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After graduating from Keele University with a BA in History and English, and going on to gain a Masters in Recreation Management from Loughborough University, Caroline’s early career was based around leisure and events management.
Starting out as an Assistant Sports Centre Manager for Ipswich Borough Council, Caroline went on to hold roles such as Parks Manager for Leicester City Council and Leisure and Amenity Manager at Suffolk Coastal District Council. After this successful early career that spanned almost 10 years, Caroline then joined BU to develop her educational and research interests in the areas of leisure, events and the consumer experience. “This was reflected in my management of the BA (Hons) Leisure Marketing programme and subsequently the development of the MSc and BA courses in Events Management,” she says.
Alongside her teaching role, Caroline was involved in establishing the UK Association for Events Management Education (AEME) in collaboration with other Higher Education and industry providers of events education. As an Executive member since its formation, she was involved in writing the new Quality Assurance Agency subject benchmarks for Events Management.
Caroline now heads the Events, Leisure and Retail Academic Group in the School of Tourism as Associate Dean. The group includes 20 academics and 800 undergraduate and postgraduate students, and along with the Sport Academic Group, forms the Centre for Event and Sport Research. She was awarded a Learning and Teaching Fellowship by BU for her work on live student events and the use of e-learning. Caroline says: “Seeing the work that colleagues, students and graduates achieve is very satisfying and motivational. Like an event should be, there is never a boring moment. You have to juggle several ‘balls’ at once and not forgetting the family and your leisure interests – mine are hockey and yoga.”
Continuing to pursue her research interests, Caroline is currently working towards her PhD. Titled ‘The lived experience of music festival goers’ the study takes a phenomenological approach to investigating people’s event experiences.
Other related research has included consultancy work for UK Music on music tourism and the Festival Award winner, Beach Break Live. Caroline has presented her research at national and international conferences, reflecting the global importance of events and events education. Notably, Caroline was invited to present a plenary paper, ‘The Development of Event Education and Training in the UK’ at the China International Conference Industry Forum in November 2007 as part of the lead up to the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games 2008.
And its clear Caroline’s passion for teaching remains as strong as ever as she’s been involved in national developments in learning. Caroline was a partner in the HEFCE Fund for the Development of Teaching & Learning project ‘Towards inclusive assessment: unleashing creativity’ with Southampton Solent and Oxford Brookes Universities. This project researched and disseminated examples of non-written methods of assessment. She says: “This project reminded us that the areas we work in really do bridge the ‘gap’ between academia and the professions. Our students are challenged in both understanding the theory and applying this in practice. What is most rewarding is seeing that ‘light-bulb’ moment when they see why they have learnt what they have and how they have used it to improve their placement or business.”
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