Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC), to a school’s event in June offering out miniature taster sessions to interested, local year12 students (more details T.B.C). As well all the exciting events, we have also had reflections from the Team around what it means to them and their journey with Criminology at UON. It is my journey which I would like to share with you now.
My journey begins in 2012 as a bright eyed and bushy tailed first year student moving away from home to Northampton to study Criminology. Having never done any Criminology, Psychology, Sociology, or Law before I was feeling very much out of my depth. However, little did I realise that my A-levels in Philosophy, Ethics and English Language would hold me steady. The first year was quite overwhelming: there were lots of tears and uncertainties. I remember it taking the entire summer between year 1 and year 2 to get my head around Harvard Referencing. But I survived! It was not until the end of year 2 and beginning of year 3 where I would say I began to ‘thrive’ in the discipline. As a student, one of my highlights was doing a research placement in year 2. Academically, I gained skills which prepared me for the dissertation in the final year, but it also brought me out of my shell much more. Pretty sure there were tears here as well- this has been a common feature of my journey with Criminology (as student and staff)!
In 2015 I graduated from UON with a BA in Criminology and in the September of that year began in the role as an Associate Lecturer in Criminology. This was incredibly scary but also incredibly rewarding. It was very interesting to be on ‘the other side’ of academia having so recently graduated and it took a fair amount of time to transition from student to staff (as academics we are also students so the transition is never fully complete)! I was involved on modules I had not had the privilege of studying and was able to work closely with esteemed colleagues I’d looked up to for so long and who had had a large impact in moulding the criminologist I was (and am today). In the September of 2020, after achieving my MSc in Criminology, I became a full-time lecturer and remain so five years later. The course and University has changed a lot in those 5 years, with some fabulous new modules in the BA and BA Criminology with Psychology courses, new colleagues offering a range of expertise and passion for areas within the discipline and some epic trips with a number of the student cohorts we have been blessed to have.
There have been challenges too, and lots of tears (especially from me), but the progress and evolution of Criminology at UON in the 13 years I have been a part of it have been monumental! Hopefully there will be even more positivity to come in the future. I feel incredibly grateful and blessed to have been involved with Criminology at UON for so long, and always look back on my student days with fondness. I’ve enjoyed my role as a member of staff and enjoyed being a part of the events the Team have organised and the new course which we have designed. A huge ‘Thank you’ must be written to the ‘founding father of Criminology at UON’ @manosdaskalou, without whom my, and many others, journey with Criminology at UON might be non-existent! So cheers to 25 years of Criminology at UON, the ‘founding father’, and to many more wonderful years (and hopefully less tears)!
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There’s no I in teamwork but maybe there’s space for me and you?
Teamwork is often promoted as a valuable transferable skill both by universities and employers. However, for many the sheer mention of this type of group activity is enough to fill them with dread. This is a shame, and I want to use this blog to explain why.
I’m definitely not one for sports, but even I cannot avoid the discourse around women’s football and Euro 2022. Much has been written about the talents and skill of England’s Lionesses, of which I know very little. Equally there has been disquiet around the overwhelming whiteness of the team, an inequality I am very familiar with throughout my studies of crime, criminality and criminal justice. Nevertheless this blog isn’t about inclusion and exclusion, but about teamwork. Football, like many activities is not a solo enterprise but a group activity. All members need to be able to rely upon their team mates for support, encouragement and ultimately success. If a player doesn’t turn up for training, doesn’t engage in sharing space, passing the ball and so on, the team will fail in their endeavours. Essentially, the team must be on the same page and be willing to sacrifice individuality (at times) for the good of the team. But football isn’t the only activity where teamwork is crucial.
One only has to imagine the police, another overwhelmingly white institution, but with a very different mandate and different measures of success. Here a lack of support from team mates could be a matter of life and death. Even if not so severe, the inability to work closely with other officers in a team can make professional and person life extraordinarily difficult to maintain. It has repercussions for individual offices, the police force itself and indeed, society.
Whilst I’ve the made the case for teamwork, it is not clear what makes a good team, or how it could be maintained. Do all teams work? Personal experience tells me that when members have very different agendas and lose sight of the main objective, team work can be very challenging, if not impossible. There has to be a buy in from all members, not just some. There has to be space for individuals to develop themselves as well as the wider team. However, when the individual aims continue to take priority over the collective, cracks emerge. The same experiences suggest that teamwork cannot be accomplished instantly regardless of intent. Teams take a long time to build rapport, to bond, to gain trust across members and this cannot be hurried. Furthermore, this process requires continuing individual and collective reflection and development. So where can we find an example of such excellence (outside of the wonderful Criminology Team, of course)?
I recently watched the BBC 4-part documentary My Life as a Rolling Stone. Produced to mark 60 years of the band, the documentary explores the lives of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and the late, Charlie Watts. There were lots of interesting aspects to each part, but the most striking to me was the sense of belonging. That the Rolling Stones are a cohesive team, with each member playing very different parts, but all essential to not only the success of the band, but also to the well-being of the four men. Alongside discussions around creativity, musicality and individual skills, they describe drug taking, alcohol abuse, romantic relationships, fights, falling out and making up. There were periods of silence, of discord and distrust and periods of celebration and sheer personal and collective joy. Working together they provide each other with exactly what they need to thrive individually and collectively.
These men have made more money than most of us can dream of. They have been to parts of the world and seen things that most of us will never see. All of them are heading toward 80 but keep writing and performing. More importantly for this blog, they seem to illustrate what teamwork looks like, one where communication is key, where disputes must be resolved one way or another, regardless of who was right and who was wrong and where the sheer sense of needing one another, belonging remains paramount. I could use a dictionary definition of teamwork, but it seems to me the Rolling Stones say it better than I ever could:
“You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime
You’ll find
You get what you need”
(Jagger and Richards, 1969).
Thoughts from the criminology team 