Leadership

Pillar of our Strategy

We recognise that nurturing a ‘whole population approach,’ with health and wellbeing considered a strategic priority across all interfaces of University activity, requires strong strategic leadership and engagement with sustained prioritisation.

Our University proudly serves a diverse student body of over 21,000, and we are fully committed to enhancing their experience. This strategy is underpinned by leadership that has a well-developed sense of purpose in widening access to higher education, playing a key role in the region’s education and economy, which aims to achieve a common sense of values and commitments within all of our interactions.

Yet our leadership team is not reflective of our student population, our own journeys into and through higher education are likely to have been very different to those of many of our students.  And whatever our own pasts, we need to be mindful of power asymmetries in the here and now between staff and students.  So we need to be ready to delegate authority (but not responsibility) for enhancing health and wellbeing to students themselves.

Leadership Pillar

As a university community, we will:

  • behave respectfully and ethically in all that we do
  • be inclusive and fair in our interactions
  • be professional, transparent, confident, collaborative, and challenging when engaging with our communities both locally and globally
  • listen and learn from others.

 We have appointed an Associate Dean for Inclusivity who is responsible for shaping the delivery of the University's Inclusive Curriculum Framework to and for nurturing a culture of belonging for all staff and students.

We have appointed a substantive role serving as the University’s Academic Lead for Mental Health and Wellbeing. This role spans across spaces of student support, safeguarding, staff development and, Learning and Teaching at strategic levels, responsible for the infusion and enhancement of Mental Health and Wellbeing principles by design.

 

  • The University Senior Management Team will prioritise the implementation of this Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, taking responsibility for delivery against agreed key performance metrics. For this, they are accountable to the Board of Governors which includes SU officers. This will be supported by a new annual strategic mental health report and annual review for the University.

  • The University Senior Management Team is responsible for delivering effective and joined up student support that is accessible by, and meets the needs of, our diverse student population.

  • The University Senior Management Team is responsible for ensuring that staff have the training, support and time to meet effectively their responsibilities for student wellbeing, including setting clear limits for individual accountabilities.

  • This strategy will enable the University to deliver the commitments set out in Vision 2030 to:

    - Provide student-centred support that integrates the academic and non-academic to meet the needs of the individual

    - Embed academically-led and discipline-specific approaches to wellbeing within each programme.

    - Design interventions that enable our students to develop their capabilities to manage their own wellbeing during and after university, at all levels of study: from level 3–8.

    - We will continue to work with the Student’s Union, including its full-time elected officers, student representatives and all students who want to engage, to ensure student feedback and voices are heard consistently throughout the development of our approach and implementation of this strategy.

  • We will seek to better understand our students’ lived experiences and how these impact upon their health and wellbeing so that we can work with them to put in place effective mechanisms for enhancement

  • We will meet and go beyond our legal responsibilities for safeguarding to ensure all our students can flourish in a safe and nurturing university environment

  • We will commit to zero tolerance of staff behaviours that unconsciously or consciously undermine students’ confidence and wellbeing

  • We will undertake a review of our physical estate that prioritises student and staff wellbeing in access to and design of facilities and resources

  • We will continually keep under review our systems, processes and policies to ensure that rather than create barriers to student wellbeing and success they support them.