Back to work

Back at work this week after an amazing holiday in Jamaica - not normally away at this time of year, but last year we got hit by Hurricane Sandy, and they offered us a free holiday to make up for it. It would have been rude to say no.

Interesting to watch  business continuity plans swing into operation on our way out - we were at Gatwick when they suffered a power cut which brought their computer systems down. People with loud hailers appeared telling people what gate to go to, all tickets were checked manually, and although we were lucky and got on the plane, just after the cut, our bags weren't so lucky. Each one taken out of the container by the side of the plane and manually checked against a list. three and a half hours later, we took off. Interesting to see how a complex organisation can cope without its systems, but so much slower.

Some good news to get back to as for the third year running Sheffield's topped the list in the student barometer for student satisfaction for IT Support - I'll post more detail when I have it, but well done everyone.

Spent most of this week catching up, and also gave a telephone interview to a journalist about the changing role of the CIO as technology changes. I always out the phone down after these and think "what did I say?" Well, I hope it makes an interesting read when it comes out. It's always fun seeing how journalists interpret what you say.
 Here's the result of the last one I did. Bears some resemblance to what I remember saying :-)

Other things this week include a catch up with our finance manager about our budget, and some discussions about the data issues around a research proposal.

It was also Senate - our academic governing body -  where we had some really interesting debate around changes to our curriculum structure. Also about the environment we're in at the moment - there's constant change, there's no HE Bill so we're being ruled by a series of ministerial statements, and the "GoveEffect"is affecting everything about our admissions.  And our Vice Chancellor quoted Russell Brand when talking about immigration!

So, as it's Halloween, here's a scary fact to finish on from our comms team - our students print 5.6m pages a year.

The gorilla and the trapdoor

Interesting meeting yesterday with some staff who are collecting stories and anecdotes from people in the University, to use in prospectuses, as news items, and to make sure that knowledge isn't lost when people leave. they really came to see me to talk about how to store make available various forms of media - audio, video, photos, text etc, but I couldn't help going into nostalgia mode and telling them some of my stories. As well as the ones here, the one they were most interested in, is why there's a trapdoor, cleverly hidden by the carpet, in one of our main meetings rooms in the University. It's actually an escape route, installed in the early 80s when students has a sit-in in the corridor outside the room whilst a meeting was going on, I think it was Council, and the VC had it installed so he could escape if it ever happen again. Only time I've seen it used is when a colleague of mine left, and the director of estates jumped out of it dressed as a gorilla. Those were the days....

Also been to two meetings of the Senate Budget Committee this week, where I'm the representative of the professional services. Interesting discussions about our terms of reference and way of working, and what areas we are going to be looking at over the next year. Comments received from members of Senate indicate a lot of mistrust, and misunderstanding, of how budgets are set, and we're looking at ways of making this more transparent.

I've also been involved this week in discussions about implementing a student eFile - bringing together all of those bits of information that are stored in many departments about students into one place. looks like we've found a way forward, but more on that later.

And now, as the weather's changed and the sun has gone and rain has appeared, I'm off camping for the weekend!  Have a nice bank holiday everyone.

Welcome to Sheffield

Quite a lot of stuff going on at the moment, and some major meetings.  Yesterday was Senate, where we had a good discussion on the current external environment. Summed up by uncertainty and some disagreements in Whitehall - which only add to the uncertainty of course. Lots of unrest about the proposed changes to the student visa system - a barmy idea it seems to me and many others which will have a profound affect on this country's ability to undertake research in science and engineering.  We also discussed student fees, and the discussions which are taking place about fee levels, OFFA, widening participation etc.  Great speech from our student union president, who accepted that they had lost the fight on fees, but were fully behind the university in widening access, supporting poorer students, and improving the student experience. He made a significant point to members of senate -when students are paying more, they will expect teachers to be teachers. Teaching will not be something you do because you have to, and it will have to have the same importance and respect as research.

There was a meeting of the Professional Service Directors early on in the week where we tracked the progress of several workstreams, had an update on the University review of pensions, and looked at some work on costing services and activities.

Another major meeting is about to happen - the LibDem conference in Sheffield.  Walked into town at lunchtime, and a huge fence has gone up round the City Hall, with a rather ironic sign on it:

Glad to see the South Yorkshire police are making good use of social media during the conference, with regular updates from Chief Inspector Green and Inspector Forrest from the liaison team - the event's even got its own hashtag - #libdempolicing.

Our Shared Vision

First Senate meeting of the new session today. As always, the main item of business is the VCs report where he gave a good overview of what's happened in his first year at Sheffield:

• The new University structure is operational
• Faculties are the primary focus for decision making
• A University Executive Board is operational with Faculties represented
• There's openess and transparency about what is being discussed

He also talked about the global situation and how that could affect us:

• The Global financial crisis will have knock on effect
• What's the financial sustainability of HE sector nationally
• Will there/won't there be a change in government, and if so what effect will it have
• Demographic changes will begin to kick in in the next 5 to 10 yrs
• There's an atmosphere of greater competition which will lead to increased selectivity in funding

There was some good discussion about our aspirations as a University, and how we can achieve them particularly in the difficult financial climate. Some very positive vibes about working together and having open debates on the way forward.

The rest of the agenda fairly uncontentious. A couple of questions about how successful the new on-line registration system had been. We were able to confirm that overall it had been a success, but there had been some departments where there had been problems - presumably the question came from one of those departments. I think we did a good job - the implementation of a new system is rarely without problems, and this had very few overall.

Senate

Senate meeting yesterday afternoon - 2 major discussion items. First was the on-going process around restructuring. All of the Faculty Pro Vice Chancellors are now in place, and the new University Executive Board (UEB) will take over on 1 August. UEB consists of the Vice Chancellor, 5 Faculty PVCs, the 3 cross-cutting PVCs (Teaching and Learning, Research and Innovation, and External Affairs), the Registrar, Director of Finance, Director of HR and Academic Secretary. More professional service reps than before (still no IS rep though but I'll keep working on it...). We're promised that there will be much more transparency of decision making - no inner cabinets, just a collective responsibility, which is a good thing. There's still a lot of work in progress around the role of the Faculties, including their governance structures, but this seems to be progressing well. I'm in the process of meeting all of the PVCs - I've had 3 very positive discussions so far - about how we might work in partnership with them to provide the most efficient, cost effective service to them, and add value to the support they already receive from their departmental staff.

Second item on the Senate agenda was the capital programme, with details of new buildings on the cards, as well as significant refurbishments. The most significant refurbishment is the Arts Tower. It's over 40 years old, and a Grade II listed building, and in drastic need of a lot of money spending on it! I wonder how many of you realise that it's inspired by the Seagram Building in New York - which has twice as many floors. The building will be gradually emptied over the next few months, (with the exception of the Estates Department who have bravely agreed to move into it during the works), and then the outside cladding will be replaced as well as an internal refurb of some of the floors.

Another two major refurbishments are Western Bank Library, and University House (Student's Union) which will have a significant amount of work done on it to create a variety of new spaces.

I've mentioned the concept of Learning Hub before, but rather tha a new build, we are currently looking at trasforming the Edwardian wing of the old Jessop Hospital into teaching space, including self help space for students for the English Language Teaching Centre and Modern Languages Teaching Centre. They will have to get rid of the dead pigeons first though!

Senate

Today was a meeting of the Senate. Senate is the body which oversees and approves all academic recommendations, for example about teaching and learning, research and academic structures.

The main item of today’s meeting was the report of the Senate Steering Group, which was proposing changes to the structure of the university – I’ve already reported what these are:

• Keep the existing 5 faculties
• Departments to be in one Faculty only, and to decide in conjunction with the Faculties where they sit - this may evolve over time
• 5 Faculty PVCS – Academic leaders who provide external representation, and are budget holders for the Faculty
  
• 3 University-wide PVCs – Teaching and Learning, Research, External Matters (regional, national international)
• A University Executive Board consisting of the 8 PVCs, the VC and representatives of the Professional services

The UEB will propose budgets for the whole University, which will be approved by a University Development Committee which will be a committee of the Senate.

Some details are still being worked on - where departments sit, membership of the UDC etc.

There was a lively discussion at Senate, covering areas including:

• How professional services will align to the faculties, and it was confirmed that there was no intention to break up the services, but some alignment would be necessary
• Cross faculty collaboration
• How consistency will be applied across faculties, and how examples of good practice we currently have must not be discarded.
• Governance in faculties – will there be common principles?

Senate approved the report and further work on the detail will now be continued. In terms of consultation, there will be open meetings, VC surgeries, and a webcast from the VC.

Another matter which came up was our recent implementation of new Finance, Payroll and HR systems. Although technically the implementation has gone very well, there are still problems with some business processes, particularly with purchasing. Meetings have been held with all Faculties where a number of problems have been noted and are being worked on. Matters discussed included payment of invoices, payments through the external payroll, future developments and training.

One other thing discussed which might be of interest included MASH – Maths and Statistics Help. A new service for students.

Senate Steering Group reports

I've mentioned in previous posts that the new Vice-Chancellor had identified that a review of the University's organisational structure had a high priority. A Senate Steering Group was established to review the current structure and to make recommendations for change. That group has now produced a report which has just been circulated to Senate and Council for discussion and approval. It has been sent to the CiCS Executive team so that it can be cascaded in the department, so that we can begin to discuss what implications it might have for us and how we organise our services and support.

The key recommendations are:

The existing Faculties (Medicine and Health, Pure Science, Engineering, Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences), are retained and become the primary location for all of the existing 41 planning units and the research centres/institutes;

Each Faculty will be led by a Pro Vice Chancellor (PVC) who will be the budget holders for that Faculty

There will also be 3 PVCs who are appointed to lead cross-cutting areas of research and innovation, learning and teaching, and external affairs

The Senior Management Group (SMG) will be replaced by a University Executive Board (UEB) which comprises the Vice Chancellor and 8 PVCs, the Registrar and Secretary and Director of Finance

The arrangements for the faculty infrastructure, resourcing and operational environment will emerge under the leadership of the new PVCs

The report specifically refers to the scope for alignment of the Faculties with professional services.

I look forward to this being discussed within the departmental teams and will post any further news here as soon as I can.

Tomorrow (Monday) I'm going to a workshop on Exploiting the Potential for Blogs and Social Networking, and providing there is a good wireless connection, will attempt to blog some of the sessions as they happen!