Next VC Event to Focus on Challenges for Universities

Leadership Update
Date: / September 2010
Subject: / This is the latest in a series of regular briefings containing University-wide updates.
Briefer:
Briefing guidance: / This briefing contains a summary of high-level, key messages to support you with your face-to-face communications with your direct reports.
Ideally, it should be communicated face-to-face to your direct reports by the end of the month – not circulated by email - and should provide an opportunity for your colleagues to give you feedback on the content.
It need not be presented verbatim. Please summarise where appropriate and deliver in a way you are most comfortable with to ensure that messages are authentic.
Please add your own content, which is relevant to your support division, faculty or area of expertise.
The briefing should enable your direct reports to brief their own people on some of the issues facing the University.
Please encourage your direct line reports to add more localised information which should still be delivered face-to-face at each stage of the cascade.
Allow at least an hour for the sharing of information and feedback.
Highlights this month: /

Transformation Board set up
Next VC Event to focus on challenges for universities
Review of programmes will lead the way to improving our academic offering
New students welcomed to Salford
University celebrates Black History Month for first time
National Student Survey results in detail
Latest Almanac and Academic Handbook now available
New Director of Research and Innovation appointed
Simon Attwell to retire at end of year
Steve Donnelly to take up new role

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Our mission:
Our vision:
Our values: / Salford is an enterprising University which transforms individuals and communities through excellent teaching, research, innovation and engagement.
The University of Salford will be, by 2017, an outstanding University renowned for the quality of its engagement, humanity, global reach and leadership in research, innovation and education.
We espouse and promote the following values and behaviours:

The highest academic, professional and ethical standards
Service to our stakeholders, clients and partners and, in particular, putting our students first
Supporting our people and recognising and rewarding excellence and leadership
Working together for the advancement of the University
Innovation, creativity, enterprise, courage
Diversity, humanity, fairness and respect
Pride in our heritage and the distinctive difference we make to the world
Investing passion in all that we do.

Our six goals and their owners: /

Goal 1 – Transforming learning and teaching: Martin Hall
Goal 2 – Transforming research and innovation: Ghassan Aouad
Goal 3 – Transforming engagement: Keith Barnes
Goal 4 – Our people: Keith Watkinson
Goal 5 – Transforming infrastructure and services: Adrian Graves
Goal 6 – Internationalising our University: Cynthia Pine

Our six themes and their owners: /

Built and Human Environment: Khairy Kobbacy
Energy: TBA
Enterprise and Innovation: John Wilson
Health and Wellbeing: Cynthia Pine
Human Rights, Social Justice and Security: Ruth Wright
Media, Digital Technology and the Creative Economy: Brian Longhurst

Why we need these briefings / The University acknowledges the need to keep its people informed. Employees perform better when they are involved and when they have an open and honest dialogue with their leaders.
Involvement creates good will and employees are prepared to go the “extra mile”. One of the targets for our People Goal 4 is to increase the number of employees engaged to at least 45 per cent by 2012 – placing us in the top quartile of UK organisations.
This briefing will help support you in addressing the issues above and will supplement our employee magazine, US, the Vice-Chancellor’s blog as well as US Online on the Staff Channel.
Business updates / 1. Transformation Programme Board set up
A new Transformation Programme has been set up to oversee a series of strategic projects which support the Lauwerys’ recommendations. The projects include leadership and management development, establishing college structures, branding and web, non pay costs and business and student journey processes.
The Transformation Programme will be governed through a newly formed Transformation Programme Board which will be held on a fortnightly basis, chaired by Adrian Graves, Deputy Vice-Chancellor. It will be supported by a weekly working group.
Also, interim arrangements have been put in place as a result of the creation of the three new colleges, replacing the four faculties. The interim roles of three college administrators have been created with dual reporting responsibility to Adrian and to the PVCs and Deans of College.
They are, Jenny Hinsley, College Administrator, Health and Social Care; Alison Swann, College Administrator, Science and Technology and Jacky Flynn, College Administrator, Arts and Social Sciences. In addition, Simon Herbertson has taken on the role of School Administrator for Science, Computing and Engineering, with the current School Administrator, Mark Lovell, moving to an interim role in the centre.
The College Administrator positions will remain in place pending the appointment of College Registrar. The College Registrars posts were recently advertised both internally and externally and appointments to these posts are due to be completed by the end of November 2010.
As a result of the splitting of the Business, Law and the Built Environment to the Colleges of Science and Technology and of Arts and Social Sciences, additional interim arrangements have been introduced to ensure a smooth transition.
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2. Next VC event to focus on challenges for universities
To date, more than 280 staff and students have registered their attendance for VC Martin Hall’s key-note presentation on the future of our universities.
Set against a backdrop of a reduction in public funding, changing conditions of employment, and fewer university places for UK students, Professor Hall will give his views on our particular challenges and what we can do about it.
The event is being held on 8 October, in Maxwell Hall from 12.00 to 13.00 hours. To register your attendance and submit a question to the VC please go to:
3. Review of programmes will lead the way to improving our academic offering
The University is embarking on an in-depth review of its taught programmes to ensure that our academic portfolio is both educationally effective and economically sustainable.
The review is an important part of our transformation programme to ensure that we strengthen our position by making our academic offering clearer and more relevant.
The University needs to discontinue programmes that are not effective in taking our students through graduation, as well as programmes that are not attracting sufficient student interest and are therefore not financially viable.
This review will build on the work of the Academic Portfolio Review Group led by Professor Steve Donnelly.
The University has some 600 taught programmes, varying in size, with the largest having hundreds of registrations but with many only having one or two. Many of these small programmes are minor variations of each other or of larger programmes.
Running so many programmes makes it harder for us to present a coherent message about our educational mission and about the areas in which we are strong and excel. Under subscribed programmes carry administrative overheads and a teaching burden that is not offset by tuition income.
The picture for modules is similar in that there are over 3,000 variants registered in Banner and over 1,200 in Blackboard.
A new set of design principles for programmes and modules will go to the Academic Council and the Executive Committee for approval at the end of the month.
4. New students welcomed to Salford
As part of his regular communications to students, VC Martin Hall has contacted all new and returning students to welcome them to the University.
In his message he outlines some of the many facilities available for our students, the development of MediaCityUK,the opportunities for students to meet him face to face and the role of the new PVC Academic, Huw Morris who will be leading on all aspects of the University’s learning and teaching strategy.
To read the message in full, go to: on the Staff Channel.
5. University celebrates Black History Month for first time
For the first time the University is taking part in Black History Month – a celebration of the achievements of the UK’s ethnic minority communities which takes place next month (October).This is part of the University’s commitment to equality and cultural diversity and a key initiative of the Listen! strategy.
Chancellor Dr Irene Khan, will launch Black History Month when she delivers her first lecture as Chancellor. Covering themes of equality, diversity and human rights, Dr Khan’s lecture will take place in the Lady Hale Lecture Theatre on 4 October at 5.30pm. Anyone interested in attending should email
The programme of events for the month includes a play about Nina Simone, a talk by the world’s first reggae poet, Linton Kwesi Johnson, an exhibition of oil paintings and a live music gig.
Also, Professor Erik Knudsen, Head of the School of Media, Music & Performance, will be screening his poetic documentary, Heart of Gold.
Professor Gus John returns to the University as part of the celebrations, He became the first black director of education in the UK in 1989 and also carried out Equality and Diversity surveys for a number of institutions including Salford.
A full listing of the events – which are free - can be found at: and to book your attendance at the events please contact the Arts Programme by emailing or telephone ext 59003.
6. National Student Survey results in detail
Huw Morris, PVC Academic and Dean of the College of Arts and Social Sciences has thanked staff for their support of the 2010 National Student Survey in which 69.30 percent of the eligible student population participated, an increase of 11 percent on last year.
The good news from this year’s survey is that the overall level of student satisfaction has increased by 1 per cent in comparison with last year, to 78 per cent.
This increase is in line with general movements across the higher education sector and so the overall result for the University remains 5 per cent behind the sector average. Although this is disappointing, there are several positive messages that can be drawn from the latest survey which include:
Across the University as a whole the results recorded exceeded the national average in three areas:

providing clear marking guidelines;
enabling students to get access to information technology; and
helping students to improve their communication skills.

