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!

Thursday 23rd April 2015 - Part-time degrees

In the first class on my first day as a lecturer at Sheffield I found that one of the students was a 55-year old retiree from a senior post in an oil company.  It so happened that the two research students who were assigned to support me in taking a practical class in statistics for first year students were also considerably older than me - one from an Egyptian university here to up-skill, and the other an ex-teacher pursuing a personal interest in her research topic.  That instantly destroyed any stereotypical views I had about the likely demographics of students (of all levels of programme).

But it's now several years since I had a genuine mature student in any of my classes.  Where once mature students amongst the 18-21 year-old undergraduates were not uncommon, they seem to have become rarer.

This afternoon, with over 100 others, I was at a launch event for the university's new offerings to seek to attract mature students and part-timers to study here once again.  Nationally the numbers studying part-time have plummeted in recent years - presumably as a result of the 2012 fees regime.  The general lack of part-timers in 'mainstream' programmes in the UK contrasts strongly with my experience in other European countries where a significant proportion of students work alongside their study and present themselves for examination whenever they feel ready - thus extending their programmes over a number of years as, effectively, part-timers.  The benefits seem obvious to me - both to the students themselves and to the wider classes of which they are part where they can bring their external experiences to bear in discussions and other study tasks.

When the University of Sheffield started (and I guess this is true for most UK universities like us) the majority of students were studying part-time.  It was the later 1940s when the balance shifted to full-timers.  Government policies since the 1990s have almost consistently acted to discourage part-time study in a variety of ways.  Some universities have closed down such study routes.

Today four students spoken eloquently, through videos, about what the opportunity to enter higher education as mature student learners meant to them.  But equally moving were the interventions by two of my executive board colleagues who demonstrated the significance of mature student learning in their own backgrounds.  One pointed out that "My mother became a university student - but by that time I was already a professor".  The other recounted how she had obtained her own first and second degrees while working full time, and whilst also bringing up a young family.

The image of students is too dominated by the stereotype of the 18-21 year old school leavers.  Others have as much, if not more, to gain from key decisions to come into higher education at other ages and through different modes of study.  Against the national odds, I hope we succeed in keeping such opportunities open. 

Thursday 16th April 2015 - The gender gap in university salaries

I've been trying to catch up on back numbers of Times Higher Education that have been around for a week or two, and as a result I have come up with a little riddle.

What do the following universities have in common with each other (and with no other)?
Bucks New
Cumbria
Gloucestershire
Kingston
Leeds Trinity
St Mark and St John (Plymouth)

One obvious comment (for those in the know) might be that among these 6 universities half have female vice-Chancellors and half male.  Bucks New, Leeds Trinity, and MarJohn (as it's very often known) all have female Vice-Chancellors - and in the case of Bucks New the new VC (Rebecca Bunting) recently replaced a female who was previously in the role - Ruth Farwell - a rare succession.

Across UK universities only 14% of VCs are female, whereas in this group of six 50% are women.

But that's not what is distinctive about the group, because it doesn't set them apart from any other group that could be constructed.

No, instead these are the only universities in the UK where, in the tables of salary information produced in Times Higher, female academics average a higher salary than male acacdemics.  We can only speculate whether there is some influence from having a female VC, but I suspect that's not the case.  In a senior research intensive university headed by a female VC (that actually narrows it down to one so I might as well admit I am talking about Manchester) the average female academic salary lags that of the average male by £7k per annum. Certainly in every university other than the 6 listed above the average salary of acacdemic men is higher than for women in similar positions.

These gender differences in salary are interesting and cause for concern.  But as a social scientist I am always looking for comparisons to be made on a like for like basis, standardising on key variables.  And that leads me to think about the distribution of men and women around various departments and faculties.  That leads into a number of observations that might temper a simple view of gender discrimination in salary:

1. There are very few female heads of departmnt in Engineering faculties, yet in Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities or in some subjects in Medical faculties female heads are commonplace.  In Sheffield there have as yet been no female heads in Engineering, yet all but one of the current heads in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities are women - as is their leader, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty.
2. This is in the form of a hypothesis.  I could unearth the data to test it but it would take some time.  I hypothesise that the average salary in subjects such as Mechanical Engineering or Physics is higher than in, say, Social Work or Education.  The first two of those subjects are weighted towards men in their staff complement, the latter two towards women.
3. It may therefore be that gendered differences in salaries are as much caused by the uneven distribution of women and men between high-paying and low-paying departments. Of course, university promotions committees are there to ensure fair play for all, but perhaps there are greater claims for paying 'higher than average' for those in some departments - on an argument about market competition.
4. This could easily become self-fulfilling, with disciplines with low percentages of women, and no female heads, 'expecting' higher salaries and acting through committee discussions to secure the permission to pay them.

So the simple statement that all bar six universities in the UK pay men on average more than women may need nuancing.  As important may be a pattern of paying those in certain disciplines less than those in others.  And that may also have a gendered dimension to it.

What I would like to see would be a table of average salaries for men and for women in faculties of science, engineering, arts, social sciences etc across the country, along with counts of males and females in each.  That could be interesting.

