Author: Shaun Williams, Executive Director, Engagement and Advancement
Operating in Gold Command mode, UEB discussed several operational and campus issues:
- There was the regular update on the current reported staff and student COVID case numbers, which remain relatively low overall, although this week has seen a slight up-tick in cases, as has also been experienced in our wider community. One of the many lessons from the COVID pandemic has been the need to take responsible action if symptoms show. With other winter illnesses around, it is even more important that staff and students feeling unwell, or showing any symptoms of illness, stay at home, for their and others’ wellbeing. The days of struggling in with a bad cold or flu should definitely be over.
The meeting then reverted to normal UEB mode to discuss a number of other issues:
- The new University Strategy, to be launched early next year, will be underpinned by, and delivered through, 10 Strategic Plans, which will ensure we translate the long-term Strategy into tangible actions over the medium term, and bring the Strategy vision to life. These will comprise: People; Equality, Diversity & Inclusion; Sustainability; Student Experience; Education; Research; Enterprise; International; Civic; and Infrastructure. This week UEB reviewed and discussed the draft Strategic Plans for People, Equality Diversity & Inclusion and Sustainability. These will continue to be refined over the coming weeks, including through detailed consultation with the wider community, to ensure readiness and alignment with the overall Strategy, and to help inform the decisions and prioritisations needed during the next period of business planning.
- UEB approved a framework for an Online Education Project, which will allow us to develop further, in consultation with our academic community, our thinking around opportunities for delivering programmes entirely digitally and online, with a third party partner.
- UEB agreed plans to develop a newly refreshed Estates Strategic Plan and associated masterplan for our campuses, that will directly respond to and support the new University Strategy, and which will draw together our current plans into a single coherent development strategy, linked closely with our Sustainability Strategy. This initial work is likely to be completed during the first few months of 2022.
- UEB noted the Annual Report on the work undertaken over the year on the progress and delivery of the University’s statutory Prevent duties and responsibilities, to be reviewed by our governing Council this week before being submitted to the Office for Students. (Section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 places a duty on the University in the exercise of their functions, to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”).
- Finally, UEB were reminded that there will be three dedicated briefing sessions next week to help colleagues gain a greater understanding of the proposed changes to the USS pension scheme, and the current member consultation process; and the meeting ended with the regular review of the University Risk Register.