Author: Shaun Williams, Executive Director Engagement and Advancement
This week’s meeting of UEB was once again split between immediate Gold Command issues, and more regular UEB business.
A number of items were discussed in the UEB section of the meeting:
- The meeting started with a discussion about race equality at the University and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in the US and UK, and a recognition that our community wants to see further action in addition to clear statements, on the importance of this issue. Following the protests in the US around the death of George Floyd, the Vice-Chancellor last week issued a statement to our University community. Later in the same week, Professor Mark Spearing, the University’s Executive Champion for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, and Gwen Gordon, Chair of Shine BAME, the staff network for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) staff, issued a joint statement, recognising that we need to make a step-change in our focus on race equality within our University community. UEB is wholly committed to creating a University community where everyone feels included, safe and valued, and recognises that we all want to see further meaningful and enduring change.
- UEB then discussed a draft of a short-term ’Bridging’ Strategy which reaffirms the University’s enduring mission and long-term objectives and sets out guiding principles to inform our decisions and actions over the next 12-18 months. In January we launched a consultation on a re-articulation of our strategy, but the Vice-Chancellor announced at the end of April that, in light of the pandemic, the process of longer-term re-articulation of our strategy would be put on hold for the time being. Instead, we would focus on a short-term bridging strategy specifically to ensure the University emerges strongly and safely from this crisis. This bridging strategy has incorporated points made during the consultation and will be shared with our community after it has been discussed and approved by the University Council in July.
Linked with this, UEB heard that further work is now underway, at pace, to develop the University’s Sustainability Strategy. This is a core pillar of our wider strategy and, once agreed, should inform every aspect of the University’s decision-making. The pandemic lockdown has shown us as a country and as a University the potential immediate impact that dramatic action can have upon the environment, for example around travel and transport, and it will be important to feed insights from our new ways of working into our Sustainability Strategy.
UEB also discussed our importance as a Civic University in the greater Southampton and Winchester region, a role whose importance has been underlined dramatically by the regional and national role we have played during the COVID-19 pandemic. This too will form an increasingly important element of our future overarching strategy. UEB approved a proposal for the University to become a signatory to the Civic Universities Charter and set up an internal Civic Universities Board, to be chaired initially by the Vice-President (Research & Enterprise).
- Next, UEB discussed and approved two papers relating to Staff Engagement. The first recommended we develop a new approach to staff engagement ahead, and in particular to focus on developing new ways of measuring staff engagement through more regular, targeted pulse surveys, which will allow a more agile response to findings by the University and by managers. It is hoped the new approach will be agreed by the end of this calendar year, with the new pulse surveys introduced in 2021. There will be no continuation of the biennial engagement survey (last conducted in 2018) but Faculties and Professional Services will continue to deliver the action plans agreed after the last survey, and will continue to impress upon line managers the need continually to engage with their teams – ever more important during this period of extended home-working.
- The second paper was a proposal to bring our staff community together for an afternoon of online celebration in July, recognising that we will be unable to run our summer staff party or the annual Vice-Chancellor’s Awards as normal this year. More details will be provided soon.
- UEB was pleased to note the publication of three annual league tables this week, all showing rises for Southampton – two world rankings and one UK ranking. It was particularly pleasing to see Southampton improve its position to 90th in the QS World University Rankings, and improve its position to 17th in the key national league table the Complete University Guide – the biggest improvement within the top 20. Southampton has also risen to 119th in the Centre for World University Rankings. UEB recognised the considerable contribution of staff and students across the University that has driven these advances.
- Finally, there was a regular review of the University Risk Register, always a dynamic document, but even more so during a crisis like COVID-19, and review of the quarterly HR metrics. UEB also noted the Office for Student’s (OfS) approval of the University’s compliance with its Prevent duty.