Russell Downing, Academic Mentor
Email Russell Downing: r.j.downing@leeds.ac.uk
Phone Russell Downing: 0113 343 3212
Visit Russell’s LinkedIn profile
My role
I am one of the Academic Mentors at the Lifelong Learning Centre. My role involves helping students with issues that they may deem not to be significant enough to warrant contacting their personal tutor or lecturers about.
The role of the Academic Mentor is to help students on their learning journey. A student might wish to contact me if they have questions but are not sure who to ask. They might want to talk about obstacles they have come across and are not sure how to overcome. I’ll meet with them to determine what sort of help they might need - sometimes they might just need a simple chat with someone to sort through their thoughts; sometimes they might need to be put in touch with someone who has the necessary knowledge to help them with their problem.
Informing how I approach my role is the time I myself spent as an LLC student. I studied our Professional Studies BA full-time starting in 2018, moving on to the School of Sociology and Social Policy to study for an MA in Social and Political Thought. My dissertations at both undergraduate and postgraduate level focused on the nature of Japanese nationalism in the early 20th Century.
I began my current role in September 2022 with great enthusiasm – my own learning journey has prepared me for many of the concerns students might raise as I have lived many of them myself! To this end I work with LLC colleagues to provide this new and important service.