President's Weekly Update
9 October 2014
I visited Cheadle Hulme High School to officially open their new sixth form building. As I walked in I saw many illustrations of biology around the walls and a big notice saying ‘Nancy Rothwell Award’, which is a national competition for biology art run by the Society of Biology - the winners will be announced soon but I gather that there have been many hundreds of excellent entries! Cheadle Hulme’s new building and the quality of their facilities are impressive and I saw many demonstrations and musical presentations before I gave a speech on the value of a university education and then formally opened the building.
We held the first meeting of the academic year of the Social Responsibility Governance Group and discussed plans for the next year and recent activities, several of which have achieved major awards and press coverage.
One very impressive activity under our social responsibility theme is ‘Dementia Champions’, led by Professor Chris Cutts (Associate Dean for Social Responsibility in the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences). The objective of the scheme was to identify and train members of staff to help those with dementia, particularly where they have limited support. The goal at the outset was to sign up 30 dementia champions, so it I was delighted to hear that we have already exceeded the target with 33 signed up. You can find out more at:
I was due to speak in Michigan in the USA this week at the World 100 annual conference on ‘Transformation: where world-class universities have to change to survive’. My talk was called ‘A reputation for excellence - communications focus at The University of Manchester’. However, it all went horribly wrong when several flights from Chicago to Detroit (including mine) were cancelled and I ended up flying straight back to Manchester - landing just short of 24 hours after I left. Not a good experience!
An upside of the cancellation was that I could join the rest of the staff in my office for afternoon tea at the Richmond Tea Rooms in Manchester - I would highly recommend it.
I attended a meeting for local Fellows of the Royal Society at the University to hear about the Society’s current publications, the performance of their journals and challenges and to discuss the future of scientific publishing.
I spoke at an executive education programme run by Manchester Business School (MBS) for officers who are leaving the armed forces. I talked about the role of a non-executive director (NED), and described what is expected of such a role particularly in large, multi-national companies, the due diligence you should undertake before considering becoming an NED, the expectations, challenges and value gained (which is enormous).
Professor Colin Talbot who leads our ‘policy@manchester’ activity interviewed me about my experience of advising ministers and senior civil servants through my various roles, and what advice we can give to our staff who are keen to engage in policy advice.
I recorded a message for our MBS alumni in Hong Kong who will soon be celebrating 10 years since the formation of their alumni association. This coincides with the 10th anniversary of our University (since the bringing together of UMIST and the Victoria University of Manchester) and next year will mark the 50th anniversary of MBS. When I was in Hong Kong only recently, I met most of the executive of the alumni association.
I spent quite a lot of time over the last week reading and planning for our Annual Performance Reviews which will begin shortly. These are important meetings where we consider progress against our targets for each area of the University and plans for the next year. The discussions will feed into our ‘Annual Stock Take Report’ and the budgeting process for 2015-16.
Thank you to those of you who sent me ‘happy birthday’ messages last week!
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
Feedback
Please send comments to president@manchester.ac.uk