President's weekly update
21 July 2022
Board of Governors
We held the last Board meeting of the academic year and the last for our Chair, Edward Astle and several other members whose terms have come to an end.
We first had an informal briefing on our new People and Organisational Development Strategy from Adèle MacKinlay, and our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy from Banji Adewumi, which were both welcomed and approved by the Board.
At the main Board meeting, I reported on the ongoing political uncertainty facing the sector, given major changes in government, pending ballots on industrial action, and our latest results in the National Student Survey where we were disappointed that our score last year didn’t improve. I explained that a large proportion of the individual comments from our students related to COVID, and in Humanities to industrial action, but there were also comments about organisation, communication, and assessment and feedback, where we need to improve. We also approved the budget for next year and reviewed our financial position this year. The latter is very favourable to the budget but largely because we have been limited in spending by difficulties in recruiting staff in some areas (notably IT so vacancies are much higher than normal) and delays in many supplies.
The Board approved the appointment of Philippa Hird, a current member, as the next Board Chair and two new lay Board members, David Buckley, an alumnus and former member of our Global Leadership Board, and Anna Dawe, the Principal and Chief Executive of Wigan and Leigh College. Professor Daniela Caselli was appointed from Senate, Professor Danielle George was reappointed and Samantha Bronheim joins from our Students’ Union where she is Executive Officer for Union Affairs.
After the Board meeting, we thanked Neil McArthur, Raoul Shah, Claire Alexander, Melody Stephen, and Miguel Gonzalez Valdes-Tejero who will be standing down from the Board. Ann Barnes, Deputy Chair, thanked Edward for his outstanding chairing, though we will have a more formal thank you from SLT and the Board at an event for Edward next week.
Our international reach
At our International Advisory Board (IAB), I spoke about the REF results and other updates, Professor Luke Georghiou talked about future international innovation and business opportunities and gave an update on our global influence strategy.
I also met with Rory and Elizabeth Brooks who are huge supporters of our international activities and Rory currently chairs our IAB. They were visiting many of the areas they have supported including our Global Development Institute and the Rory and Elizabeth Brooks Doctoral College.
Internal
I met Patrick Hemmaway our new Director of IT Services. He is very happy to be back in Manchester, described this as his dream job and spoke of the strength of talent in IT, despite the challenges that he is well aware of.
Finally
The exceptional weather over the past week has proven difficult for many, yet despite this, we managed to go ahead with all our degree ceremonies as planned. Many thanks to the large number of staff who helped to make these go so smoothly in spite of extremely high temperatures. You should look at some of the brilliant pictures and stories from our graduations, they are inspiring.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor