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.
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.
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