Broadcast: News items

Vice-Chancellor Sasha Roseneil

In this update the Vice-Chancellor will be covering:

• The proposal to move from ‘clusters’ to faculties
• Recruiting a Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education and Student Experience)
• May’s VC Open Forum

If you have been away, welcome back! I hope you all had some rest and relaxation over the break – whether you celebrated Easter, Passover, Ramadan, or the arrival of spring!

The proposal to move from ‘clusters’ to faculties
In previous VC Reflections I introduced my proposal for the University to move from our current informal ‘cluster’ system to a four faculty structure, and I later set out the process that will lead to a decision about this proposal.

Today, the consultation process with Schools is beginning. Over the next couple of weeks I will attend meetings at all 10 of our Schools to discuss the proposal, to hear views and receive feedback in advance of discussion at Senate in late June.

These meetings are key, both to inform the substance of the proposal for Senate, and because the University’s formal governance procedure for such a change involves Schools reporting their views to Senate, and then Senate reporting its views to Council, our governing body. Council will ultimately make a decision on whether to proceed with the establishment of faculties.

As part of the consultation with Schools I have prepared a paper explaining why I think the University would benefit from a faculty structure. You can access the paper via this link (login required – network username – e.g. ABC123, password).

I will also be meeting with our recognised trade unions to discuss the proposal, and with representatives of the Students' Union and Student Senators. Our Professional Services Senators will shortly be sharing a message with all Professional Services staff about how they can feed their views into the consultation process.

I do hope that you have time to read the paper which explains the case for the move from clusters to faculties. However, I recognise that it is quite long, and time might be short, so the summary is as follows:

The proposal is that the University of Sussex Business School and the School of Media, Arts and Humanities each become faculties and that two new faculties (Science, Engineering, and Medicine; Social Sciences) are created from the Schools that are currently in the Science and Social Science 'clusters' respectively. The Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS), which is not currently part of a cluster, would become part of the Faculty of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, whilst retaining its overarching governance structure, as a joint venture between Sussex and the University of Brighton.

The paper sets out three main reasons for establishing a faculty structure:
i. it would ensure whole-University knowledge and accountability in steering the University, and it would improve our academic strategic leadership;
ii. it would make Sussex’s academic units and disciplines more resilient and agile in an increasingly fast-changing environment; and
iii. it would better support interdisciplinary research and education in the context of contemporary global and intellectual challenges that demand interdisciplinarity.

I believe that this change would make a very real difference to the University’s future prospects, whilst impacting very little on the immediate direct day-to-day experience of the vast majority of academics, Professional Services staff, and students. A more detailed case for change is in the full paper.

Recruiting a Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education and Students)
As has previously been communicated, Professor Kelly Coate's five-year term as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education and Students), is coming to an end, and we are now embarking on the process of seeking a replacement.

The new Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education and Students) will join the University as we embark on creating a new strategic plan next academic year. They will provide strategic leadership for the education and students portfolio of change projects, and they will develop the University’s education strategy, including playing a lead role in ‘Curriculum Reimagined’, which will redesign our curriculum in response to changing times. They will ensure that Sussex provides a transformative and rigorous educational experience with excellent student outcomes, engaging with senior academic and professional services colleagues and the whole Sussex community, and building a strong relationship with the student body.

This is a critical post for Sussex, and we are looking to appoint an open, creative, and collaborative leader with a passion for higher education, enthusiasm for the distinctiveness of Sussex, and a deep commitment to students. I look forward to updating you on the appointment in due course.

May’s VC Open Forum
I will be holding my next VC Open Forum on 23 May, between 2pm and 3.30pm. You can book your place now to attend in person, and we will share the online link in advance. The provisional title of the session is ‘Politics, markets and regulation: higher education today’.

Many of you who have worked in universities for a while will have noticed the differences between living with a ‘market regulator’ – the Office for Students (OfS) – and life as-was under the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). This changing regulatory landscape is a symptom of wider political, legal, economic, and cultural changes and I want to talk about what these mean for how we operate, the challenges we face, and what we must do to continue to be a successful and distinctive university.

All in all, there is much to discuss in the coming months, and I look forward to our conversations.

With my best wishes,
Sasha