A challenging year

Challenged

Not long before it’s time to button down hatches, bust the Baileys and pile up box sets ready to feed into the roaring open fire. But before work memories are banished in a cloud of booze, dioxins, carbon monoxide and stuffing, time for a reflection on 2015.

This year’s General Election returned a Government which, cut loose from its erstwhile Lib Dem-ish stooges, oversaw the much touted removal of student number controls and meddled with student finances. The latter has seen the replacement of maintenance grants with loans and the introduction of financing for PG students (yup; more loans; welcome as a start, but not looking out for folk averse to debt.....).

The University of Bedfordshire’s approved adjective summarising 2015 probably is “challenging”. Which translates, in certain areas, as “very difficult actually”. Here is what would be nice for 2016…..

• A big production opening of Luton’s new nine-level, café-tastic library. Things are shaping up very nicely on the corner of Park Street and Vicarage Street. Most of the facilities will almost certainly be ‘state of the art’ and hopefully someone smart, local and bookish will be lined up to open the place. Stephen Kelman? John Hegley?

•  International students to be removed from migration figures. Immigration has been high on everyone’s agenda over the last few years. International students are seen as a good thing by most mainstream politicians – no, really – if only for the income they bring in. Bizarrely, however, the Home Office insists that international student numbers are included in migration figures, thus helping exert a pressure which has led to more barriers to international students than there have been in the past. Even more bizarre is the fact that the Home Office stands alone and has consistently overruled even its own Conservative party colleagues, from those responsible for universities to others who usually jerk to the right in political debate, or those who just 'jerk' e.g. Boris Johnson and George Osborne. Recent comments from the Chancellor suggest that, finally, sense may prevail and international students are finally taken out of migration numbers. Fingers crossed.

• More encouragement for part-time and mature students. Bedfordshire, in common with most HEIs up and down the country, actively support learners of all ages. Loans may widen participation in the postgraduate market, although there are those concerned they may only subsidise the passage of those from more secure financial backgrounds. who do not mind accruing more long term debt.

Would you buy a degree from this man?

• Checks maintained on emerging private providers. Opening the market to non-traditional providers gives a wider range of institutions and a range of different prices. Fine, until you look a little deeper – for example at a recent report from Higher Education’s Quality Assurance Agency, reporting poor administration, attendance and higher dropout rates than in the established public sector institutions. Of course, there are excellent private providers out there, but extra attention is needed when choosing providers.

• Town and gown becoming a reality. Certainly in Luton (sorry Bedford, MK and Aylesbury; I live in, breathe and love Luton and don’t know how things work anywhere else…..). With exciting events coming up – including Wordfest, the Luton Fringe, the Carnival and others – it would be nice to see the University up its involvement.

Was Clippy so bad?

• Talent shows to be purged from tv schedules and replaced with documentaries about rock formations, knitting, quantum physics and Clippy, the Microsoft Office ‘office assistant’. And steam train documentaries for my Dad. If Clippy had his own show, I'd watch it in preference to, say, Lord Sugar’s Jungle Ballroom Bake-off.

• Luton Town for promotion? NO CHANCE. For two home games running, we’ve conceded four (yes, FOUR) goals. Square pegs are being played in round holes, which doesn’t help. 4-4-2 with Wilkinson instated as captain and Guttridge fit and firing, then “we’ll see”.

Fire, Flood and Fury - crisis communications scenarios

I like a good disaster movie so the title of a UCEA conference Fire, Flood and Fury – crisis scenarios in HE piqued my interest.   I’m not so happy though when movie themes play out in real life.

The conference brought together HR and communications specialists from HE to examine the issues we face from government, media and public interest around potentially high profile crisis scenarios.  Universities are at risk of being subject to incidents, both minor and major, which could result in the disruption of services and threaten the reputation of the University through negative media coverage.

The venue was the UCEA offices in Tavistock Square was a rather sobering location for the theme, given the events of 7/7 just outside the building.

Our University has a Business Continuity Plan and the Registrar has a procedure for convening the Incident Management Team for major incidents and emergencies, as well as an on-call policy and rota.  But in any incident it is the communications team that is tasked with fielding calls from the media wanting facts and commentary.

Ulrika and I heard some excellent case studies from:

• Aberystwyth University about how they protected and communicated with their students through a storm and flood situation
• Glasgow School of Art about the fire in the Mackintosh Building



Journalism students don't let a flood
get in the way of a good story

• Newcastle University about a student who had being making bombs in his room in a hall of residence.

And the key points we took away were:

• ·     What we say will go to the outside world in seconds through social media
• ·     Be the source of information, so that people come to us first and we can control it
• ·     Any member of staff could identify the source of an incident, which may not be in office hours – it was a cleaner who alerted the University to the bomb making equipment in the hall of residence at Newcastle University – we all need to be alert

After a calming cup of tea Ulrika and I were left questioning the preparedness of our University to respond in similar crises - we do have a crisis communications strategy, but this will only be tested at the point it is needed.

So, next step – role play some disaster movies of our own….