0820 Arrive at work to start on e-mails and other paperwork.
0930 A meeting in my room with one of the Directors of Learning and Teaching to review a number of issues in the relevant Faculty.
1030 A group of us meet to consider possible changes to the rather complex algorithm we now use to decide degree classes.  Colleageus in other universities have told me how much they envy the Sheffield position of having one agreed method across the whoe institution - a number of other universities have come under strong criticism from the Quality Assurance Agency for operating a diversity of systems at the same time. But it is complex, and one thing that has received adverse comment is the width of the stated borderlines, which are felt by many (including external examiners) to be too wide.  We review the structure and agree that we should get modelling done on the likely effect of a change to narrow the border - which we can then put to Quality and Scrutiny Sub-Committee for discussion.  The chair of that committee stays on after our group discussion to go through the agenda for the next meeting, in two weeks time.
1200 A quick trip to the Union Shop to buy a sandwich.  Then I spend some time on a draft of the University's possible response to the second round of consultations by the Browne Review on the future of student fees.  I am also phoned with a request to take on the task of reviewing a complex appeal case from a postgraduate student - and warned that the paperwork will take some time to read. I promise to do it over the weekend.  When the pdf file is mailed to me I find that it will only print out at the rate of 1 page every 2 minutes - and there are 28 pages.
1400 Call at Planning and Governance Services to drop off hard copy comments on the Browne Review document. On the way I bump into Paul Blomfield (General Manager of the Union of Students and currently the Labour Party candidate for Sheffield Central) and Wes Streeting (just coming to the end of his period as President of the National Union of Students): they are rustling up support for an election meeting with Eddie Izzard, and I am tempted to join them.  Instead I go on to see the head of Learning and Teaching Services to discuss the introduction of new university-wide modules from services such as the English Language Teaching Centre, Enterprise at Sheffield, and the Careers Service.
1500 A team leaders meeting in Learning and Teaching Services, keeping in touch on major issues.
1615 Return to my room to continue with e-mails and paperwork.  Start to plan out a speech I need to give on Sunday afternoon.
1830 Head for home and my regular Friday evening gin and tonic before dinner.

There are two significant diary events this weekend.  On Saturday evening I will be attending the International Cultural Evening organised by the Union of Students and held in the Octagon. I am looking forward to this as it is always a sparkling and professionally managed show.

Then on Sunday afternoon there is a major ceremony in Firth Hall where I will be presenting bursaries to around 60 students, with about half of the scholarships donated via the Bob Boucher fund, set up in memory of our late Vice-Chancellor.  I will need to work hard to pitch my speech right for the occasion, as the whole Boucher family will be present (with Bob's widow, Rosemary, also intending to make a speech) and it would also have been Bob's birthday.  It could be a very emotionally charged event.

But I think that's enough blogging for this week.  I'll return to the file in May. I hope that this week's approach, based around my diary, has been illuminating to various readers.  If anyone has suggestions for the style of future entries do let me know.

0700 Get up in my hotel room in London to write yesterday's blog and to deal  with e-mails from yesterday afternoon.
0800 Breakfast with my co-chair of the HEA network, and with the HEA organisers to discuss the network.
0845 Leave the hotel to travel by Underground to Imperial College.
0930 My 'senior academic woman mentee' (Prof Anne Peat) and I have a very good meeting with Professor Julia Buckingham, who is Pro-Rector for Education at Imperial - and a Sheffield graduate (in APS). We have a good discussion around women in academia.  There is some good practice at Imperial that we can learn from.
1015 Taxi back to Congress House for the HEA PVC Network meeting that I am co-chairing.
1100 The meeting starts with me chairing the morning session on 'evidence-based enhancement', discussing the ways that we can use evidence such as the National Student Survey, and the two postgraduate surveys (taught and research) to infleucne our thinking on what needs improvement. The first speaker is on video link rather than present - which is unfortunate since there are many things in his presentation that people would wish to challenge.  The other two speakers provide interesting materials for discussion and I have to cut the panel short before lunch.  Lunch provides a good networking opportunity, and I have a long convesration with Adrian Smith - now of DBIS but formerly VC of Queen Mary in London, and recently chair of the review of postgraduate education - who is to be the afternoon speaker.
1400 Adrian Smith presents his take on his postgraduate review for DBIS, emphasising how little we actually know about who actually does postgraduate work.
1430 Anne Peat and I have to leave befroe the end of Adrian's talk (fortunately my co-chair is in charge this afternoon) to get a taxi to St Pancras for the 1455 train north.  We ruminate on the role of PVC, and the diary commitments, en route.
1704 Arrival at Sheffield.  Collect my car from the multistorey car park, and drive to the Ridge (Ranmoor Village) where an alumni and donor event is about to take place.
1745 Catch up with the Alumni team, and with the main person of the evening at Ranmoor - Richard Mayson who is to run a wine tasting event.  I taught Richard when he was  a student in my department (Geography) in the early 1980s, and he has since gone on to establish a position as Britain's permier writert on Portuguese wines (including port itself).  He is a strong supporter of the University since he credits us with giving him his entry inot his future carre through supporting him financially to undertake his dissertation research in Portugal. at 1930 I introduce him to the group of donors assembled for the wine tasting, and then return to the University by car.
1900 The 2010 Students Union Awards.  This is a 'first', involving the Union organising awards for teaching staff of the university to recognise the worth that students place on them.  It has largely been organised by Holly Taylor, the Education Officer, who has put a huge amount of work in. She has asked me to make a speech and to present three of the awards.  I find this a genuinely moving occasion, bringing together the students and the staff of the university to celebrate excellent teaching.  Winners are enthusiastically cheered, and those who have been shortlisted bask in the glow of knowing that their work is appreciated.  Winners are asked to make brief acceptance speeches, and several of them manage to encapsulate in a few words the joys of teaching, of supporting learners, and of believing in what we are trying to do as a university.  Everyone has dressed up, and there is a genuinely celebratory feel in the air.  This was a great event, with a tremendous sense of 'togetherness' involving everyone present. Earlier on today, at the HEA meeting, I had observed that in my view one of the crucial developments of the last few years the increasing sense of the engagement of students in their own learning - rather than 'us' teaching 'them' there is increasing evidence of 'them' (the students) setting their own learning goals and finding new ways of achieving them, and thus teaching 'us' en route.  This evening reinforced  that, showing how students can constructively engage with staff to let us know what works for them.  Perhaps that is better than all the surveys that I heard discsused during my morning. It was good to end the day on a high.
2000 Leave for home.  And later in the evening, catch up with e-mails, and write this blog.

0845 Arrive at work to catch up with e-mails.  One of the main tasks is to decide on how the University should discuss the recommendations of the recent report by Adrian Smith's group for DBIS on the future of postgraduate study in the UK.
1000 Have two long discussions with colleagues from individual departments about matters in their area of the University.  Although I am a cross-cutting PVC with no Faculty responsibilities, it is important that I keep myself appraised of key current issues in all departments. I need to be aware of what is happening, both so that I can offer suuport and advice as necessary, but also so that I can 'talk the talk' for the whole University.  I need to be able to draw examples from everywhere when working at a corporate level, or when representing the University in wider fora. I gain some good insights from this morning's discussions.
1200 Chair a meeting of the group set up to implement a new virtual learning environment for the University.  Manufacturer support for our current VLE (which we know as MOLE) is scheduled to end in 3 years' time, and we have already discussed what product we should choose to replace the current platform.  Now we have to plan the implemntation of that choice. One of the things we decide on today is how to communicate our decisions to the University at large.  I hope we can make an announcement soon.
1330 Go straight to a small meeting in Planning and Governance Services to continue discussions on how the University should respond to the recent call from HEFCE (presaged in Alistair Darling's budget) for bids for additional student entrants in certain subjects this autumn.  A consequence of a series of meetings in the middle of the day is that I get no lunch at all - just a series of glasses of water!  Walking briskly around campus should also help to keep my waistline down.
1420 Return briefly to my room to sort out papers and deal with a few e-mail queries.
1450 Set off to the station where I meet Professor Anne Peat, Dean of the School of Nursing and Midwifery.  Anne is in the Senior Academic Women's Mentoring Programme, and although she is not primarily my mentee I offered some time ago to take her with me as shadow when I was doing PVC things outside the University.  We travel to London together where I am co-chair of meetings this evening and tomorrow.  En route we discuss the mentoring programme and also possible links between the School of Nursing and CITY College Thessaloniki.  We get more time for such discussions than we had bargained for as we are delayed for nearly 50 minutes by signalling problems at Luton.
1830 Arrive at the London hotel and without unpacking anything go straight off to the venue for the evening's dinner.
1900 Start of the dinner meeting.  The Higher Education Academy supports a network of PVCs for Learning and Teaching for all universities in the UK.  For the last year or so I have been the co-chair of this network alongside Gill Nicholls who is Deputy Vice Chancellor at Surrey.  The network normally meets twice each year. Our main meeting is tomorrow, but this evening we have Professor David Eastwood, Vice-Chancellor at the University of Birmingham, former Chief Executive of HEFCE,  and a current member of Lord Browne's review group on student fees as a guest speaker.  He brings with him one of the civil servants who is supporting that review.  David gives an excellent and provocative talk before dinner - none of which I can report here since discussions were entirely under the Chatham House rule.  I am on his table and conversation with him over dinner is equally interesting.  Because I arrived late at the venue as a result of the train delays the network team from HEA was not able to do some business discussions until after the meal, and there are good networking opportunities with the 40 or so people present, so it is not until 1030 that departure for the hotel is possible.  There is then time for an informal drink in the bar.

0830 Arrive at work. Start on overnight e-mails.
0900 Meet the Academic Director of University of Sheffield Enterprise (the Enterprise Zone on Portobello).  There is much to discuss as the offer we make to students of enterprise experiences is in transition, as the funding that has supported the Centre for Excellence in the Teaching and Learning of Enterprise over the last five years comes to an end and we move to new structures.  The main ambition over the next 12 months is to introduce a generic module in enterprise available to all students on all undergraduate programmes.
1000 Go straight to the Western Bank Library to chair a meeting of the Project Executive Group (PEG) that has been overseeing the significant refurbishment and improvement work that has been going on over the last few months.  Those last three words hide one of the frustrations of this project, because it should have been completed early in the New Year. Instead we are still chasing the contractors to complete various outstanding parts of the overall design, and to deal with some of the snagging.  I accept that this is a difficult period for the building industry, and some of the sub-contractors have run into financial problems, but one would have expected that there would be more attention to detail and to deadlines in order to remain in the University's good books for possible future contracts.  We should have had our last PEG meeting in late January, but we now need more until the project is finally completed to our satisfaction.
1100 Join a team from the outreach and recruitment area of Student Services in a talk being given by Danny Dorling.  As a rule we do not make enough use of experts in our acacdemic departments to provide advice or stimulate thinking in various aspects of our cross-university work.  Danny has been an adviser to HEFCE over educational attainment and widening participation issues, but has been under-exploited within his own university. It was a pleasure today to hear him give a fascinating talk to staff from Student Services and related areas - and he set out a number of thought-provoking questions for the future of our outreach activities and our engagement with local schools.  There are many other people like Danny in this university who could be asked to provide advice to the institution on key issues of internal debate: another that I have called on is Andy Dickerson in Economics - an expert in the UK labour market - who is now providing advice on how the university might respond to proposals to lift or remove the fees cap in the current Browne Review.
Unfortunately I was not able to stay for the question and answer session with Danny Dorling because of:
1200 Meeting of the University Executive Board.  In general our meetings alternate between a formal one with a significant agenda and pre-circulated papers, and an informal one which provides the chance for all those present to update the meeting on significant developments in their areas of responsibility.  Today was an informal meeting, with a sandwich lunch, although there was one significant issue for discussion in relation to HEFCE's recent invitation of bids for additional student admissions in 2010 in certain subjects.  Nevertheless this was one of the shortest UEB meetings I remember, being completed in an hour.
1300 Returned to my room to get on with preparing papers for forthcoming events and meetings, and to deal with e-mails.  Among the topics today have been:
- providing a reference for a possible professorial promotion in another university;
- complications relating to the Higher Education Academy meeting that I am part-chairing tomorrow and Thursday: in particular, one of our speakers is stuck in Dubai and there's a question over whether I could present his paper for him. I'm prepared to have a go if necessary.
- issues around the structure of graduation ceremonies;
- the agreement shortly to be signed between the University and the Banco do Santander under which the bank will sponsor a variety of activities.
1500 A 90 minute meeting with the head of the International Exchanges Unit to catch up on a wide variety of issues. We have one of the strongest records of student exchange of any UK university, with around 700 movers (in or out) each year.  But it is hard work keeping up with the demands of ever-changing systems.  There will be quite a lot of follow-up work emerging from today's discussions.
1630 The discussion over, I get on with sorting out agendas and papers for forthcoming events and bringing the numbers of outstanding e-mails down to manageable levels.
1910 Departure for home.
The evening has also involved about an hour of reading papers for meetings tomorrow (including one I can't attend but for which I will provide e-mailed comments). And then there's been this blog to write. 

As mentioned yesterday, I thought I might provide something of a daily diary for this week's posts.

Today's diary:
0830 arrive at work.  Start on e-mails.
0845 Meeting with senior professional services colleagues over how we should plan the revision to the University's Estates Strategy.  The Faculties have been preparing their estates plans, but over half of the total university estate is not in faculty control but consists of things like library and CiCS spaces, other student facing services, office space for professional services etc.  Actual pool teaching space accounts for less than 4% of the total estate.  This meeting was to work on how we plan for the future of such space.
0930 Return to my room to deal with e-mails. Among the topics that have loomed large during the day have been the following:
- the possible disruptive effects of the volcanic ash cloud and disruption to travel.  After discussion with various interested parties I sent a message to all heads of department asking them to log issues.  Some departments have staff absent and are having to reschedule teaching. During the day I also heard of a PhD student stranded getting back from overseas fieldwork. We have contingency plans in place for various eventualities, but not for the cessation of flights.
- a possible joint project with Leeds on the use of virtual learning environments
- the renewal of our own virtual learning environment (MOLE)
- student exchanges
- items on the agenda for the next Russell Group meeting, to be attended by the VC next week
1130 The Student Union Education Officer comes to see me to make a short film for inclusion in the Union's Awards Evening on Thursday, and to have a regular catch-up on items of mutual concern.
1230 The Education Officer leaves and is replaced by a colleague from Academic Services.  Together we go through the issues around estates planning that come from the meeting I attended at 0845.
1315 To the Students' Union to buy a sandwich for lunch.  While eating it I surf the net for non-work matters - a respite from the rest of the day's agenda. Then it's back to the e-mails.
1400 To two consecutive one-to-one meetings about the draft report of a review group I have been chairing on a particular set of teaching activities.  Those being briefed seem generally happy with the draft report.
1550 Return to my room to continue with the e-mail traffic as indicated above.  Also sort out various documents needed for the next few days meetings: my PA has already sorted out travel arrangements for a visit to London and has organised itineraries etc.
1815 To a part-social / part-work dinner for new Heads of Department to meet members of the University Executive Board.  Such occasions are very important in establishing cordial working relations.
2000 The VC and I have a catch-up conversation (he has just returned from overseas visits and I need to brief him on actions I have taken while he has been away, and on UEB discussions at a board meeting I chaired last week).
2030 Set off for home.

There remain a number of papers to be read through before tomorrow, but I will leave those until after the 2200 news on television.

During the three weeks since I last posted on this site, a colleague in Science Faculty has asked Tony Ryan what it is that I actually do.  I suggested to Tony that he might point his colleague to this blog.  But I also got to thinking that it probably isn't very clear to much of the University what the job of a Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Learning and Teaching actually is.  So here's my attempt at some clarification.

My overall responsibility is to facilitate the successful delivery of the University's teaching programmes - and in many ways the buck stops with me for any matter relating to these, or to the experience that students have of being taught at Sheffield.  Of course that task of facilitation is operationalsied through a number of supporting structures.  But before I get on to mention of them, one crucial aspect of my role is to seek to develop and maintain the University's overall vision of what its teaching actions should encompass, who we should be teaching, and what the outcomes should be.  This is the strategic level, and is exemplified in our overarching strategic papers on topics such as the Sheffield Graduate concept, on our Widening Participation strategy, on our International Strategy, and more recently on the role of teaching within our newly-defined Sheffield Academic concept.  These strategic positions have to be responsive to our circumstances, but they are not wholly inward-looking documents: there are crucial external audiences for them - for example at the Higher Education Funding Council, at the Office of Fair Access, and within the Russell Group. And I am frequently asked to explain to politicians, policy makers, local councillors and others interested in our work what is we are seeking to achieve.  It isn't enough to say we want to produce quality graduates: the obvious next question is 'how do you define quality?'

As  PVC I play a team role - not just within the University Executive Board, but in the learning and teaching area.  The team has different layers to it - the Faculty colleagues (particularly the Faculty Directors of Learning and Teaching) who operate the Uniiersity's structures in their area; professional service colleagues (in particular within Learning and Teaching Services, Student Services, the Library, Computing Services, and the Careers Service) who support student learning in countless and very significant ways.  These layers in the team consist of people who I generally know well and meet regularly.  But then there are those who actually deliver our teaching to our students, who in many cases I don't know and who don't know me.  But I ultimately hold the responsibility for making sure they can deliver their teaching in the best possible way - in accommodation that is fit for purpose, with a virtual learning environment (in our case MOLE) that adds value, within regulations that are clear and easy to interpret, and to students who are suitable to be studying on our programmes.  Senate can hold me to account on any of these matters, generally by questioning the reports that are presented to it from one of the University's major committees - the Learning and Teaching Committee.

