President's weekly update
12 January 2024
Happy New Year and to the start of our bicentenary
I hope those of you who could take time off managed to have a restful and enjoyable break over Christmas and the New Year, despite the very wet weather (in the UK, if not elsewhere)! Huge thanks again to all those colleagues who worked across the festive period in vital roles keeping our campus and community safe.
It is wonderful that we are now in the year of our 200th anniversary, a truly significant milestone that we will both celebrate and reflect on through 2024. The first of our major events is on 17 January – Light Up. If you can’t attend in person, you will be able to watch the event online.
Next President and Vice-Chancellor
You will no doubt have seen that Professor Duncan Ivison will take over from me on 1 August at the end of my term. Duncan is Canadian, has worked in the UK and has spent the past 20 years in Australia, currently at the University of Sydney. We had a long chat on Zoom over the holiday period and he will be having further video meetings over coming weeks then visiting us in the spring. I am pleased that the University will be in such good hands as we start our third century.
Additional meeting of Senate
Before Christmas we held an additional Senate meeting to discuss the forthcoming review of the Student Experience Programme (SEP). It is normal to review any change programme to see what has worked and what hasn’t. SEP is a major and complex change programme which comprises several phases and was significantly delayed by COVID.
We had a good discussion at Senate and reached general agreement on the scope of the review, the membership of the review group and the governance arrangements, all of which will be made available across the University over the coming weeks. The outcomes and recommendations from the review will also be made available to all later this year.
Humanities heads of schools and departments
This meeting was to follow up a meeting last year with heads of departments who raised a number of operational problems. We heard about significant improvements in many areas but also some challenges, most acutely due to staff illness. We also heard about some problems with staff recruitment and contracts and IT, though it was recognised that many areas are still dealing with the aftermath of the cyber incident People and OD and IT Services are actively working on enhancing core processes.
Sector issues
There are ongoing concerns about recent changes to salary thresholds for international staff recruited on visas which is a major topic for the Russell Group. There are also growing concerns about the number of universities reporting significant financial deficits and hence needing to implement cost cutting, largely due to the fact that the undergraduate UK fee has remained almost unchanged for over 10 years while costs have risen sharply. Most newer universities (‘post-92 group’) are also facing a big increase in the cost of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme to which they contribute.
I met Andy Schofield and Tim Jones, the Vice-Chancellors of Lancaster and Liverpool respectively. Concerns about the higher education sector finances was a key topic for our discussion though we did also talk about opportunities for further collaboration and sharing resources.
Students’ Union
In a meeting with the SU officers before Christmas, we heard about their main priorities, notably student wellbeing. We gave them general updates on the sector and discussed the impact of the terrible conflict in Israel and Palestine on students.
In the new year, April McMahon and I met Hannah Mortimer, Union Affairs Officer for the SU. Students are back next week for exams, which is always a stressful time. We also discussed the impact of conflict in the Middle East on students and concerns from some international students about salary thresholds for visas.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor