Author: Shaun Williams, Executive Director of Engagement and Advancement
Professor Mark Spearing started today’s meeting by thanking colleagues in ODAR who had been involved in organising last week’s prestigious memorial lecture in honour of our former Chancellor, Dame Helen Alexander. Now in its second year, the lecture was given by Dame Carolyn McCall, CEO of ITV, on the topic of ’Trust in Business’. A number of students from our Business School were in the audience.
Mark also highlighted Friday’s national climate change action – our University is supporting University and College Union (UCU) campus officials in their initiative to promote action.
On to the main agenda, and an important update on Brexit preparations. Our cross-University Brexit No Deal Task Force is now meeting weekly while external uncertainty continues, with business continuity readiness across Faculties and Professional Services being addressed at the highest levels. As the current 31 October Brexit deadline nears, more regular communication about operational impact will be provided, where needed. The University is also liaising on a regional basis with Southampton City Council, the NHS, and Hampshire Police. UEB also underlined its continuing commitment to support staff and students applying to the EU Settlement Scheme and urged anyone who has not yet done so to take action.
Then to another issue of generational importance and impact– our approach to Sustainability. Professor Rachel Mills, Dean of the Faculty of Environmental & Life Sciences (FELS) and the UEB Champion for Sustainability, brought to UEB a paper setting out the steps required to develop an overarching Environment & Sustainability Strategy for the University. The strategy aims to set out clearly our ambitions and commitments, and to draw together coherently the many existing strands of excellent activity underway, many of which aren’t getting the visibility or recognition they deserve.
The scope of this is huge, from our world-leading research activity to how we present ourselves to prospective students and staff, from our responsibilities as a Civic University to how our catering provision embraces environmental challenges, from how we enshrine sustainability in our approach to transport to and from the University to how we embed environment and sustainability innovation in our future campus buildings, from how we will align our activity within the 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals to what we will expect or demand from our partners and suppliers. And so on.
A future UEB once Professor Mark E. Smith has joined as our new Vice-Chancellor will be devoted to discussing this further.
Other issues on the agenda:
- A review of August Health & Safety incidents, and an update on the restructure of the Health, Safety & Risk directorate.
- A status update on our main corporate partnerships activity, led from within Research & Innovation Services (RIS), the first report of this kind to UEB, which was well received.
- A further update from Professor Diana Eccles on progress against our Athena SWAN Charter action plans. Bluntly, we need to walk the talk more, not just talk the talk.
- As part of UEB’s commitment to discuss staff engagement at every meeting, Ian Dunn gave an update on progress made against action plans in Professional Services, and Professor Diane Eccles gave an update on activity in the Faculty of Medicine.
- UEB formally approved revisions to the proposed changes for the 2019-20 promotion process, which had previously been discussed by UEB.