That Committee actually has three sub-committees, and it may be easiest to explain aspects of my role by outlining each of these in turn.  Although these sub-committees each meet only 6 times per year, much of my day-to-day work lies in preparing and implementing ideas and actions that relate to matters that are the concern of these groups.
1. Admissions and Outreach Sub-Committee.  This sets the University's policies on who it is that we engage with amongst potential students, on the qualifications we accept (or don't accept!), and on wider aspects of outreach.  It is concerned with both undergraduate and postgraduate admissions, and a further very significant aspect of its work is concerned with the articulation arrangements that we have in place to admit students through specific routes.  Thus, for example, a major aspect of my role relates to the University's relationship with Sheffield International College, operating on North campus, and which at the start of this session brought in around a quarter of all our new overseas undergraduates and 11% of our overseas taught postgraduates.  Work through the Admissions and Outreach Sub-Committee also involves me in our arrangements for bursaries, and in many of our activities within Sheffield to raise aspirations amongst young people in schools.
2. Quality and Scrutiny Sub-Committee. This is the guardian of the University's regulatory structrue, which also has to fit in with national structures as laid down by the Quality Assurance Agency.  Its work has recently been enlarged by bringing in regulations for research degrees as well as all taught programmes.  A lot of the considerations here are very detailed, concerned with rthe exact interpretation of what we are seeking to do, but a lot of it is also very 'big picture.'  It is this sub-committee that receives the National Student Survey results and the results of other surveys. It is this sub-committee that oversees the increasing number of arrangements that we have for delivering programmes jointly or in partnership with other universities.
3. Enhancement and Strategy Sub-Committee.  This assists with the creation and monitoring of the strategies I talked about at the start.  But it also has responsibility for ensuring that we respond to student needs and to wider interests in our teaching programmes.  In particular it defines, monitors and supports the work of a variety of cross-University projects. Current examples include the work of University of Sheffield Enterprise, the work of Maths and Stats Help (MASH), CILASS, and our project on Inclusive Learning and Teaching that has been a great success in a number of departments.  This sub-committee also oversees the Senate Award scheme and various other aspects of reward for good teaching.

Beyond those areas, I also hold responsibility for providing academic liaison for the Department of Student Services and to the Library and CiCS.  This leads to a lot of fascinating work on a whole range of student-facing activities in the area of welfare, critical incident support, the development of new library services, and liaison over the introduction of major new IT systems (or the upgrade of exitsing systems) across the University.

But there is another aspect to my work, and that is that of all the PVCs I am the one who has the closest working relationships with the Officers of the Students' Union - in particular with the President, the Education Officer, the Welfare Officer, and the International Students' Officer.  Indeed I probably see the Education Officer at least once a week in some way.

Finally there are external roles.  I believe I am the second longest serving PVC for Learning and Teaching in the Russell Group (Mchael Worton at UCL has been in post longer than me).  All universities have PVCs for Learning and Teaching (and almost all also have them for research).  But much of the rest of our Sheffield structure is not directly reproduced elsewhere.  Consequently not everyone on UEB has external networks of colleagues in similar roles to draw on.  This means that the VC, the Registrar, the Director of Fiannce, the Director of HR, the Academic Secretary (through the Planning Officers group), and the PVCs for Learning and Teaching and for Research and Innovation have important information-gathering roles across the sector, through their external connectivity.

I am a member of two particular networks: one consisting of the Russell Group PVCs for Learning and Teaching (which meets twice a year but which does a lot on on-line business in between times); and the other the national network of PVCs run by the Higher Education Academy. In fact I am co-chair of this latter group (along with a colleague from the University of Surrey) and there is one of our biannual meetings coming up later this week.

Beyond that I have also been asked to serve on a number of task and finish groups for the Higher Education Funding Council for England, and perhaps because I wasn't too much of a disaster in those roles I was asked last year to join one of the Strategic Advisory Committees of HEFCE - that relating to teaching.  This gives me a seat close to the national centre of decision-making on many aspects of university policy.  It also results in increasing numbers of invitations to speak at various meetings and conferences - some of which I will report on in due course.

This is really only a shorthand version of what is a very interesting and varied portfolio - and I've not spoken at all about the tasks I take on across the University as a member of the Executive Board, or because I have developed some level of expertise through my 6 years (come 1 May) in a PVC role.  But I hope it fleshes out something of the role of my PVC-ship for those who have not previously understood it.  Perhpas it would be helpful if each day over the next week I provide a brief timetable of what I have been doing.