President's Weekly Update
8 May 2014
I was involved in a remarkable event called Science, Stroke, Art, held at Manchester Town Hall and attended by over 200 people - many of them survivors of stroke, their families and volunteers. It was a collaboration between a number of staff at the University and the Stroke Association, a charity that helps those that have suffered a stroke and supports research. It was the first in a series of events to be held over the next month.
The plans were hatched about six months ago and it was decided that we wanted to combine science and art and let some of the incredibly talented people who have suffered a stroke tell their story through art, music, poetry and inspirational stories. The clinical lead for stroke in England talked about how treatments have improved, then four very talented individuals used art to explain about stroke. At the end I talked about our latest research on stroke and ongoing clinical trials, but felt wholly inadequate after the other incredible speakers. You can see pictures, blogs and details of future events at:
At our Board of Governors meeting we had follow up discussions on our Board Planning Conference and the actions being taken, an update on recruitment to new positions - particularly the Vice-President and Dean of Engineering and Physical Sciences and the Associate Vice-President of Social Responsibility, student applications for the next academic year, identifying areas of outstanding strength to convey external messages about, ongoing budget reviews and all the reports from Board committees. Professor Keith Brown, Vice-President and Dean of Humanities attended and gave a perspective on many of these issues from Humanities.
Senior colleagues and I visited the University Hospital South Manchester NHS Trust where we met senior staff and held open meetings with students, then with staff. Yet again the students seemed to be happy and praised their teachers - one student had been at the meetings I had held at Salford Royal and Central Manchester Trusts. In a packed staff meeting we talked about enhancing collaboration between the University and the Trust.
In our meeting with the executive members of the Students’ Union the first item on the agenda was dealt with quickly because it was about the proposed boycott of marking which has now been cancelled as the academic staff union (UCU) has agreed to accept the pay offer for 2014-15. UNISON and UNITE are currently consulting with their members. We did discuss other aspects of pay and conditions, booking rooms for student activities and future expansion of the Students’ Union building. We also discussed terms and conditions for staff and particularly those who work for University subsidiaries.
At Planning and Resources Committee we reviewed recent meetings of Capital Planning, Finance and Human Resources Committees and agreed our submission to the Office of Fair Access on the bursaries we will offer to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
This week’s School visit was to Nursing, Midwifery and Social Care, where yet again we met students who praised their teachers and said that staff in the School listened to and acted on feedback from students. In the open staff meeting we fed back the messages from students, talked about the recruitment of undergraduate and postgraduate students and how to incentivise very research active staff particularly when they have high teaching loads.
Dr Steve Wartman, who is President of the Association of Academic Health Centres (of which Manchester Academic Health Science Centre - MAHSC - is a member) visited us and met with leaders of our Centre. I was very impressed by his rapid and accurate assessment of our strengths, opportunities and where MAHSC can really make a difference.
I had lunch with Jeremy Chan and his wife Pauline on their visit to the University. Jeremy is a graduate of the University in Aeronautical Engineering who I met on a previous visit to Singapore. He has worked in many areas, notably aerospace, in the Far and Middle East. Jeremy and Pauline are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary after meeting as students in Manchester!
We had a planning meeting for our annual Cockroft-Rutherford lecture which will be given next Monday by the historian and notable TV presenter, Michael Wood. Michael holds a part time position with us and his talk will be on ‘Why History Matters’ – the event is sold out but it is being filmed and will be available to watch online after the event.
At one of our research meetings this week, we got into the detail of planning a new clinical trial in stroke with Professor Doug Kell (from Chemistry) and collaborators from South Africa. It reminded me just how difficult studies on patients are compared to lab based research.
The Bank Holiday seems a long time ago already - but I hope you enjoyed a break!
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
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