Thursday 30th April 2015 - The end of eleven years on the university's executive board

It was on 1st May 2004 that I became a Pro-Vice-Chancellor and joined the executive board (then called the Senior Management Group) of the University of Sheffield.  Today therefore represents the completion of exactly 11 years in a senior role: that amounts to 9 years and 7 months as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Learning and Teaching, 4 months as Acting Vice-Chancellor, and 1 year and 1 month as Deputy Vice-Chancellor.  And, perhaps fittingly, today marks the day when my current contract runs out. I will now 'step back' to being an ordinary professor in my department.  In other words, despite what some may think, I am not retiring but will continue in a different role for a some time to come.

It has been a fascinating period of 11 years for me, and I have been reflecting on the things that I have been involved in doing within the Unviersity of Sheffield as part of my role (I will leave on one side things I have been involved with via national bodies such as the Higher Education Academy, HEFCE - the funding body - or the Russell Group.  And I will also leave on one side things I have done in my departmental roles in teaching, research and research supervision over the recent period).

So here are some of the things that I have played some role in - sometimes as instigator, sometimes as supporter.  All have involved team work in some way with people across the whole university.  The order below is random - they are just as they have come to mind.

• Introducing the concept of the 'Sheffield Graduate' around which we have built much of our strategic approach to learning and teaching.
• Supporting the winning of money from HEFCE to set up the White Rose Centre for Excellence in the Teaching and Learning of Enterprise (surely one of the longest titles), which then evolved into our very successful and prize-winning 'University of Sheffield Enterprise' facility.
• Supporting the bid to set up the Centre for Inquiry-Based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences (CILASS), which led to the embedding of an inquiry approach across large areas of the university where it had not previously existed.
• Creating the first widening participation strategy for the university and seeing that renewed and developed through time, including the annual negotiations over the agreement with the Office for Fair Access (OFFA)
• Stimulating the university into setting up procedures to welcome as students young people from a care background (a personal interest, since one of my daughters had written the government's Green Paper on care leavers).
• With colleagues, developing a set of criteria for academic promotions for those whose principal responsibility is for teaching - and seeing a number of individuals promoted to professorships as a result.
• Creating the Senate Award scheme for excellent teaching as it now exists, including the celebration of award winners at degree ceremonies.
• The creation of Sheffield's pathway college (Sheffield International College) as the first in a Russell Group university - and then seeing it develop, through a change of provider, into the University of Sheffield International College
• Creating a structure to allow joint degere awards with other universities, and participation in Erasmus Mundus netwroks. (We are still ahead of many other universities over joint awards.)
• Taking Sheffield from a mid-table place in the Russell Group in the first NSS (2005) to hold 4th place more recently, with overall satisfaction scores well aboe the national average.
• Helping Sheffield win the THE 'University of the Year' award in 2011, and reach top place in the Student Experience Survey in 2014.
• Creating a new Student Support Strategy for the university in the wake of the creation of new student residences structures and the demolition of the old halls of residence.
• The creation of the Sheffield Graduate Award to recognise extra-curricular activities.
• Acting as Chair of the Project Executive Group that delivered the Information Commons.
• Developing a new relationship with City College, Thessaloniki, and supporting their expansion into other cities in the Balkan Region - and witnessing what that has done to encourage peaceful coexistence in a troubled part of the world.
• The creation of degrees with employment experience.
• Chairing the steering group for the implementation of the SAP finance and HR system at Sheffield - not an easy process, but one which went better here than in many other universities.
• Creating the new Faculty of Social Sciences of 13 departments out of three former faculties, and seeing it grow in strength and importance. (A fourth Faculty - Education - had already been absorbed before I got to work!).
• Seeing the university through two successful Quality Asaurance Agency reviews of its student provision, and a number of specific reviews and accreditation exercises in key departments.
• The creation of an integrated Student Skills Centre - '301'.
• Participating in the mentoring programme for senior women, and witnessing the success of my mentees in advancing their careers - and the increase in female representation in many parts of the university.
• Bringing in a unified degree classification system for the whole university (not, I know, popular in some quartes, but we had been criticised for our diversity of such systems in a QAA treview before I took office).
• Overseeing the adaptation of the university to the Freedom of Information legislation, by chairing the key committee that created our system.
• Abolishing a number of former committees that existed when I took office - the loss of most of these has never been noticed.
• Seeing the university through periods of staff and student unrest - 'Action Short of a Strike', occupations and so on - without significant loss of trust and respect.  In 2006, for example, we only lost 2 exams through staff action when many other universities lost many more.
• Helping to manage the difficult admissions situations of recent years, and in particular helping to keep peoples' nerves on track during the crucial mid-August period.
• Working in clsoe partnership with the officers of the Students' Union.  I have worked with around 90 such offciers and got on well with all bar around 3.
• Adjusting to the way in which, with the creation of the strong faculties in 2008, many of the former direct powers of the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Learning and Teaching passed to Faculty Directors.
• Launching MOOCs and the university's presence in iTunesU.
• Supporting the creation of new structures for the delivery of lifelong learning.

That will do - there are certainly other things I could have mentioned.  What about the things that HAVEN'T been achieved?  .... Perhaps now is not the time for those.

What am I most satisfied with?  I was talking about this last night with David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary and local Sheffield MP who is also currently facing a transition in his career.  The things that I've been involved with where at the end of the day I've thought 'that was the right thing to do' have actually been largely unknown to most people.  They have been the small 'ceremonies' I have introduced to acknowledge the academic achievements of students who have died, of those who are terminally ill and won't complete their studies, or of those who similarly won't complete because of something such as a brain injury. 

I started this blog 5 or so years ago.  This won't be the end.  I intend to keep blogging about the bigger and smaller issues of university life (unless people ask me to stop!).  I have been asked to continue playing certain university-wide roles in coming months, and I am still on various national committees.  I am sure that interesting things will continue to happen to me.

And at some point soon I intend to start another blog relating to my substantive teaching and research interest in cities and other places.

If you've read to this point, well done. This has been a long posting!