Dean's Report

Voluntary Redundancy Scheme

The Voluntary Redundancy scheme was released this afternoon detailing the process and conditions for staff to participate in this program. A period of consultation will run for four weeks, followed by a week where staff may put in an Expression of Interest for a voluntary redundancy. As I discussed in last week’s Staff Forum, redundancies are only available to staff whose roles may become redundant through the University’s Pandemic Reset Program. We will, of course, carefully assess each request and work with you as we go through the process. I appreciate what an uncertain time this is for all staff and that it comes at the end of a challenging year. I will schedule more staff forums over the next few months and the intranet site will continue to be updated. I encourage you to keep asking questions and provide feedback to us through the People and Culture team and also to contact me, or any member of the Executive, if you would like to discuss any matters directly.

Universitas 21

On Wednesday morning I joined a Universitas 21 meeting of Deans from across the world, a forum initially established by the late David Clarke. While this meeting usually occurs at the yearly American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference, this year we held it as a virtual event and plan to keep meeting this way on a more regular basis. Colleagues, including from Mexico, the US, Sweden and South Africa, joined from our various time zones, to share and discuss the educational challenges we are all facing in this year of COVID-19. There were great similarities of experience, particularly in how much more difficult it is dealing with the pandemic in the second wave when people are feeling worn down and any ‘novelty ‘of dealing with a new situation has long gone. It was a reminder though of how extraordinarily well people have adapted to working in the online environment with its ability to have real conversations in real time.

Academic Promotions Level C

Lastly, I am delighted to announce the latest round of academic promotions at MGSE of 10 colleagues who have been promoted to Senior Lecturer or Senior Research Fellow, Level C.  Congratulations to Dr Jane Bird, Dr John Whitehouse, Dr Zhonghua Zhang, Dr Chelsea Hyde, Dr Catherine Pearn, Dr Maurizio Toscano, Dr Merryn Dawborn-Gundlach, Dr Licho Lopez Lopez, Dr Rhonda Di Biase and Dr Sophie Rudolph, on your well-deserved achievement. We are proud of you all and look forward to supporting your continued career growth as we progess our deliberate focus on ‘growing our own’. I also acknowledge the hard work and commitment of those applicants who were not successful at this time. We look forward to working with you to support future endeavours.

Jim