Visiting our Schools and Faculty Office

I have now had the chance to meet many colleagues in three of our four Schools and the Faculty Office through my annual visits. Starting with the Faculty Office in mid-January, I have also visited SEED and SoSS, with the SALC event happening yesterday. I have really appreciated the opportunity to give an update on Faculty and School performance and activities and look ahead to our priorities for the coming year.

An equally important part of the visits are the Q&As, with my Faculty Leadership Team (FLT) colleagues and taking questions on a wide range of topics from academic and PS colleagues in-person and online. I hope you prefer this new format. Thank you to everyone who has attended and contributed to the visits so far. I find them extremely worthwhile and I am looking forward to the final visit to AMBS later this month.

Next steps for Manchester 2035

In my visits, I have used the five Manchester 2035 strategy themes as a focus, and they have prompted some interesting conversations. Phase 1 of the strategy process, where colleagues across the University shared and discussed ideas in-person and online workshops and a feedback form, is now complete. More than 5,500 staff, students, alumni and members of the community took part overall. I enjoyed leading workshops on the ‘becoming one university’ theme with Patrick Hackett.

University leaders are now using the feedback gathered to consider how it can be translated into distinct and ambitious proposals. Patrick and I are leading a group of academic and PS colleagues in a series of ‘sprint’ workshops over the next month. The theme of the workshops is ‘digital inside and out’. Under consideration is how we create a digital campus and embrace AI to work for us all and generate new benefits for all our stakeholders.

We will develop a small number of propositions to take back to the University Executive. From April, the University will be holding more in-person forums and will be asking for further online feedback to test and prioritise specific proposals. For more details of the work so far, and the next stage of the process, you can read the latest Manchester 2035 update on StaffNet, which also includes a video overview from Duncan.

NSS goes live

I was delighted that our Students’ Union Faculty Officer Katie Jackson was happy to write a message for the last eNews. Hearing from our students and student representatives, and taking action to improve the student experience, must be one of our continuing priorities. It was great to read Katie’s thoughts on the importance of the National Student Survey (NSS) and its role in providing vital feedback from our students.

Since Katie’s message was published, the NSS has been launched for our final-year undergraduates. A major communications campaign has rolled out, supported by activity across our Schools. We recognise from experience that students respond best to encouragement from staff they know and trust, whether that be by sharing information on the survey in lectures and seminars, or using the resources available from the NSS StaffNet page to promote it. Thank you to everyone supporting us in our efforts to ensure as many finalists as possible take part in the NSS this year.

New Canvas training available

Our move to Canvas as the University’s new central learning environment (CLE) continues apace. I am very grateful to Sarah Dyer and Stuart Phillipson and their team for all their work in preparing us for the move away from Blackboard. They have made huge efforts to make the transition as painless as possible. There is no doubt that colleagues will have to put time aside to edit their teaching and learning content in the new software.

The second Canvas training course is now available, aimed at academic staff. The course concentrates on a key area for our Faculty – how assessment and feedback operate in the new system. The online session takes around one hour to complete, with dates available from Wednesday, 12 February through to Wednesday, 16 April. For more information and to book a course, visit the Humanities Teaching Academy Canvas training page.

Taking time out to talk

Building on the University’s ‘Do one thing’ wellbeing campaign for the start of 2025, I have been hugely impressed with all the activities hosted by our Wellbeing Champions across the Faculty and University for Time to Talk Day. A national awareness day from charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, Time to Talk Day is the nation’s biggest mental health conversation.

Most of our Faculty activities took place on the official day itself yesterday, but on-campus and online events have been running all week and continue over the weekend. With origami, hula hooping and online meditation being just a few of the sessions available, it was wonderful for colleagues to have the chance to try something new and have a chat.

The University has a range of wellbeing services and advice available to all staff and you can find out more from the StaffNet wellbeing page. We should all take time out to prioritise our wellbeing when we can and I hope you have the chance to do it regularly.

Regards Fiona

Professor Fiona Devine, Vice-President and Dean, Faculty of Humanities