Our regular Campus Conversations events give you the opportunity to put your tough questions directly to members of the Senior Leadership Team and get an answer face to face.
The latest round of Campus Conversations took place on Friday, hosted by Principal Andrea Nolan, Kerry Dewar (Director of People & Services), Brian Webster-Henderson (Dean of Learning & Teaching) and Gary Hutchison (Dean of the School of Applied Sciences).
Over 70 colleagues joined in the discussion at Sighthill, where the recent staff survey results were a hot topic.
Andrea said she was disappointed in some aspects of the survey results but there were also some positives to be taken. She wants the University to be a great place to work and this has given her a good idea of where improvements are needed. Andrea and her team are still probing as to how people are feeling before rushing into actions and they’ll be out and about over the coming weeks to hear from colleagues across Edinburgh Napier. She also said that staff should grasp this opportunity to make things better in their local team too.
The 2018/19 budget came up and Kerry confirmed that we won’t hit our surplus target for this year, due to a challenging environment. The SLT are now taking the time to budget for next year and full details of this will be cascaded soon.
There were also queries at Sighthill on teacher education provision, the Academic Framework, Brexit and the latest University league tables.
At Merchiston, there was more of an Academic feel to the questions, with workload and measurement at the forefront. Other topics included the availability of specific IT and Change training courses for staff.
The panel were asked why we’re not replacing staff who have retired. Kerry said that this was not a general policy though, with budgets being tight, we are looking for savings and at where our priorities lie. Andrea added that Edinburgh Napier has the same amount of staff as we had three years ago.
The final session drew more than 40 colleagues at Craiglockhart, and saw discussions around everything from car parking to communications. The perceived disconnect between Academics and Professional Services, workload, stress and staff retention were all mentioned too.
Referring to a question on Edinburgh Napier dropping down the latest University league tables, Andrea pointed out these are based on last year’s data. While undergraduate employability had dropped, Andrea said this was based on figures from 2015/16 and that this had improved in the last year. And while the NSS score had fallen from 84% to 80%, this highlighted inconsistencies across the University as some areas had scored 90% and higher. Gary pointed out that the Sports Science Programme had jumped 20 places in its own league table.
See you at the next Campus Conversations?
Not able to make any of Friday’s sessions, or didn’t get to put your point across? The next round of Campus Conversations take place on Thursday, 14 June.