Dean Profile - Elaine Mandeville

Dean of the School of Sports Therapy and Salon Management

Elaine's career began in the world of banking and finance for an international bank with additional responsibilities in marketing before giving up full time work to raise a family.  During that time she also studied part-time and worked in areas of interest which included beauty therapy and sports therapy.  This lead to the achievement of additional qualifications and work opportunities in related fields.

Before coming to teach at UCB in 2000, Elaine worked at Solihull College teaching on a variety of FE programmes.  Since her appointment at UCB she has gone on to develop a range of Higher Education programmes which included BSc/FdSc Sports Therapy, BA/FdA Spa Management with Hospitality and BA/FdA Salon Business Management.  Further programmes are currently being developed to enhance the portfolio of programmes offered by the School. 

Elaine gained a BA (Hons) Marketing Management and is now working towards a MSc Educational Leadership with Leicester University.  In addition, Elaine is an External Examiner for two other universities.

The industry that the programmes in the School feeds is very diverse and therefore one of the key challenges is to ensure that all our programmes meet the needs of industry to provide our students with the best preparation and opportunity to work in such sectors.  All of our programmes are developed with key industry experts and relevant lead professional bodies.  Therefore, we feel our students are well placed to work in their chosen industry as an employee or in self employment.

Elaine's most memorable moment at the College was the Induction (and subsequent graduation) of the first cohort of BSc Sports Therapy students in 2004.  The prediction was to recruit a possible 25 students in the first year.  However, we were fortunate to actually enrol 97 students onto the programme which far exceeded our expectations and this in itself brought some interesting yet rewarding challenges.