President's weekly update
17 June 2021
You will have seen that the next step in relaxing the rules relating to COVID infection have been delayed by four weeks to 19 July due to high levels of infection, particularly of the Delta variant. This means that we must continue to be diligent about social distancing, wearing of face masks and testing. Despite this, we are all hopeful of lifting of restrictions in the near future.
We do not have certainty over the situation for the next academic year in relation to COVID, but with vaccinations progressing very quickly, we are hopeful that we can be back to at least near normal, or a new normal. We have been in discussions about travel for international students, quarantine facilities where these are needed and
Universities UK has reported on the latest consultation of the Universities Superannuation (USS) pension in response to the changes in strength of the covenant and changes in benefits proposed by UUK. USS has costed the new proposals at very close to the current price for employers and employees.
It was wonderful to hear that our Chancellor Lemn Sissay has been honoured with an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. I spoke to Lemn last week as he will be representing us in a meeting of university chancellors about universities’ role in society. We agreed that he has much to
Senior colleagues and I took part in a workshop on equality, diversity and inclusion which focussed on bystander actions, including how we can challenge and if necessary report unacceptable behaviours and support those who may have been subjected to them.
I spoke at the inaugural lecture for students taking a BA in Social Sciences. I was due to give just the introduction, but Andy Burnham, our elected mayor, was unable to attend for family reasons so I spoke about the value of social sciences and Andy’s topic of ‘a fair chance for all’. I drew on an amazing TV programme I had watched a few days before including our Professor of Public History David Olusoga about the history of infections. The key message was that understanding cultures and influencing behaviours had huge impact in tackling infections - this was down to social sciences, rather than scientific breakthroughs. I also spoke about our contributions to society and levelling up, and how students can contribute to both.
I was asked in the lecture about the student
Professor April McMahon, Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students and I had one of our regular meetings with Kwame Kwarteng, General Secretary of the Students’ Union (SU) where we discussed further strengthening our partnership with the SU and support for the incoming officers.
I met our two new Senate members who have been elected to serve on our Board of Governors, Professor Paul Mativenga and Dr Eric Lybeck. We discussed the relative roles of Senate and our Board. The latter, of which I am a member, has ultimate responsibility for the University and holds me and other senior staff to account on every aspect of our activities.
Our Board Nominations Committee considered candidates for new lay (external) members of the Board from an extremely strong list of those who have shown an interest. Candidates will now go through further interviews before the final selection.
Senior colleagues and I met staff from Halpin which is undertaking an independent review of our governance, covering our Board and all
I was interviewed by John Morgan from the Times Higher Education about the work between the five Greater Manchester (GM) Universities, our planned Civic Universities Agreement and our plans for partnering with the nine Further Education Colleges in GM.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor