Author: Philip Greenish, Chair of Council
Please note: information in this blog was accurate at the time of the meeting – 13 January 2021 – and may now have been superseded.
Council met on 13 January via Microsoft Teams for a short meeting ahead of our usual January Awayday.
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The Vice-Chancellor, Mark E. Smith, presented his report which, as usual, supplements his monthly written update to Council. The implementation of the third lockdown resulted in further rapid changes to our plans and the return to online teaching for most students. We have 1700 students in university accommodation, but most have not returned; we discussed the refund of accommodation costs to students who are unable to take up their university accommodation. On the issue of no detriment, we considered the Russell Group position that the policy applied during the first lockdown was not appropriate this time. The VC reported that the number of PGT students expected to enrol this term is very uncertain although he expects numbers to be lower than the original business plan and above those assumed in our baseline scenario. Teaching for new PGT students will start online. Finally, he reported that we have achieved re-accreditation in the Disability Confident Employer scheme, the first university to do so. Council joined him in congratulating all involved in this achievement.
Olivia Reed, SUSU President, welcomed the University’s decision on rent rebates, but expressed concern about the treatment of rents by private landlords. She also raised the issue of exam adjustments, student mental health and her assessment of the mood of students as a whole. Through her contacts with other student unions, she felt that most universities are in a similar position.
We considered a short report on recruitment and student numbers. Understandably, the picture is quite uncertain. Total undergraduate applications for 2021/22 are up, but not by as much as some of our competitors and PGT applications are down. However, there are underlying reasons that must be considered, for example this is our first cycle of postgraduate application fees which we would expect to result in fewer speculative applications and a higher conversion rate for those who do apply. We will look more deeply at the issue in May.
We considered next the annual Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) report, but did so briefly as we were scheduled to have a deep dive on the subject during the Awayday. On the surface, the report presented a mixed picture, but the new strategy, which we approved in November, is intended to bring about substantial change. We then reviewed progress against the Bridging Strategy Key Performance Indicators. While the staff pulse survey results were on target, those for students were not. Response rates were very low and further analysis is required to understand the extent to which the University can improve satisfaction levels against the backdrop of severe constraints on students’ lives due to COVID-19.
In other matters, we approved the establishment of a Pensions sub-Committee and the reappointment of Professor Rachel Mills as Dean of Environmental and Life Sciences and Professor Paul Whittaker as Dean of Arts and Humanities, both for a further three years.
After a short break, we started our Awayday which is an opportunity for Council to spend more time on a limited number of strategically important issues and to provide guidance to the Executive team. Experience since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic has provided us with valuable insights, many of which are likely to be relevant to the post-COVID world.
In the first Awayday session, we looked more deeply into a number of questions on our new EDI strategy, including how Council will both lead and challenge the EDI agenda. In our second session, we reviewed lessons learned from COVID-19 so far, focusing on our people – students and staff – our infrastructure and our governance. In the first evening session we heard from Sir John Parker, who was Chancellor of the University from 2006 to 2011 and leads work for government on the ethnic diversity of UK company boards. As one of the UK’s most experienced and senior industrialists who also has public sector board experience, his wisdom was of great value to us all. In the final evening session, we enjoyed a spellbinding lecture from Professor Keith Godfrey on the development of Southampton’s saliva testing programme. The success of the programme would not have been possible were it not for the tenaciousness of Keith and his colleagues.
On the second day, we started by reviewing and advising on the draft of our international competitor list which will be used in future to help us assess the University’s performance. In our final session, we explored our future education offer, taking into account lessons learned from COVID. We reviewed what has changed and our future educational goals, asking questions such as what we need to change to be a university of first choice among our competitor set. In break-out groups we considered future priorities. Finally, we considered progress against our ambitions in the Access and Participation Plan.
The tone of the Awayday was positive throughout, which is most encouraging given the difficulties that our staff and students are currently experiencing. Our top-level strategic ambition remains unchanged, but the means of delivering it will not remain the same. In our next meetings, we will be looking in more detail at our infrastructure plans (estates and information systems) and at our international strategy, and we expect to be shaping a new strategic plan during the course of the year. The University remains strong thanks to the magnificent work of our people, for which Council is extremely grateful.