Will Swann is Director, Students at the Open University, where he has worked since 1977 as an academic and senior leader, apart from three years in the early 1990s spent working as a primary teacher. His teaching and research in the 1980s and early 1990s were as a member of the influential OU inclusive education group, which played a prominent role in the development of inclusion in mainstream education for children and young people with learning difficulties and disabilities.

During the 1990s, he led the development of a programme for primary teaching assistants, establishing the OU as a leading training provider for this emerging para-professional group.

From 1998 to 2004, Will was the Dean of the OU’s Faculty of Education and Language Studies. He was appointed as Director, Students in 2004, leading the Student Services division, which comprises a quarter of the OU’s internal staff, as well as the 6,500 Associate Lecturers who are the front line to OU students. He has lead strategic responsibility for the student experience and for widening participation at the OU.

He played a central role in the reshaping of the OU’s provision in response to fee increases and the introduction of part time-student loans in 2012/13.

Will Swann is currently President of the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities.