President's Weekly Update

2 October 2014

I hosted a lunch with members of the University’s black and minority ethnic (BME) staff network to discuss how we can improve ethnic diversity amongst our staff and our aim to achieve a ‘race equality charter mark’, a new initiative from the Equality Challenge Unit. This followed a meeting of the network which was chaired by Professor James Thompson, the incoming Associate Vice-President for Social Responsibility. The group provided many helpful suggestions for improving diversity here at the University and I particularly liked the comment that diversity is important for all of our staff and students, not just those in minority groups.

Several staff from Arizona State University (ASU) visited us this week to discuss the further development of our distance learning programmes. This followed a recent visit by Professors Rod Coombs (Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor) and Clive Agnew (Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students) to ASU where they heard about ASU’s success in distance learning. Clive and Professor Richard Reece (Associate Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students, who is leading on distance learning for us) spent several days with our visitors, who I met for lunch. They were later joined by the President of ASU, Professor Michael Crow, who spent a couple of days with us. He had one-to-one meetings with a number of senior staff including myself, enjoyed a tour of our campus and I hosted a dinner for him with colleagues where we discussed many topics including internationalisation, research collaborations and (very relevant to the BME lunch) gender and ethnic diversity, where ASU has an impressive record. They told me that I am referred to as ‘President Nancy’ by some of our staff!

At the first Planning and Resources Committee (PRC) meeting of the academic year we considered the University’s unaudited finances for the past year, reviewed the results of student satisfaction surveys and heard about the number of student registrations for the new academic year. It is still too early to be certain of the numbers of students joining us and returning, particularly for those coming from overseas, but overall it looks as though we have met our recruitment targets in most areas. This is thanks to the hard work of many academic and Professional Support Staff from right across the University.

I attended (separate) meetings for new members of Senate and our Board of Governors to brief them generally on the University, explain the roles of Senate (as the main academic body of the University) and the Board (which has overall responsibility for governance), consider some of the business conducted by both bodies and take questions.

It was a great pleasure to meet Lord David Alliance who has been a long standing and generous supporter of the University through his own support and helping us to engage with others. I also met Janelle Barker who plays a major role working with young people in Oldham, and in the Young Presidents’ Organisation (YPO) which held its annual dinner at the University last year and raised significant funds for us. Janelle has a great deal of experience of fundraising for universities in the USA.

While in London I visited KPMG at the invitation of Tony Cates, their Head of Audit, to discuss how we might work more closely with KPMG, particularly on supporting students from less advantaged backgrounds.
Last week was the final meeting of the Alderley Park Task Force, which I am a member of. The group has been meeting for over a year in order to consider the future of the Alderley Park site, as many AstraZeneca staff relocate to Cambridge. The BioHub on the site has now attracted nearly 300 staff in about 40 companies, some small start-ups and others branches of much larger international companies. The site has been purchased by Manchester Science Partnership (previously called Manchester Science Parks) in which the University has a small share.

I gave a welcome speech to about 40 new PhD students supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in Manchester Museum. They are supported through a major award to a North West consortium of universities. The doctoral training programme has links to organisations such as the BBC, Tate Liverpool, the Museum of Science and Industry and other major cultural institutions. I talked about collaborations between universities, what is expected of a PhD and how it has changed and research impact - alongside fundamental discovery.

This week marked the official retirement of Professor Rod Coombs as Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor after working at our University for over 40 years. Rod was a professor at UMIST before the merger in 2004 and was one of the key figures in driving forward the integration of UMIST and the Victoria University of Manchester. We will be holding a drinks reception and a dinner to mark Rod’s amazing contributions to our University. Fortunately he is not leaving us entirely as he will retain a part-time position, and will remain as Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor until Professor Colin Bailey takes up the position when his successor as Vice-President and Dean of Engineering and Physical Sciences is appointed.

Today is my birthday - though my diary suggests there will be no time for parties!

Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor

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