Simon Hewitt is not the type to run from a big idea.
In fact, the Dundee and Angus College principal has a history of running towards them.
And now, he’s leading the charge in an ambitious new vision for a £265 million college shake-up, including a brand new campus on the site of Dundee’s Wellgate Centre.
Simon’s vision, informed by both his role as college principal and chairman of Dundee’s Local Employability Partnership, is to tackle the disconnected state of employment and education services.
Instead, he wants to create a one-stop shop for careers in the heart of the city.
“We want to provide employability advice, support and training all under one roof,” he explains.
“People could be walking into the building for all sorts of reasons, but they’ll talk to one person who has a range of understanding about a whole lot of different services.
“So you’re not being pushed from pillar to post. You could literally walk in, get some advice and be signed up for a course or program on the same day.”
Why build a college in the Wellgate?
For Simon, placing this new facility in the heart of the city centre is essential to the plan, which he says he wants to benefit the city’s ailing high street as well as students and staff.
He points out the college is in a unique position compared to Dundee and Abertay universities, with 98% of its 17,000 total students coming from the local area.
“Almost every plumber, joiner, barber or electrician you encounter in this city will have been through our doors,” he says.
“We do more for local skills development than anyone else, so this makes sense.”
The old Dundee College building (which is now privately owned) on Constitution Road was deemed too small a site, too far out of the way.
But locating the new college campus on the site of the struggling Wellgate shopping centre would bring close to 1,100 pairs of feet to the city centre each day, Simon says.
“That brings significant footfall to an area of the city that needs regeneration,” he explains.
“The ground floor will be completely open, like walking into a shopping centre still.
“You’ll see things like the training restaurant and cafe for hospitality students, as well as employability support services. The college itself would be on upper floors.
“So you could be going in for a coffee, or a haircut…”
Or a new career?
“Exactly,” he smiles. “It’s almost like an evolution of what a high street can be, and what a college should be.”
Stark Dundee stats show change is vital
A blue-sky thinker he may be, but Simon’s drive to take on this ambitious new vision isn’t plucked from thin, optimistic air.
Hard data, including some “pretty depressing figures” and “a lot of frustration” around chronic college funding cuts propelled him and his senior leadership team to look outside the box for solutions to the city’s problems.
“Looking at participation measure (the number of young people involved in education, skills or training), Dundee is one of the worst places in Scotland,” Simon says bluntly.
“And 26% of Dundee’s population is economically inactive, which is almost double the national average.
“Drilling down into that, you find it’s not that there’s a lack of activity and services to help. The problem is it all needs to be joined up.
“And the ultimate aim is to start making a dent in those stats and turning them around.”
It would seem that if any organisation can do this, Dundee and Angus College can. Amid the bleak stats, Simon highlights that it has been the top performing college in Scotland for the last 10 years.
And the principal’s love for the place is palpable.
College gave Simon Hewitt his career – and his family
“It’s in the bones,” he laughs. “This college and this city gave me everything I have – my education, my career.
“I even met my wife (Perth College lecturer Cheryl Hewitt) here, she was in the HR department. Now we have three kids, twin girls and a boy. They’re what it’s all about.
“Both my in-laws worked at the college too as lecturers before they retired,” he adds. “They still speak to me as the new lecturer walking through the door!”
Hailing from Portadown in Northern Ireland, Simon grew up as the son of a joiner in a troubled town.
He entered the college first as a student almost 20 years ago, after following his big sister to Dundee.
Immediately after graduation from Abertay University in 2005 with a degree in Business Computing, he realised his qualifications were not enough to get him a job in industry.
In an effort to plump up his CV, Simon enrolled in night classes at what was Dundee College, to obtain specific vendor certifications.
And from the moment he set foot in a classroom, he knew there was something special about the “hands-on, practical” nature of college learning.
“I loved it,” Simon recalls, sipping from a mug of warm tea in his office overlooking the Kingsway campus.
“I was one of these nerdy students that was like the teacher’s pet, but I really enjoyed it and got stuck into it. And I thought: ‘I actually like this type of learning’, which was much more hands-on (than university).”
Simon Hewitt: The man for the job?
Simon was so enthusiastic about his college course that the next year, he was asked to teach it.
So along with a job in industry at NHS Tayside, he began his Dundee College career.
A full time lecturing position in the computing department came up in 2007, which Simon leapt at.
And two years later, in 2009, he became the college’s youngest head of department at the age of 27 – a position which he admits was daunting.
“It was hard – of course it was hard!” he laughs. “But that’s never stopped me. You just have to crack on.
“I think if you’re genuinely really passionate about what you’re doing and focused on what you think is right, that’s all that matters. To hell with people who say ‘he can’t’.”
Simon’s meteoric rise continued through the merger to become Dundee and Angus College.
He was promoted to vice-principal in 2016, and finally to college principal in 2020.
Already during his tenure in senior leadership, he has steered Dundee and Angus College through a crippling cyber attack and the Covid-19 pandemic with enduring optimism.
He puts this down to his mantra of spotting “opportunity in a crisis” and welcoming ways to think differently when presented with obstacles.
And since becoming principal, he’s knitted his family life even more tightly with the college.
Special sibling moment at sister’s graduation
One standout moment came after the same sister he followed to Dundee as a teen graduated from a college course last year in 2023, with Simon handing her certificates to her.
“My sister crossed the stage and shook my hand, and our mum and dad were in the audience,” he shares. “That was a really nice moment.”
And before Simon’s late dad passed away, his tools were donated to the college’s joinery department.
“My dad loved his tools more than he loved his family,” smiles Simon.
“They were precious to him. The fact that we were able to donate a lot of them to the college so that the next generation were going to be using his tools gave him some comfort when he couldn’t use them himself.”
Simon swears he is in it for the long haul
Now 42, Simon is still the youngest principal in Scotland. And with that comes the benefit, as Simon puts it, of “a lot more road ahead” than most.
“This is usually an end-of-career thing, I don’t think there’s ever been a principal with this much road ahead,” he says.
When I ask if this means he’s in for the long haul – the Wellgate development is predicted to take around a decade – he smiles an affirmative.
“I’m absolutely committed and bought into this, 100%.”
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