Dear all 

As we come to the end of a beautifully sunny Welcome Week, I hope that you’ve all been energised by the influx of bright new faces all eager to learn and explore. It’s great to see Oxford Road buzzing with life in the autumnal sunshine - I always think this time of year is such a special time to be on campus. A big thank you to all of you who’ve been working so hard to welcome our new students.  

I know that for teaching colleagues this is already a very busy time, as we gear up to start classes next week. Thank you to everyone for engaging with the work that we had to do get up to speed with Canvas before the start of the semester. There is still more work to be done on this front, especially for courses for Semester 2. 

Can I ask all staff to put aside a little time to review some key information featured in our September newsletter, including the new SEED Strategy on Generative AI (this is particularly pertinent to all staff with teaching responsibilities) and the findings of the Influence, Respect and Being Heard Survey (the School Executive will be meeting next month to discuss further actions we can take in response to this report’s recommendations).  

Please also take some time to check that you are compliant with some of our policies which are perhaps used less often, such as those around gifts and hospitality, arrangements for working overseas and the new personal relationships policy (upcoming deadline). You’ll find a handy checklist here on StaffNet. 

As you may have noticed from my mention of the School Executive above, our SEED Senior Leadership Team has been renamed the School Executive, bringing us in line with other Schools across Humanities.  

We’re currently recruiting for a new Chair of our School Board, a vital role which helps to support and hold to account the School Executive and to ensure staff voice is heard. Please do consider nominating yourself or a colleague by Friday 3 October, ahead of our next School Board meeting on Thursday 9 October.  

You’ll have seen from my email message to all staff on 11th September that our postgraduate student recruitment numbers are quite a lot lower than we’d like. I’ll be providing a further update on this, along with details of actions the School Executive is taking and what this means for us all as a School team at that School Board meeting, which I hope to see you at on 9th October. 

I wanted to celebrate some key achievements. Congratulations to Anupam Nanda (PPEM) who has been named a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences to Steven Walker (Architecture), Sam Hickey (GDI) and Steven Courtney (MIE) who have all been appointed to REF sub-panels; and to Skye Zhao (MIE), Mark Carrigan (MIE), Jennifer O'Brien (Geography) and David Spendlove (MIE) who have all been appointed as Institute of Teaching and Learning (ITL) Fellows for 2025-27. Kudos also to Manchester School of Architecture which has risen from 16th to 6th in the most recent Guardian university rankings, my thanks and congratulations both to colleagues in our Architecture Department and our partners at Manchester Metropolitan University.  

I also wanted to welcome Loretta Anthony-Okeke into her new role as Associate Director of Widening Participation for SEED. 

As we head into a new Semester, I’m sure there will be many new colleagues you’d like to meet, as well as existing colleagues who you’d like to catch up with after the summer break. The SEED Staff Social on Wednesday 8th October is an excellent opportunity to do just that, so I hope to see you there! 

I look forward to catching up with many of you either at the Social, at the School Board or as I start to attend departmental forum meetings over the coming weeks. But if you have any questions or suggestions, please do feel free to reach out by emailing SEEDHeadofschool@manchester.ac.uk. 

Best wishes 

Khalid