Tuesday 31st March 2015 - Overseas visits

I am currently in Brussels on what will be my last overseas visit as a member of the University's Executive Board.  This morning, with two colleagues, I arrived by train from Amsterdam where we had spent yesterday in visits to the University of Amsterdam, with an alumni reception in the evening.  Earlier this evening our final engagement was an alumni reception for graduates of the three White Rose universities - Leeds, Sheffield and York.  And the evening has been rounded off by a meal of moles et frites with our colleagues from York - for me an excellent final episode to overseas travel in my current role.

Over the last 11 years I count up that I have visited 13 countries on university business - some of them several times.  I have been to two countries in the Caribbean (St Lucia and Trinidad), eight in Europe (France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria), one in Africa (South Africa), and two in Asia (Hong Kong, and China).  There have been graduation ceremonies and alumni reunions, meetings with government officials and the launch of new degree programmes, visits to partner universities, and tours of research centres.  There have been conferences with other university leaders, with associated visits to cultural sites for more informal networking (particularly memorable were the tours of the canals of Nanjing by night with a Chinese zither-player providing a rendition of Auld Lang Syne, and a wine tasting visit to the vineyards near Stellenbosch in South Africa).  Some of the great benefits of various of these visits have been meeting colleagues from other universities, sharing issues and finding out how they are viewing the challenges of global research themes, or educational development.

What are my conclusions from representing the university overseas?  Here are ten points:

1. There is a great fund of goodwill towards Sheffield University - although many people, whilst holding a good opinion of us, don't really know why.  Our reputation is rather generalised, and probably sits alongside the reputations of a number of other UK institutions.  Pushed for detail, many people (who are not themselves alumni) find it difficult to identify anything specific about us.

2. As Sheffield University, we have a problem with the image of our city.  Put simply, it is unknown to many people abroad.  We do not have a major football team; we do not have historic sites on a par with, say, York; we do not have an international airport; we are not a port; we are not strongly associated with a major pop group (Liverpool is still known abroad through the Beatles: the Arctic Monkeys are not associated with Sheffield in a similar way).  Where there IS recognition of Sheffield it is as an old steel town - and The Full Monty did us no favours, although fortunately memories of the film are starting to fade.  A very common question is 'where is Sheffield?' and the answer 'two hours north of London' brings the response 'Oh, halfway to Scotland, then.'

3. We need to work hard on education about who we are and where, and what our associations are.  I sat next to the Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott at a lunch in St Lucia and he evinced little interest in us until I mentioned Yorkshire and the fact that Sheffield was in the same county as Heptonstall - I had done my research and knew that Walcott admired, and had  been a friend of, the late Ted Hughes.  That turned things round and he warmed to us.

4. Our alumni are desperately keen, in many cases, to continue to be connected with us.  But they are often diffident in offering their services to us.  They still see the relationship as us giving them something, but twenty years after graduation they are often now in a strong position to offer us something - advice, access to their business networks, support for research ideas, or lobbying with multinational interest groups.  We need to do more to show them how they can work with us.

5. And some of the alumni who are most proud of their Sheffield connections are actually those who engaged least with us - students who visited Sheffield on Erasmus mobility grants, or who came only for a one year Masters degree, or who studied at City College in Thessaloniki.  I guess that most of these alumni had also studied at another institution and are making a comparison with the educational style and the wider student experience elsewhere.  Those who only studied in Sheffield have taken for granted the nature of UK higher education and perhaps appreciate it less.

6. Although we might try to run graduation ceremonies abroad in exactly the same way as in Sheffield, local customs inevitably prevail.  I have attended ceremonies in a (rather nice) tin hut in St Lucia, in ballrooms in China, in a concert hall in Thessaloniki and elsewhere - and each has taken on surprising local characteristics.  And why not?  We don't normally have a calypso band at degree ceremonies in Sheffield; and I have never been as photographed in my life as after a ceremony in Beijing.

7. Visits to universities can be wrapped up in various aspects of protocol, but they generally result in vast agendas of possible linkages which ultimately shrink over the following weeks to two or three key action points.  Put a mixed group of senior university leaders together and they try to reconstruct the world - pragmatism sets in as others work to consolidate the ideas after the meeting has finished.

8. UK officials abroad are wonderfully welcoming.  I am not certain whether this relates to Sheffield per se or is more general.  But, among others, the British ambassador in Bucharest, successive Directors of the British Council in Hong Kong, senior UK officials at the European Commission and many others have all appeared genuinely delighted that we have taken the time to come to visit them. Not all universities do.

9. One has to be prepared to eat anything.  It can't be easy for vegetarians; and vegans probably need to look for alternative employment.

10. Finally, dealing with foreign media can be particularly challenging.  But nothing can quite prepare anyone for a 20 minute live interview on Turkish television on one's views of Turkish universities (with no foreknowledge that that was to be the topic); a succession of Bulgarian newspaper interviews following earlier stories that Bulgarian students could study in the UK and avoid repaying the fee loan; or - most adrenaline-using of all - being interviewed live on Romanian television with the simultaneous interpretation from Romanian to English through an ear piece not functioning.