On Wednesday this week I will be moving into my open office space in the Learning Hub at the University of Northampton’s new Waterside Campus. I’m pretty excited about the change because I’ve been down to Waterside and it looks fantastic. In fact it has exceeded my hopes so far and I hope and believe that this is going to really place Northampton on the university map.

But it wouldn’t be right to make this change without looking back at the time I’ve enjoyed at Park (and Avenue) campus over the years. For me its been quite a journey as well; I arrived on Park campus in September 1996 as one of the first new freshers on Nene College’s new BA History degree.

I’d decided (at 33) to finally get around to taking the History degree I should have taken at 18 had ‘life’ not interfered with my A levels. I was certainly older than some of the tutors and many (but not all) of my peer group. We were a good year I think – not too many troublemakers and mostly hard workers. We had no e-books then, no access to journals online either, so everything we read we read in the library or were given by the lecturers (who must have spent half their lives photocopying!).

I haunted the library because it was easier to work there than at home in my shared house. Eventually they must have taken pity on me because they gave me a job. Now I was stacking shelves and soon issuing books at the counter (yes, there were no automatic issue machines then folks). I also got a job at Waterstone’s in town so I had my book supply completely covered!

I got involved in other things at university, did some volunteering at the local school, interviewed the VC (Professor Gaskill) for the SU magazine, but mostly I studied. That paid off because I graduated with a first class degree.

I’d been inspired by the tutors that taught me, one of whom (Cathy Smith) is still here, as Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Education and Humanities. Cathy, Peter King and Elizabeth Hurren encouraged me to stay on and  do a PhD. I finished that in 2006 and became one of the first year of new doctorates awarded by the University of Northampton. Previously degrees had been awarded by the University of Leicester but now we had the power to confer our own.

So in my time I’ve seen Northampton go from being a HE college to a University College to a full blown university. And in 2006 Sally Sokoloff (the head of History) employed me on a part time basis to teach history. From student to tutor in 10 years!

I’ve seen the departure of some brilliant historians – Peter King, Matthew Seligmann and Matthew Hughes (now at Brunel), Elizabeth Tingle, Elizabeth Hurren (at Leicester), Tim Meldrum (who gave up history for business), Heather Shore (professor at Leeds Beckett), Matthew Feldman (fighting the good fight against the far right) and many others.

All of them have come and gone but the ethos in the history department remains the same as it was when I started as a student. Everyone is enthusiastic about their area of history, and they bring that into the classroom. Everyone cares about the students they teach. And (and this is unusual in academic departments) we all get on.

Waterside is exciting but it is also challenging. It is a very different environment to the place we know so well. We won’t have offices like we have been used to, we’ll have to work harder to connect with each other and our students. But I’m very confident we’ll manage that and continue to deliver an excellent set of modules at undergraduate and masters levels.

So, farewell Park and Avenue and thank you for helping me find what it is I really like doing. I wasn’t sure what that was at 33 but 22 years (OMG!) later I’m delighted not only to be teaching in the History department but also to be leading it. And if you are starting a History degree with us this September then just think, you could be wearing my shoes someday. Well, you never know eh?

Drew Gray