We launched our Strategy in 2016 and over the last two years we’ve taken important steps to pave the way toward our goals. This year we’ve achieved improvements across all UK and international rankings, in 2017 we secured a £300m bond to support essential investments in our campuses and systems, and this summer we made the move to a simpler, five-faculty structure. We now need to focus on building momentum with our Strategy.
This Strategy Pulse update series will be published regularly on SUSSED News and cascaded to senior managers.
Featured within this update:
- Join the search: have your say on the attributes of our next Vice-Chancellor
- Recent appointments and updated University key contacts chart
- The inaugural Senior Leaders’ Forum
- OneWeb festival for our staff and students
- The first step toward digital transformation: the Office 365 project
- The Unification of Recruitment and Admissions Teams
- Banner system changes are live
Join the search: have your say on the attributes of our next Vice-Chancellor
Selecting a new Vice-Chancellor to lead our Strategy going forward is a defining moment and our staff and students have an important role to play in the process.
Over 750 of you contributed your ideas about the attributes we should be looking for in our next VC through the recent online survey. You have also been attending drop-in sessions with Professor Mandy Fader and our search partner, Odgers Berndtson. If you’d still like to give your views, you can email the following mailbox: [email protected]
Recent appointments and updated University key contacts chart
Professor George Attard has been appointed our first Pro Vice-Chancellor (Interdisciplinary Research), on a three-year term.
Anna O’Neill will be our Director of Library and Arts Strategy as of 2 January 2019, joining us from the University of Chichester.
Professor Martyn Hill from the School of Engineering has been appointed Associate Dean Education for the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
We’re also delighted that, as of last week, Kieron Broadhead has joined us as our new Executive Director of Student Experience.
You can view an updated University key contacts chart here.
The inaugural Senior Leaders’ Forum
On Monday 15 October 2018, more than 80 of our senior leaders met at Turner Sims to hear from members of the University Executive Board (UEB) about the priorities and challenges for the year ahead. Attendees were asked to share this information with colleagues in their Faculties, Institutes and Directorates over the following few weeks. We’ll also be sharing more of this content with you in a forthcoming edition of Strategy Pulse.
Our first OneWeb festival – Tuesday 27 November 2018
To mark the University’s commitment to OneWeb (our web transformation project), the digital team will be hosting the first university-led event of its kind in the sector. Our impressive line-up of speakers will include some of the UK’s stars of content strategy and design as well as user experience. The event will be free to our colleagues and students.
Ayala Gordon, Head of Digital commented:
“As we move forward with OneWeb, we understand the importance of face-to-face conversations that allow for depth, collaboration and a greater sense of trust. The OneWeb festival reflects our commitment to continue an open dialogue with our internal community.”
Further details will be added to the Digital team blog later this week. You can also register your interest by subscribing to the blog.
The first step toward digital transformation: the Office 365 project
Earlier this week, we started the roll out of the Office 365 (O365) project for staff. This marks an important moment in our journey to transform our digital environment, and how it supports our working lives.
Once delivered, O365 will increase opportunities for communication and collaboration across the University. One of O365’s greatest strengths is ease of access, with Office Suite tools being accessible across various devices (including mobiles and tablets).
Migrating staff email and calendar to O365 (from November 2018 to March 2019) is the foundation for this important project, and will enable the more impactful changes of later phases to be delivered in 2019. No downtime will be required to complete the migration, and you’ll only see minor aesthetic changes within your email and calendar once the move has been made.
Update: The unification of Recruitment and Admissions teams
After two years of planning and consultation, the following changes took effect last month:
- The Recruitment and Admissions teams that manage undergraduate and postgraduate taught applications have been unified and are now based together in level 4, Building 37, Highfield Campus.
- A new team has been established within Student Recruitment and International Relations (SRIR), to work closely with faculties on enhancing their key conversion activities such as Open Days, Applicant Visit Days and Interview Days. The newly formed Enquiries, Events and Conversion team is based at 39 University Road, Highfield Campus, as well as embedded within the faculties.
The new structure enables staff to work in support of our strategy in a consistent and more resilient way, while still respecting subject differences.
Banner system changes are live
We’d like to thank all those colleagues involved in the essential update to our Banner system, which successfully went live earlier this week. The sheer scale of work required to align Banner’s programmes, modules, student data and report generation functions with our new faculty structure is huge.
Claire Atkins, Academic Registrar, commented:
“I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those staff involved in the project for their hard work in developing, testing and implementing this critical change.
“To have such a large number of staff actively involved in delivering this work during such an extremely busy time is very much appreciated.”
Other strategic stories to be aware of
- Southampton is the biggest riser in the Times Higher Education ‘Table of Tables’
- Announcing the new Faculty Academic Registrars
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