Video recording of VC’s session
Sunday, 11 October 2020
Thank you to all colleagues who joined the Vice-Chancellor Professor Robert Van de Noort and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic Planning and Resource) Professor Mark Fellowes for the online briefing on Tuesday 6 October.
Introducing the session, Professor Robert Van de Noort said that it was good to see the University campus coming back to life. “I just want to say thank you to all of you who collectively contributed to making the campus safe and made the start of this academic year possible.”
He reminded colleagues why we have chosen to start the autumn term with a blended learning approach, and said any change to this will be guided by Public Health England and its associated local representatives.
“We continue to work closely with Public Health England and Reading Borough Council, and continue to ask colleagues and students to adhere to the protocols”.
Most of the session was focused on plans for a more sustainable future for our University. Professor Mark Fellowes, who is leading this work, outlined the challenges we are facing and the four questions that colleagues working on the project had considered to develop the proposals:
- How can we make our schools financially robust?
- What is the optimal way to deliver our professional services?
- How should we be teaching?
- How do we support excellence and sustainability of our research?
He said the work on each of these four strands has been led by a member of the University Executive Board, with expert input from members of the Taskforce and specialists from across the University plus, again, representatives from RUSU. Each workstream was asked to develop and deliver a set of high-level proposals.
The proposals that have been developed are at different stages with those on how we use our digital and physical estate and on reviewing our teaching portfolio more developed than other areas.
The Taskforce was very conscious of the consistent feedback from colleagues that the University often tries to do too much at once, and that we need to stage and plan any projects carefully over a realistic timeframe, but ultimately the objective is to deliver our strategic ambitions by our centenary year in 2026.
He said that colleagues in Schools and Functions will have an opportunity to reflect and help refine these proposals, details of which will be shared soon.
A video recording of the session can be accessed in the panel below: