Dear all,

And before you know it, we are in the middle of marking season. I look out of my office onto the quad full of students and staff which is always an uplifting sight (although the relentless dry weather is starting to get me worried about our garden!)

Last week we were able to celebrate one of the most important milestones in any academic's career: promotions. I am delighted that a substantial number of colleagues were promoted to professor or senior lecturer which testifies impressively to the outstanding quality and commitment to excellence by staff in SALC, in research, teaching, and engagement. Congratulations to all!

In other personnel news, we are welcoming this summer a new Executive Director to the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI). Nicolas Lemay-Hébert is joining us this summer from the Australian National University where he was Professor of International Relations. He will succeed Larissa Fast, who has led the Institute from strength to strength in the past four years.

Nick will take over an Institute that is at the forefront of research in humanitarian, conflict and disaster studies, as well as a thriving teaching unit at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. HCRI’s teaching portfolio includes a pioneering (and in the current times of global conflict, ever more important) joint degree programme in Humanitarian Practice, in collaboration with Médecins Sans Frontières and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Our Size and Shape programmes continue to grow and flourish – particularly those in Digital Media, Culture and Society, and in Creative and Cultural Industries – and this autumn will see an Estates development that will underpin this growth as well as that of other programmes within the School. We are launching a large new Digital lab in the former Lenagan Library on the lower ground floor of the Martin Harris Centre which will contain a number of collaborative digital spaces as well as workstation.

This will be followed later in the academic year by a large media lab on the top floor of the Samuel Alexander Building (utilising the space of the former Conference Interpreting lab), also supporting growing programmes in Film, the Institute of Cultural Practices and elsewhere in the School. The two new labs are also part of a new approach to shared facilities within the Faculty, creating synergies making best use of space and equipment where and when needed. My thanks go to the Faculty and School Estates and Technical Services teams, led by John Moore and Karl Spencer, for making work what may seem like an equation with a hundred variables!

The week before last I attended the Making a Difference Awards, honouring special achievements in the sphere of social responsibility. Seeing the incredible work done by staff and students, going above and beyond, always makes me proud to be a member of this institution. Two SALC projects deserve mention as highly commended: Learning from the past, looking to the future: peatland communities (Mel Giles, Martin Evans, John McAuliffe and Matthew Pate) in the category ‘Outstanding public engagement initiative: local/civic engagement’, and A Citizen’s Assembly (Andy Smith and Lynsey O’Sullivan) in the category ‘Outstanding public engagement initiative: national/international engagement’.

Yesterday saw our Research Showcase which has become an annual fixture in the calendar. This year's theme, ‘SALC 2025: Discovering Pasts, Creating Future’, explored interdisciplinary approaches to arts and humanities research, referencing the Creative Manchester platform as well as the cross-Faculty themes of Sustainable Futures, Healthier Futures and Digital Futures. We also took the opportunity on the day to congratulate and celebrate Professor Mel Giles (Department of Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology and Egyptology) who is the 2025 University Researcher of the Year for the Faculty of Humanities.

The theme of interdisciplinarity and dialogue will also be at the core of the annual Faculty of Humanities Leadership conference taking place on 5 June, which will give us an opportunity to celebrate our successes, focusing on working together as one of several central drivers of the Manchester 2035 strategy.

In teaching, last week was the conclusion of this year's version of the Undergraduate Scholars programme with an event showcasing the ambitious interdisciplinary projects on which students have worked with staff on an extracurricular basis. This is a programme and event that always brings out the best in our students.

The Faculty’s Teaching Sustainability project is approaching the end of its second year. After looking at programmes with very few or no students on them in 2023/24, and closing many of them, we turned to considering programmes with an intake of fewer than 25 students at undergraduate level and 15 students at postgraduate taught level. Without applying this yardstick mechanically, which includes taking a different approach to the Modern Languages and Cultures (MLC) portfolio, this exercise has enabled us to identify areas where programmes were unsustainable because of low numbers, where their numbers could be strengthened by consolidating or merging provision, or where having a tighter and more transparent offer will enable us to focus our marketing resources towards more effective recruitment.

We are also, like the other Schools in the Faculty, embarking on the next phase of the project, considering the streamlining of curricula and modular provision, aiming for the best possible balance between deliverability, transparency of choice and breadth of subject matter. In all of this, huge thanks to those who are putting in the long hours to work through all of this, particularly Director of Teaching, Learning ad Student Experience, Camden Reeves, Head of Teaching, Learning and Student Experience, Emma Wilson, and the professional services Teaching teams.

But Teaching Sustainability is as much about developing new things as it is about consolidating existing provision. Various proposals have emerged from conversations within and between departments, including a single-degree ‘umbrella structure’ for our MLC provision, an MA in Transnational Curating in collaboration with the Whitworth, and a single-honours undergraduate Film Studies degree.

We are particularly excited about the potential for developing online provision, partaking in Faculty-wide initiatives and in line with the Manchester 2035 vision for flexible, personalised and digitally enabled learning. We can build on successful models here in Egyptology and HCRI and have started to explore the potential of areas such as Languages for All (LEAP) in MLC, Biblical Studies, History, and Digital and Creative Media.

Never a boring moment!

Best wishes,

Thomas