Admissions & Marketing
The Role of the Department
Our Admissions & Marketing team takes a fresh thinking approach in leading on
market research, enquiry handling, education liaison, application processes, internal
communication, public relations (media and events), commercial conferencing,
merchandising, emarketing and the external website. We work with faculties and
departments in the development of their own marketing activity, to ensure that it is
consistent with corporate strategies and co-ordinated to achieve maximum benefit for
the University’s profile. Our Admissions team assists prospective students and
applicants and works closely with faculties to deliver efficient processing and
equitable approach to all course applications.
Director of Marketing
The Director is responsible for the department’s strategy and works with the rest of
the team in establishing and delivering its plans. She also leads on specific large
scale projects such as branding and online marketing, and evaluates the impact of
the department’s activities. The post holder has specific expertise within the
development and use of market intelligence in portfolio planning. She is a member of
the Senior Leadership Team and reports to the Pro Vice Chancellor: Development.
The rest of the department is structured into four main teams:
1. Admissions
The award winning team is headed up by the Admissions Manager who oversees the
team’s work, takes specific responsibility for the daily delivery of UCAS/GTTR
operations, and manages all elements of Admissions policy and processing. The
team handles around 10,000 applications each year. Admissions within York St John
University is largely centralised and the section has responsibility for dealing with
Criminal Records Bureau processing and issuing Confirmation of Acceptance for
Study for international applicants. The team organises interviews for applicants and
is involved in presentation and advice giving at Open/Visit days and other liaison
events. In addition, the team recently took on responsibility for course enquiry
handling.
Key priorities for the forthcoming season include the development of direct online
applications and the move towards a paperless office.
The excellent work of this section was recognised in the national Times Higher
Education Leadership and Management Award Winners for Outstanding Student
Admissions Team 2010.
The Admissions Manager has responsibility for two Admissions Officers, a Senior
Admissions Assistant, three Admissions Assistants and a Marketing Administration
Assistant for enquiry work
2. Marketing and Communications
The team is responsible for marketing and communications delivery and is led by the
Marketing and Communications Manager. This section is made up of a Marketing
Officer, a Graphic Designer, Website Officer, PR & Communications Officer and
Marketing Assistant post. The team works with staff and students across the
University to develop appropriate customer-focused marketing activities, helps
colleagues to produce marketing and promotional plans, and advises on the best
approaches to use for marketing to different target markets. This work is also
integrated with public relations and communications, which includes media liaison
and internal communications.
The team is responsible for writing, co-ordinating and producing customer-focused
print material, online marketing and communications materials dealing with over 400
different projects each year. The Marketing & Communications area also ensures
that the University’s corporate image is adhered to and takes main responsibility for
the University’s external facing website which has over 3,000 pages. Last year the
team increased media coverage by over 50%.
3. Schools & Colleges Liaison
The award winning team is led by the Schools and Colleges Liaison Manager and is
supported by a Schools and Colleges Liaison Officer, a Widening Participation
Coordinator and a Black and Minority Ethnic Project Officer. The team builds and
develops relationships with intermediaries, ie schools, colleges, community
organisations and careers services in line with the University’s recruitment and
widening participation strategy. They deliver Open and Visit Days, organise the
annual Careers Advisers Information Day and taster days, attend recruitment fairs,
gives talks at schools and colleges and also run the highly successful Student
Ambassador scheme. The team has also developed a range of widening participation
project themes with younger secondary school pupils to raise their aspirations to
succeed in HE and with bme communities. We work in partnership with AimHigher
organisations and internally with our faculties to deliver on a range of activities. The
WP Coordinator post coordinates a range of faculty and university wide wp activities
aimed at a number of different audiences.
The excellent work of this section was recognised in the national Times Higher
Education Leadership and Management Award Winners for Outstanding Student
Admissions Team 2010.
4. Conferences & Events
This section has responsibility for conferences and events and currently brings in an
income in excess of £300,000 per annum from commercial facilities hire and
merchandise activities. The staff of three led by the Conferences and Events
Manager also delivers on key public relations events including graduation dinners,
town and gown lecture series and a range of faculty event engagements. The team
welcomes around 10,000 visitors to the campus each year through its event activity.
York St John University: About Us
Our Mission
York St John is committed to the provision of excellent, open and progressive higher
education that embraces difference, challenges prejudice and promotes justice, and
is shaped by York St John's Church foundation.
Building on this foundation, we will:
 Provide widely-accessible opportunities for life-long learning, underpinned by
scholarship and research;
 Extend and deepen YSJ's external contribution regionally, nationally and
globally; and
 Foster a supportive, creative, critical and reflective community which
promotes personal and professional development for both students and staff.
Vision
Our vision rests on three pivotal themes which will characterise York St John and
what we deliver.
 Exceptional teaching and learning
 Exceptional student experience
 Exceptional graduates
Brand values
York St John has at its core a set of brand values which inform the work that it
undertakes, the image it wishes to project and the way in which it would like others to
view the institution.
These values are:
 Progressive – in the way in which the University has evolved, the investment
in its campus and how it engages with others through teaching, scholarship
and partnerships;
 Transforming – not only of individuals but also of their chances in life, so that
they feel empowered, enabled and transformed by their experience at York St
John;
 Relevant – in its educational provision, research activities, and within its
region;
 Approachable – expressed through its personality, staff, students and also the
University’s location;
 Inclusive – the way in which the institution works with others collaboratively.
Key Strategic Aims
The following key strategic aims have been developed in support of the University’s
Mission:
 To be an inclusive and accessible university
 To provide flexible student-centred curricula with excellent teaching
 To be an employer of choice
 To be a leading regional university with a strong commitment to
internationalisation
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To be a learning organisation promoting lifelong learning through partnership
and collaboration
To offer a transforming student experience
To build capacity and good practice in research and knowledge exchange
To be financially and environmentally sustainable
History
York St John is a prestigious civic university with roots going back to the 1840’s. York
Diocesan Training School, for teacher education, opened in May 1841 with one pupil
on the register, 16 year old Edward Preston Cordukes. (The current Students’ Union
building is named in his honour). 1846 saw the foundation of the Female Training
School which moved to Ripon in 1862. The college in York was described as St
John’s College from the late 1890s and by 1904 St John’s was the largest Diocesan
College in the country with 112 students.
After rapid development and growth both institutions merged to become the College
of Ripon & York St John in 1974. The University has also had a long and positive
relationship with the University of Leeds dating back to 1920 who continue to validate
our research degrees.
In 1999 all taught courses were relocated to the York campus, and by the end of
2001 all students and staff were housed in York and a new name was chosen, York
St John. In September 2005 York St John was granted Taught Degree Awarding
Powers and became a University with the full title of York St John University on the 1
October 2006, followed by the installation of its first Chancellor Archbishop Sentamu
in March 2007.
Today the University is based on an award winning campus in the centre of York with
6,000 students studying on a wide range of subjects. It has a wide network of
regional, national and international partnerships with a highly recognised reputation
for its teaching and learning.
The Estate
The campus is centrally located by the historic medieval walls of the city and has an
impressive mix of historic Victorian and modern buildings, set in award winning
gardens. The University has benefited from over £75 million of strategic investment in
new facilities over the past ten years to develop a well-resourced city centre campus.
This development has enabled us to provide an up to date teaching and learning
environment and to host partners such as the Yorkshire Film Archive, Science City
Phoenix Centre and the York Hospitals Trust library.
The latest addition to a portfolio of new buildings is the RIBA award winning £15
million De Grey Court, positioned as a gateway to the University from City of York.
This new building provides an exciting range of teaching facilities, lecture theatres
and seminar rooms as well as a graduate centre. Launched in September 2010, a
new partnership development service the Phoenix centre supports business
engagement and provides conferencing facilities.
Student accommodation is located around the centre of the city within fifteen
minutes’ walk of the campus and facilities include a joint partnership development of
the Percy Lane flats, which was recently shortlisted for the 2009 THE awards. In
addition, the University has two sets of playing fields and a boat house within two
miles of the campus.
University Activities
Teaching and learning and the student experience
York St John has a growing reputation for its partnership work, regional engagement
and provision, commitment to widening participation and delivery of a positive
transforming student experience. Across its faculties and Business School the quality
of the University’s academic staff delivery has been recognised with a number of
awards of National Teaching Fellowships.
The University has embarked on a significant investment in enhancing its technology
resource for teaching and learning and is in the process of developing an integrated
approach to delivering a range of student opportunities and services. Curricula are
being developed to meet the needs of new audiences and partnership engagements
through employers, their representative bodies and other education providers
Research
In recent years York St John has developed its research capacity in Allied Health
Professions & Studies; Psychology; Education; Sports-related studies; English
Language &
Literature; Theology, Divinity & Religious Studies; and Drama, Dance & Performing
Arts. In the Research Assessment Exercise in 2008 the growing research excellence
was rewarded with a 518% increase in funding. Nearly 40% of research submitted for
assessment by the
University was rated as of international importance, with some classified as
internationally excellent and world leading. A further 40% of research outputs were
found to be of national significance.
York St John has ambitions for the achievement of research degree awarding powers
and is positioning itself to be ready for an application by 2014.
Internationalisation
York St John University has a tradition of welcoming international students. Around
1,000 international students come to the University each year on full-time and short
courses. There is a strategic university drive to build upon our international
recruitment over the next three years.
The Internationalisation agenda is also focused on a range of other developments to
benefit student and academic engagement at an international level. This work is
articulated in York St John’s Internationalisation Strategy. The University is actively
forging a range of academic partnerships, joint projects, international conferences
and exchange opportunities. There are long existing links with Japan, China and
USA and strengthening relationships in a number of countries, including Pakistan,
Bahrain, Kenya, and South Korea. This agenda also incorporates the way in which
the University integrates the international dimension into curricula and opportunities
for students to engage in overseas visits, projects and exchanges.
Community, partnership and professional engagement
York St John University is strongly rooted within its region, with a large proportion of
students drawn from the Yorkshire and Humber area. It also works actively with local
and regional businesses to add to the wealth, skills and welfare of its community.
Listed below are some of York St John’s areas of community, partnership and
professional activity.
York St John University is part of the Higher York Lifelong Learning Network along
with York College, Askham Bryan College and the University of York. The network
was awarded Economic Challenge Investment Funding by Hefce of £300,000, to
establish and deliver a range of business development and individual support
initiatives to enhance business resilience in the region.
The University is actively involved with different areas of the public sector, including
the NHS Institute for Improvement and Innovation, a number of other health
professional bodies and schools and colleges. Much of this work is supported by
Knowledge Transfer Officers based in the University’s faculties and supported
centrally by the Head of Regional Partnership’s community work.
The University works with more than 550 schools each year. More than 500 heads of
schools and teachers in Yorkshire and Humber were professionally trained at York St
John University.
In 2010 the University became a full partner in Science City York, which is nationally
recognised for its work in business generation, Bioscience, IT and digital and the
creative industries. A Science City business incubation unit is housed in our newly
developed Phoenix centre based on our campus. Other members of Science City
York are York University and York City Council.