Staff were also praised in optional questions relating to the quality of placements and the careers advice on offer; students said that they believed their suggestions were valued and that they felt part of a learning community.
Overall, 80 per cent of students said that they would ‘recommend studying at Salford University to others’; at 13 per cent more than the sector average this is a great achievement and testament to our continued efforts to enhance the quality of our students’ experience.
There is still scope for improvement, particularly in the areas of organisation and management and teaching and assessment where we scored between 2 and 7 percentage points below the sector averages.
The introduction of a range of initiatives including much earlier provision of full year timetables, e-submission, improved module information and online reading lists, and daily checks on teaching space during semester time are intended to address some of these key organisational and teaching issues, and should start to impact on our NSS results from 2011.
For further information go to:
7. Latest Almanac and Academic Handbook now available
The University’s 2010/11 Almanac – an academic calendar year of key dates – is now available, with access in a variety of formats.
The Almanac provides semester dates as well as meetings of key governance and management committees, including the new Executive Committee (which replaces the SLT), Council and Senate and their standing committees.
The Almanac can be accessed via Microsoft Outlook Calendar on your network PC. Alternatively, diary and year planner formats can be downloaded from the Governance website at: www.governance.salford.ac.uk/almanac. This website provides instructions for accessing the Almanac through your Calendar and also provides academic year dates for 2010/11 and 2011/12.
In addition, the Academic Handbook is now available online. This is a compendium of the regulations, policies and procedures which provide the quality management framework for the University’s provision of taught and research programmes
This replaces the former Academic Quality Assurance (AQA) Handbook, the content of which has been updated and mostly re-presented in a standardised format and clearer style reflecting advice recommended in a review of the AQA Handbook in 2009. The Handbook is available on line via: www.governance.salford.ac.uk/page/academic_handbook.
A limited supply of hard copy Academic Handbooks will be distributed. The online version will be updated to include any changes approved for implementation during the course of the academic year.
Comments and questions should be directed to Stewart Smith-Langridge, Senior Assistant Secretary, Governance Services Unit at
8. New Director of Research and Innovation appointed
Dr Chris Harrison has been appointed Director of Research and Innovation to grow and commercialise the University’s research activities.
The University is embarking upon an ambitious research and innovation strategy with the primary objective of growing research funding from £12 million per year to £30 million per year by 2014.
A key part of Chris’ role will be to ensure that Salford’s research is transformed into commercial success – focusing on intellectual property and developing entrepreneurial activities such as spin-out companies, licensing and consultancy.
A new division for Research and Innovation has been created, which will bring together the various aspects of enterprise activity, along with the University’s Research and Graduate college, to support this strategy.
Chris joins us from the University of East Anglia (UEA) where is is the founding Chief Executive of the Low Carbon Innovation Centre and Programme Director of Carbon Connections – a government-funded programme to stimulate carbon reducing technology and behaviour which operates a £3 million development fund investing in early-stage ideas.
He takes up his new role with us on 1 November.
9. Simon Attwell to retire at end of year
Director of Finance, Simon Attwell, will be retiring at the end of the year after over three years with the University. In a message to all staff, VC Martin Hall said that the University had benefitted immensely from Simon’s service since April 2007. Events would be arranged which would both recognise and celebrate Simon’s retirement later in the year.
In his time at Salford, Simon had worked tirelessly to transform the University’s finances, planning and reporting and will leave the University in a strong financial position. Simon has agreed to remain with the University to finalise the end of year accounts and to facilitate an orderly transition.
The University will be initiating a search for a new chief financial officer shortly.
10.Steve Donnelly to take up new role
Professor Steve Donnelly, Theme lead for Energy and formerly Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science, Environment & Engineering, has been appointed to a senior position at the University of Huddersfield.
After 24 years of continuous service at Salford, he will join Huddersfield in January 2011 while it is investing in science and engineering to build its research capacity. He will be Head of Department of Engineering and Technology and will also take on a “Superprof” role, building research and enterprise through leading by example.
VC Martin Hall thanked Steve for the key role he has placed as both Dean and as a member of the former Strategic Leadership Team and in providing excellent foundations for the Energy Theme. Steve finishes at Salford at the end of December and his successor as Theme Lead for Energy will be announced soon.

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Faculty/Divisional communications
Record of notes and feedback from briefing session:

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