Interesting times call for inspired leadership

by Alison Johns

In his plenary on ‘Cross-cutting themes and Leadership, Governance and Management’, HEFCE Chair Tim Melville-Ross had the unenviable task of pulling out the cross-cutting themes from all the – lively and varied – conference discussions. He identified these as follows:

Are academics ready for the 3am phone call?

by Conor Ryan

Are university staff ready to take a 3am call from a student who wants help with their essay? This was one of the interesting issues raised by HEFCE Chair Tim Melville Ross at a plenary session of the conference this morning.

The price of quality

By Bahram Bekhradnia

Tim Melville-Ross, the HEFCE Chair, is such a likeable man. Rather than subject his new Chief Executive to delivering a Chief Executive’s report after only six hours in post, Tim effectively did that job. Among other things he asserted that maintaining the unit of resource for teaching is absolutely key for maintenance of quality. This is encouraging.

MPs need to be educated, too

By Bahram Bekhradnia

Much of the audience discussion on day one of the conference was dominated by the university vice-chancellors who had appeared before the select committee in the course of the latter’s investigation of universities and students.

Networking in uncertain times

by Bahram Bekhradnia

Networking, and the things you find out outside the sessions, are some of the joys of these conferences. On the train here the Vice-Chancellor of Westminster told me more about Boris Johnson’s scheme to create a new university on the Olympics site.

Good teaching must be flexible

by Conor Ryan

Since the introduction of tuition fees, students have become more vocal in expecting good teaching from their university lecturers. Its importance is underlined not only by the expectations of UK students but also of those from overseas who have always had to pay higher fees and who can choose from a growing range of internationally competitive systems.