President's weekly update
7 October 2021
It was wonderful to be back in the Whitworth Hall to celebrate our Foundation Day after not being able to do so last year. It was a pleasure to give a summary of the many successes, highlight some of the challenges over the past year and give special thanks to our Chancellor, Lemn Sissay, noting that this was his last Foundation Day in that role. However, it was fantastic to announce that after his term ends, Lemn will take up an Honorary Chair in Creative Writing, so will remain part of our family.
Those honoured with honorary doctorates were David Aaronovitch, Dorothy Byrne, Professor Dame Sue Hill, Sir Alan Langlands and Professor Helen Pankhurst. A further honorary graduand, Marcus Rashford, was not able to attend, so we will be conferring his degree separately.
David, a journalist, broadcaster, author and alumnus, presented the 2021 Foundation Day Lecture, Moon Over The Cottage: 1937. After David’s lecture, we showed a short film written and performed by Nana Agyeman, our recent Students’ Union Postgraduate Officer and had lovely music from our students’ Ad Solem choir.
A range of visitors
In addition to the visitors for Foundation Day, which were sadly limited in numbers this year, we had a busy week for visits. A group of potential investors came to learn about our commercial activities, our Innovation Factory, which looks after commercialisation and Northern Gritstone (NG), the investment company we are developing with the universities of Leeds and Sheffield. The new CEO of NG, Duncan Johnstone, also visited to discuss their very positive progress in raising investments.
Because of the Conservative Party Conference taking place in Manchester, we had several visits from ministers to discuss levelling up, NG and Innovation District Manchester. I spoke at a Royal Society event at the Conference on whether and how we can build Britain as a science superpower, and attended events hosted by Greater Manchester and by the Confederation of British Industry.
Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR)
At many of these events and at several other meetings, an important part of our discussions focused on the government’s spending review, which is due to be published on 27 October. You may wish to look at the submissions to the CSR from Greater Manchester and the Russell Group.
Understanding staff concerns
I absolutely share the sentiment of many staff messages I’ve seen saying how great it is to be back on campus and to see their students and colleagues in person again. We know that some are nervous about returning which is understandable, but I would reiterate that we have robust safety measures in place and there is no better protection than vaccination.
Proposed changes to the USS pension is a concern for many staff. We published a summary of the current position. Senior colleagues and I met the executive team from USS. USS has published a letter showing that the pension regulator feels that, even with the proposed benefit changes, the payments should be several percentage points higher, and irrespective of what any of us think about the valuation, USS is at the limit of what the regulator will permit. It is important to note that without these changes staff and universities would be paying very much more than they do now.
We have also now published an article on staff pay, which will be followed shortly by a further article on staff conditions, contracts and gender and ethnic pay gaps.
Staff wellbeing and workloads came up as part of my discussions at the Humanities Faculty Leadership team meeting. We have agreed to give staff an extra day of holiday over the Christmas period. Dates will be announced shortly.
I’m very sorry that we have been suffering major issues with Wi-Fi connectivity recently. IT staff have been working incredibly hard round the clock to restore full service. The issue with the Wi-Fi has been caused by a technical fault with some of our network equipment. We understand the considerable disruption this has caused, especially to staff and students involved in teaching and learning. While these are largely resolved in some areas, we know that problems persist in some parts of the University and IT staff are continuing to work hard to resolve them.
Engaging with our students
The Students’ Union officers joined senior colleagues and me for a lovely supper. We heard about their priorities, particularly on student wellbeing. They said it felt as though we had two years of new students given that the current second years had such a disrupted time last year. We also talked about ideas for the next Chancellor to succeed Lemn. We will be calling for proposals early next year.
Manchester leadership
Councillor Bev Craig has been appointed as the next leader of Manchester City Council to succeed Sir Richard Leese. Bev studied politics with us, was a Students’ Union Officer and worked for us for a while. We look forward to working with Bev and keeping up our close relations with the city.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor