Centre for Student Life is a unique £60m service-led programme and building which forms a central part of the biggest investment in Cardiff University’s campuses in a generation. Ben has led the process to transform and modernise student services alongside conceptualising the physical facility.
Student Life is a wide ranging, integrated student services department. It enhances and enables the student experience, from transition into higher education through to a successful future. Student services include: Student Health and Wellbeing, Student Advice and Money, Student Disability and Access Support and Student Futures.
Recent new innovations by Student Life at Cardiff include Student Connect, an integrated multi-platform enquiry service, a bespoke Residence Life model, and a unique approach to student crisis and risk management, Student Intervention.
Cardiff is leading partner in the South East Wales Student Mental Health Partnership which is delivering new pathways into statutory mental health care for the most unwell students for all HE students in across the region.
Ben was a member of the Universities UK Mental Health in HE Group which initiated the development of the Stepchange framework. He is Co-Chair of a cross-sector group exploring options around a future post-16 mental health strategy for Wales. He is an external adviser to the Office for Students regarding English sector funding for student mental health and wellbeing.
He was a board member of AMOSSHE The Student Services Organisation for the UK for eight years. He was Chair of the organisation from 2012 to 2016, leading a transformation of AMOSSHE’s national office, its structure and membership services. He was the first Chair of the Wales Initiative for Student Engagement (WISE), a partnership between the sector and NUS Wales from 2014 to 2017.
Ben's previous roles include Policy Adviser for the HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England), working on English policy related to widening participation and student support in the early 2000s. He was Deputy Head of the Electoral Commission Wales Office, the UK’s party politics watch dog and regulator from 2003-2005. This included time working on campaigns to improve voter engagement among 18 to 30 year olds and work as an independent observer at elections to the devolved assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland.