President's weekly update
19 October 2023
Conflict in Israel and Gaza
We all watch with horror at the terrible situation in Israel and Gaza. The violence and loss of life that is affecting innocent people in the region is truly heartbreaking. We are aware of the deep distress and concern that this terrible situation is causing. Our hope is that peace will soon be restored to the region.
This is a time for mutual respect and understanding in our community. While we support the right to free speech, we will not tolerate any racism on our campus. The joint statement from our University and our Students’ Union, reaffirming our zero tolerance to racial hatred and discrimination, ‘Standing together against hate’ has been issued, which has been followed up by a joint message from our Jewish and Muslim Chaplains.
These messages have also been repeated in our University-wide student newsletters and our staff news channels and we continue to remind people of their responsibilities and urge support for tolerance.
A great Foundation Day
At our annual Foundation Day, marking the establishment of The University of Manchester in 2004, we welcomed many civic guests, friends and supporters of the University. We bestowed honorary doctorates on Catherine Hall, Kevin Leeson, and Deborah Gold. Deborah delivered our Foundation Day Lecture and signed our Foundation Declaration. We also showed a short film about our commitment to social responsibility.
Start of year problems
We appreciate that this has been a particularly challenging time for staff and students and we apologise for difficulties at the start to the year, particularly with timetabling and student enquiries. These challenges resulted from a range of factors, including the impact of the cyber incident which is very much ongoing. We implemented a new timetabling system which was too far advanced, when the cyber incident occurred, to pull back. We are still facing staff vacancies of around 6.5% in Professional Services. Some of the changes associated with the Student Experience Programme (SEP) exacerbated these problems as we have a number of staff who are new to roles and new systems. Many staff are also still dealing with the impact of the marking and assessment boycott by some members of UCU which has caused significant extra workload at a very busy time. I would like to thank all students and staff for their patience and understanding.
A number of these problems are now being resolved, for example timetabling enquiries are now back to normal levels and we must clear the backlog from marking urgently as the extended deadline for marking has now passed. But factors such as staff vacancies are a national issue, and it will be several months before we can fully rebuild all the systems that were impacted by the cyber incident, but we are working hard to address all issues.
Listening to staff
I held many meetings with staff, including with the Heads of Departments and Schools in Humanities, with a group of about 100 leaders from across the University, separately with the President’s Doctoral Scholars, and with participants in the 100 Black Women Professors Now programme (100BWPN). Members of the Senior Leadership Team and I also attended an online open meeting for staff which was recorded.
In the open meeting staff raised concerns about the start of year problems. We had presentations on the Teaching Excellence Framework/NSS and the Knowledge Exchange Framework outcomes. Staff also asked about achieving our zero carbon targets, postgraduate researchers stipends, plans for our bicentenary year in 2024 and the planned developments on the east side of Upper Brook Street, which we are not involved in.
The leaders’ meeting heard about amazing work on closing the gap in degree attainment from Professor Gabrielle Finn, Associate Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students and Professor Adam Danquah, Associate Dean for Inclusive Education and Engagement in BMH. We also had updates on change programmes and IT.
Our President’s Doctoral Scholars (PDS) asked me about research careers, managing workload, financial pressures, what we have learnt from the cyber incident, nursery support, public speaking, relations with our trade unions and the University’s research ambitions.
At the meeting with participants in the 100BWPN, they were all incredibly positive about the programme and keen to encourage others to take part.
International engagement
I hosted an event in our Museum with Simon Arora, a very successful local businessman and chair of the Manchester India Forum, to welcome new students from India. Ms Kanika Arora, Vice Consul to the Consulate General of India, also spoke and we had Indian dancing and tours of our South Asia Gallery. Our new students were joined by some from other GM universities.
Students’ Union (SU)
Senior colleagues and I met with the Officers of our SU and discussed the situation in Israel/Palestine and heard that a number of Jewish students are feeling unsafe. We also discussed industrial relations, student ambassador pay, how we support commuter students who drive, our multi-faith strategy and visa endorsement for our student entrepreneurs.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor