President's weekly update
9 May 2019
Last week we held two major annual events, both to packed audiences, in our Whitworth Hall. The ‘Volunteer of the Year’ event led by Jane Ratchford, Director of Student Development and Community Engagement, recognised our students, staff and alumni for their remarkable volunteering, and celebrated our many partner organisations.
At the ‘Making a Difference’ awards led by Professor James Thompson, Vice-President for Social Responsibility, and Dr Julian Skyrme, Director of Social Responsibility, our staff and students were presented with awards for the wide range of social responsibility activities they are engaged in. We also recognised the fact that our School Governors programme has now reached 1,000 members. I spoke at both events about our achievements over the past year. These include the first and only Gold Watermark for public engagement, over 1.3 million visitors to our cultural institutions and our ranking of third in the world in the new THE impact league table.
Patrick Hackett, Registrar, Secretary and Chief Operating Officer and I attended a meeting of our Senate Effectiveness working group, chaired by Professor Danielle George, Vice-Dean for Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Science and Engineering. The meeting was very constructive. We all agreed that we need to do more to help Senate members better understand their role. We also need to communicate more effectively Senate’s activities to the wider University, as well as ensuring that Schools are aware of the various routes to raise any issues or concerns, including through Senate. We also agreed that discussions at Senate had significantly improved, that the new Senate briefings on topics requested by members were welcomed and the transparency of the agenda (to which any member can make suggestions) was very helpful.
We held a series of Board of Governors committee meetings. At Finance Committee we discussed major budget challenges which all universities are likely to face. The North Campus Working Group heard about progress in moving towards the launch of our procurement process for a partner to develop ID Manchester. Staffing Committee reviewed staffing changes, particularly for staff on finite external funding. We now have two Remuneration Committees. One, which I attend, considers recommendations for any pay awards for the most senior staff, where, as always, I proposed overall increases that are lower than the average increase for all staff in the University. The second committee, which I am not a member of and do not attend, considers my salary. As in previous years I made it clear that I would not accept any increase in salary.
We have introduced a new Export Control Policy and training to ensure we comply with our legal obligations under the UK’s Export Control legislation. To help colleagues with this, the Compliance and Risk Office has developed a short online training course, and more information is available on StaffNet. I would urge all colleagues to look at this and that all who need to, complete the course.
I met Professors Malcom Press and Helen Marshall, the Vice-Chancellors of Manchester Metropolitan and Salford Universities. Inevitably we discussed the major ongoing uncertainties in the sector and also areas of mutual interest and potential collaboration, including health and creative activities.
On a visit to the School of Law, students were extremely positive about their experiences in the School and the University, saying that they felt supported and welcomed. They wanted to hear more about the rationale for the merger with the School of Social Sciences and what impact it would have on them – we said we expected minimal impact on students and any impact should be positive. In the meeting with staff we discussed the likely impacts of the Augar review, for example on widening participation and the difficulties of balancing undergraduate and postgraduate student recruitment before we know if there will be changes to the undergraduate student fee cap.
I met Christine Blacklaws, President of the Law Society, who was visiting to learn about our growing activities in ‘legal-tech’. She said that our School of Law is one of only a handful leading on this important and growing area.
Professor Graham Lord, Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, and I met Professor Sir Michael Marmot, a world leader in health equality who is planning to work with Greater Manchester to address social impacts on health inequality.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor