Author: Philip Greenish, Chair of Council
Council met for a short meeting on 15 January, followed immediately by our annual strategy awayday on the afternoon of 15 and the morning of 16 January. At the meeting, we noted both the minutes of the last Council and the results of the council effectiveness review. We agreed that the new, extended Council day, which includes a half day with a Faculty or a department within Professional Services ahead of the meeting, is working well and that we will continue it at least until our next effectiveness review.
The President and Vice-Chancellor is now updating council members on a monthly basis, and so gave a brief update on the political and policy context since the pre-Christmas General Election, including the status of pension negotiations. Emily Harrison, President of the Students’ Union (SUSU), reported on the Union’s successful efforts to encourage students to vote in the General Election. She also raised the handling of a recent case of harassment and its resolution, which Council discussed.
Discussion then turned to student demands in relation to sustainability, and how SUSU was working with Professor Rachel Mills to review these and develop a wider sustainability plan for the University – a topic that was then discussed further at the Council strategy day.
Council then discussed the latest data on undergraduate and postgraduate student recruitment for 2020, including where applications are coming from and to which faculties they are being made. We then considered the annual Equality, Diversity and Inclusion report, and discussed how to improve our performance in general, with a particular focus on diversity in university promotions.
With the formal Council meeting concluded, we moved on to the awayday. We had set ourselves the aim of assessing the strategic direction of the university in the context of today’s environment for HE, and to provide advice and direction to the Executive to guide the development of the University’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and targets.
The President and Vice-Chancellor took the floor for the first session, and provided us with his impressions and perception of our strengths and weaknesses, as observed in his first three months in post. He reported very positively on many aspects of the University, including the quality of our people. However, he was clear on the challenges posed by the changing external environment and areas where we need to accelerate progress. We followed this with a workshop on the external environment. After a short break we met for dinner, which started with a presentation by Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI). His tour-de-force led to many questions.
Our second day started with a presentation on the Estates Plan and proposed changes to it. We considered these in our second workshop and firmly supported the proposals from the executive team. This included ideas around how to make the University fully sustainable, and how we determine what the shape and size of the University should be in the future. The final session started with a consideration of our performance in a range of key indicators against our key competitors, and then who we actually should be measuring ourselves against. We concluded with a workshop in which we discussed the key indicators against which we believe we should be measuring the University’s performance.
The awayday had started with the Vice-Chancellor outlining some of the key issues on which he was seeking Council’s views. By the end we had agreed those issues, which the executive team can now take forward. I am pleased to report that all Council and UEB members considered the day to be a success. Much of this was due to the very high standard of preparation by the executive team ahead of the event, as well as their support during it. There was a very satisfying level of agreement.