President's weekly update
2 November 2023
Conflict in Israel and Palestine
This situation continues to be heartbreaking. We are all hoping there is soon an end to the loss of innocent lives and to the human pain and suffering affecting so many in the region. Our thoughts are with all those affected at this terrible time. We continue to urge tolerance and sensitivity amongst our staff and students, recognising that so many have had family and friends directly impacted by the conflict. It is important that our University community stays united and we support one another through this difficult period.
Further discussions about systems and processes
Following my meeting with Heads of Department and Divisions (HoDs) in Humanities that I reported on a few weeks ago, I had meetings with HoDs in FSE and BMH, which Patrick Hackett and Luke Georghiou attended. We again fully acknowledged and apologised for the significant operational challenges our staff and students have faced over the past few months. As a priority we are identifying short-term fixes (some have already been deployed) and invited further suggestions. As for all change programmes, there will be an evaluation of SEP, independent of the sponsors and the project team.
HoDs in BMH talked about a number of operational challenges and staff pressures, due to a range of factors. The implementation of the Student Experience Programme (SEP) has undoubtedly been a key part of the problem and has caused pressures as new systems and processes were introduced. This was exacerbated by the cyber incident, staff shortages, the marking and assessment boycott, as well as some of our other systems which are in need of improvement. FSE HoDs also described significant difficulties but again were keen to focus on solutions and communications, with regular updates as we did for our cyber incident. Both groups reported that staff were tired, morale was often low and that new teams need to bed in better. Both groups came up with some very constructive suggestions.
Senate
Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted the start of the meeting claiming that we are involved in the supply of test material to the Israeli military. We are not. We allowed the protestors to speak in line with our commitment to freedom of speech. They were peaceful then left. This was followed by an update on the process for appointment of my successor, which I didn’t attend.
We had an extended discussion at Senate about SEP. We heard some of the benefits that have been delivered, but also many members expressed their strong concerns about failings and that senior leaders had not recognised these. We tried to assure Senate that we are very well aware of the problems. Some felt that SEP was fundamentally flawed, others said the problems were about implementation and that we should have recognised confounding issues noted above, some felt that problems went beyond SEP and were about wider systems problems, some wanted full reversal of SEP, but several members spoke strongly against this. The evaluation of SEP was welcomed and will be the subject of an additional Senate meeting.
We also discussed the situation in the Middle East, noting the support that is available to staff and students. Our Students’ Union Officers reported many concerns from students who are very anxious about the current situation and about what they can and cannot say in the current, very sensitive situation. We restated our strong commitment to freedom of speech but also said that at present, it is challenging not to cause upset or offence.
Board People Committee
We considered staff on fixed term contracts (FTCs) that are coming to an end of their contracted term and discussed our actions to reduce the use of FTCs, though the vast majority are research staff on external funding for defined periods. We also received updates on the People and OD transformational plan, performance and development reviews, academic promotions and appeals, apprentices’ pay, Staff Survey action plan and progress in our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy.
Global Leadership Board (GLB)
GLB, which includes representatives from the UK, Hong Kong, USA and the Middle East supports us with philanthropy. I updated on current University issues, and we discussed the impact of the conflict in the Middle East, and the problems we have been facing on delivery of change programmes such as SEP. They also received an update on Innovation District Manchester from John Holden, Associate Vice-President for special major projects.
Lemn Sissay
Great to see Lemn, our former Chancellor and current Honorary Professor of Creative Writing, on Richard Osman’s House of Games. Lemn came equal second!
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor