And now for something completely different. Based on an original idea by Jenny Lawrence and Jackie Potter, who came up with it on their way to a meeting of the Heads of Educational Development Group, it is time for the Higher Education Shipping forecast. With a general synopsis and reports from the major Higher Education and Shipping areas, your full forecast can be heard here.
Drawing its inspiration from the classic 1973 song by the Faces, this episode of the podcast was a live recording at the spring conference of AHUA held at Swansea University in April 2025. The recording provides an opportunity to hear from two departing/departed AHUA members in conversation discussing their reflections on their long careers in the sector. Featuring Lee Sanders of the University of Birmingham and Paul Greatrix, formerly of the University of Nottingham the focus is very much on those areas where valuable lessons have been learned. Subjects such as being selective in the battles you pick, the convening power of the registrar, the challenge of complexity and the importance of pragmatism are covered along with issues such as delivery focus versus PhD acquisition and trying to be serious most of the time. The various attributes needed to survive as a registrar are discussed too, drawing on recent surveys of AHUA members and some insightful contributions are provided by the audience. And without getting too maudlin or self-indulgent they do try to remind everyone that they were the future once but actually things look much better now for the next stage of development of a more diverse and inclusive AHUA. This is a longer podcast than usual and carries all the features of a live recording. Huge thanks though to Robin Henderson for providing the equipment and Stella, his daughter, for cleaning up the audio as best she could.
For this edition of the podcast I have the great pleasure to talk to Nicola Maina who is the Union Development Officer, a sabbatical position (equivalent to President) of the University of Nottingham Students' Union. We start off by discussing Nicola's decision to study Law at Nottingham and how she found the learning environment in the immediate post-pandemic period. Whilst she loved the course and her lecturers she did find the cold and dark winter climate a bit too much. Campus and residential life and the immersion in British culture were clear positives and then things really developed when she discovered student representative activity and was persuaded to stand for the part-time position of Students' Union International Officer. Having been elected into the role she really focused on trying to develop a shared sense of community for those studying away from home, noting the difficulties which often exist when trying to promote engagement with home students. Building on her enthusiasm for democratic representation Nicola was then elected to her current sabbatical position following a campaign which lasted for what she described as two of the hardest weeks of her life. Nicola discovered she had a huge amount to learn as a new sabbatical and we discuss the ways in which she sought to contribute effectively to represent students at the highest levels within the University and how important the place of officers like her is within the formal structures. It's a really steep learning curve and there is so much more to the role and the students' union than most students imagine. Finally, we learn that Nicola hopes to build on her law degree in terms of future work plans but nothing is certain yet. It is a really good conversation with a hugely impressive student representative.
This edition of the podcast features, for the first time, two non-Registrars (of which I am of course now one). The foremost of the pair of us though is Olivia Kew-Fickus, Chief Data Officer at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. We begin by learning about Olivia's highly valued and extremely transferable history degree and then her move into UK higher ed leading to a series of roles at the University of Birmingham. After six years as Director of Strategic Planning at Birmingham Olivia returned to the US for a different kind of planning role and then after a couple of years became Chief Data Officer at Vanderbilt. Apart from learning a slightly different higher ed vocabulary she has worked hard to bridge across the technical data issues and the strategic level matters. Rankings are a big issue for Olivia and her university at present - whilst Vanderbilt does well in domestic rankings there is real concern about the dubious nature of the methodologies used and the sketchiness of sector data employed. Vanderbilt commissioned a study by a Chicago research unit, NORC, into the issues with ranking methods to inform an exciting new project Olivia is involved in. (You can see the report from NORC here - https://www.norc.org/content/dam/norc-org/pdf2024/college-rankings-review.pdf ) Finally, Olivia reminds us that, whilst universities can be seen as small towns with everything that entails, they also have challenges that few can anticipate. It's a really interesting conversation (in which I over-use, legitimately, the word fascinating) and I hope you enjoy it. I'm sure all in higher ed will also want to celebrate Olivia's achievement in being shortlisted to be Chief Data Officer of the year!
Swedish and UK Registrars learning from each other over four decades This episode of the podcast sees a second discussion with Lee Sanders, Registrar and Secretary and Chief Operating Officer at the University of Birmingham. This time we are talking about a long standing collaboration between Swedish and UK Registrars, generations of whom have been meeting at a biennial seminar which has been running since 1984. Lee and I both joined the group in 2011 having been tapped on the shoulder for the Cardiff conference and since then have experienced a series of successful events where Registrars from both countries have shared information on similar challenges faced. We note the impressive standard of English of Swedish colleagues and the commonalities and differences of the two national systems as well as the political contexts. Topics for consideration at seminars over the years have ranged from Brexit and Covid impacts to international research security and student involvement in governance. We also discuss some of the big differences in Sweden which have been explored including the way in which HE capital funding differs and the national student record system in Sweden (Ladok, which also inspired an essay by Paul Greatrix published by HEPI in 2023). In addition to tours and excursions there is a social element to the seminar which also involves a singing competition of dubious quality. It's a brief run through of the many virtues of a really distinctive collaborative arrangement which has been operating successfully for over 40 years now. Note that the early history of the collaboration is covered in a report, referred to in the podcast, entitled The Meeting of Minds, An Account of the Joint Seminars of UK and Swedish University Registrars and Secretaries during Three Decades, published in 2015 by Lars Ekholm (sadly not currently available online).
It's time for more exciting bonus content. Whilst on this podcast you will usually find me in conversation with registrars and other higher ed notables, I've got some other diversions to share. There will be some new podcasts along soon but in the meantime I wanted to provide a bit of bonus content. In this short Registrarologue then you can hear me going on yet again about regulation and setting out a a very personal perspective. This time it is a 10 point plan to save a whole load of much-needed money for the sector by cutting the regulatory burden.
In this episode of University Registrars (and Others) Talking About Stuff I talk to someone who is very much not a registrar but a notable figure nevertheless. Dr Vince Wilson recently retired as Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham and among the stuff we learn about is Vince's distinctive academic journey from a degree in pharmacy to a research degree, a Royal Society fellowship - as part of which he spent a period in Germany - and then a post-doc in Glasgow. Vince joined Nottingham in 1989 where he was based in the Queen's Medical Centre and being in the same building as a hospital was a big attraction, particularly for translational research. We discuss some of the differences in scale and technology in HE since the 80s but also the increased pressure on academics. Other significant developments which Vince highlights are the outreach and widening participation agenda which he was involved in and a specific transnational medical education partnership with Thailand which had delivered strong results over many years, as well as enabling him to enjoy a period of work in the sun during the cold winter months. Vince's passion for music has been ever-present - as well as providing a vehicle for engaging with the public when he was a locum pharmacist and students in the classroom, he highlights the hitherto largely under-reported contribution of one of his heroes, the late, great Gil Scott-Heron, to academia. However, it is to Miles Davis and John Coltrane he turns for his priority Desert Island disc selection. It's a really different and entertaining conversation and I am sure you will enjoy it.
In the latest episode of University Registrars Talking About Stuff I chat with Dr George Turner, University Secretary and Clerk to the Council at the University of Roehampton. We naturally discuss George's early academic career which, quite distinctively, started out with him forming a punk band at 16 and then being inspired to study music at Sheffield. He stuck with music as a discipline, ending up with a PhD thesis on the place of the electric guitar before deciding he needed to earn some money, taking the first job he could which happened to be at the University of Derby. After a period working as a cleaner at the university he moved into the challenging area of student complaints and then turned down a job offer at the University of Nottingham in favour of an opportunity at Brunel. Following a brief diversion on the changing emphasis on the importance of strong written English in university administration, noting the bigger issue for George is skills in data presentation, we move on to his next step, being encouraged by a great boss to apply for the job of Deputy Secretary at Roehampton. Whilst a big step up he had a real opportunity to grow in the role including honing those governance skills through taking on support for Council committees. A change in VC resulted in the creation of a new role of University Secretary which George successfully applied for. Although admitting to his fair share of imposter syndrome he cites the really strong and supportive environment at Roehampton. We talk about the features of the university including its long history from its original constituent colleges, three of which include a religious dimension, bringing interesting perspectives to Council. Naturally we discuss regulation too and the approaches to dealing with regulators' expectations on Council in terms of compliance and the impact on its work. Finally, we discover that, like me George is a big fan of campus security reports. It's a really good conversation and I hope you enjoy it.
It's time for more exciting bonus content. Whilst on this podcast you will usually find me in conversation with registrars and other higher ed notables, I've got some other diversions to share. There will be some new podcasts along soon but in the meantime I wanted to provide a bit of bonus content. In this short Registrarologue then you can hear me going on a bit about some of the challenges of dealing with Freedom of Information requests in universities. But I also thought I would share with you some FOI examples which highlight the concerns I have with the operation of the legislation in HE.
This episode of University Registrars and Others Talking About Stuff finds me in discussion with higher education sector data guru Andy Youell. Whilst Andy started his working life at Rolls Royce working on various aircraft he soon found the appeal of data and HE funding (not to mention sector acronyms) irresistible and joined PCFC just before it merged with UFC and then HEFCE. He became heavily involved in data collection and indeed it was his phone number given as the contact for HESES enquiries. This certainly helped build his sector network, something he continued to develop upon joining HESA in 1996, the beginning of a long engagement which saw him work on all sorts of exciting data projects, including a three year stint running a major sector data improvement programme, HEDIIP (another acronym). Andy has some excellent insights about the use and misuse of data by both regulators and institutions and the challenges of data governance and the risks for what is still an immature science. We also talk about learner analytics and the data work Andy is doing for his current employer, the University College of Estate Management. Finally we learn about Andy's ongoing part-time rock star lifestyle - he loves drums and music as well as data - and we uncover a little known fact about his enduring data legacy in relation to the origins of the naming of higher education subject codes. (With apologies for some background noise in the first part of this recording.)
It's time for more exciting bonus content. Whilst on this podcast you will usually find me in conversation with registrars and other higher ed notables, I've got some other diversions to share. There will be some new podcasts along soon but in the meantime I wanted to provide a bit of bonus content. In this short Registrarologue then you can hear me going on a bit about one of my favourite topics - regulation.
Yes, here's a bit more exciting bonus content. Whilst on this podcast you will usually find me in conversation with registrars and others, talking all about higher ed matters, I've got some other diversions to share. There will be some new podcasts along soon but in the meantime I wanted to provide a bit of bonus content. In this short Registrarologue then I wanted to dress up smart and offer a few observations about a highly topical issue - graduation.
It's time for more bonus content. Whilst I'm normally in conversation with registrars and others here, talking about lots of HE stuff, I've got some other diversions to share. There will be some new podcasts along soon but in the meantime I wanted to provide a bit of bonus content. This short Registrarologue then is a bit of ramble by me all about sinking university buildings. Allegedly. I hope you enjoy it.
It's bonus content time. Whilst I'm normally in conversation with registrars and others here, talking about lots of HE stuff, I've got some other diversions to share. There will be some new podcasts along soon but in the meantime I wanted to provide a bit of bonus content. This short Registrarologue then is a bit of ramble by me all about cats on university campuses. I hope you enjoy it.
This episode of University Registrars Talking About Stuff finds me talking stuff with Lucinda Parr who is Registrar and University Secretary at the University of Bristol. Looking back to the beginning of her career Lucinda recalls working as a departmental administrator at Goldsmiths to help fund her masters and enjoying it so much that she ended up staying. She then moved to a new role working with the Warden on developing the institution's new strategic plan. Lucinda stresses the value to her career of her governance involvement in her Goldsmiths roles and is a passionate advocate for its importance in university life. She did eventually leave Goldsmiths to take up the role of Secretary and Registrar at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where she encountered a very different culture, real research intensity and an extremely clear and distinctive mission. She then joined the University of Bristol, another very different kind of institution which has grown and changed significantly in her time there and has plenty more developments planned. Lucinda has also recently been through the relatively rare experience of managing the appointment of a new vice-chancellor and then supporting their arrival, something she describes as being very much on her registrarial bucket list. We also talk about some of the challenges faced by universities both external and internally generated and Lucinda observes that institutions often have lots of interesting ideas for innovation but then struggle to stop doing things. Finally we discuss the value of the experience of serving on external boards and Lucinda recalls the distinctive challenges of dealing with a student occupation of a governing body meeting.
In this episode of the podcast I have a really good conversation about stuff, mainly governance related, with Louise Nadal, Secretary at the London School of Economics. We learn about Louise’s career journey, which started with a series of short term roles in London universities culminating in a role in HR at Imperial College at which point she realised she wanted to work closer to the core academic operation so moved to a role in planning instead. Not long after starting this job at Royal Holloway she also acquired governance responsibilities for the first time and this pattern repeated a few years later when she joined Sussex. Following this stint in planning and governance Louise moved back to London as University Secretary at UEL before moving to a similar role at Greenwich and then to her current position at LSE. Governance then has been omnipresent in Louise’s working life for many years now and she argues that, not only could it be considered sexy, the connections with strategy and planning were particularly relevant. We look at the key role played by members of governing bodies, how to get the best out of governors and how important it was for them to develop a good understanding of the academic enterprise. Academic governance is identified by Louise as a concept which is often not well understood and she offers some helpful direction. Exploring the nature of the role of Secretary Louise articulates the value of being able to see how everything fits together across a university and how this helps the Secretary protect the institution. More broadly we consider external challenges from industrial action to new free speech regulation and why universities seem to be easy targets these days. Finally Louise entertainingly contrasts the higher purpose of many university staff with their ability to waste hours debating the minutiae of issues such as car parking and institutional nomenclature.
The latest episode of the podcast finds me talking to Richard Taylor who is Chief Operating Officer at Loughborough University. Like quite a few others in similar positions Richard's taste for HE management started with a stint as a sabbatical officer at Durham University before landing an exams administration job at Loughborough and then returning north, becoming in due course Head of Marketing back at Durham. From there it was another trip back to the East Midlands where in 2003 Richard was appointed as Director of Marketing at the University of Leicester at a very young age. Working with Bob Burgess (much missed) he grew his portfolio, eventually ending up as Deputy Registrar before landing the job of COO at neighbouring Loughborough where he has now been for almost a decade. We discuss the distinctive profile of Loughborough University in terms of its sporting environment and activities, student experience and research specialisms. The university has a strong sense of community, belonging and sense of purpose which enhances both student satisfaction and town-gown relations. Looking at the broader higher education landscape Richard observes that it is the sheer breadth of the range of challenges faced by the sector from industrial relations to regulatory compliance which make things so very difficult at present as well as noting that we often make things harder for ourselves by our cautious approach to embracing risk. Of course we could not let this conversation end without discussing Richard's role in supporting the operation which led to the discovery of the remains of King Richard III in a Leicester car park. This was a remarkable example of academics and amateur historians working together on what turned out to be an internationally noteworthy find which, as Richard observed, speaks to something bigger about the role of universities and their research in society. Finally Richard reflects somewhat ruefully on Sayre's law and the efforts invested in low stakes activities and unnecessary battles in universities. It's a really good conversation and well worth a listen.
My latest guest on University Registrars (and others) Talking About Stuff is Keith Zimmerman who has just started a new role at King's College London as Executive Director for Transformation of Education and Student Outcomes. Keith has a long and varied career in the sector which began at the University of Exeter where he started a PhD but then had so much fun working as the departmental administrator that he decided to pursue a career in university management. We learn a lot about Keith's time at Exeter and the huge changes he was involved in, working with big figures including Phil Harvey, David Allen and, of course, Steve Smith who had an enormous impact in his time as Vice-Chancellor at the university. Keith learned a lot from all of them before leaving for Oxford where he worked for five years on a range of administrative reforms and widening participation activities. Finding the pace of change to be just a bit too slow Keith then moved on to the very different environment of the Open University where, once again, he found himself at the heart of transformation activity and spending a great deal of time on the floor of Senate making the case for change. Further change beckoned and, after a brief stint as a head hunter, Keith joined the University of Bath right at the beginning of the first Covid lockdown where, having experienced an extremely rapid induction, he enjoyed a distinctive and productive set of experiences working intensively with senior colleagues across the institution. Keith has since joined King's where he expects to be involved in yet more transformative activity and at the same has taken on the honorary presidency of the AUA, through which he hopes to make some contribution to the promotion of professional service roles in the sector. Finally we learn about Keith's experience at an unnamed Oxford College where wholly disproportionate time and energy was devoted in meetings to detailed consideration of care arrangements for the college tortoise. It's a great journey through a long and really varied HE career and I'm grateful to Keith for sharing his thoughts.
The latest guest on University Registrars (and others) Talking About Stuff is John Rushforth who is Executive Secretary of the Committee of University Chairs (CUC) as well as having a number of other sector roles too. John has been around for quite a few years now and, before he joined the newly formed HEFCE, his early work was with the Audit Commission where he experienced the challenging days of auditing Liverpool City Council in the turbulent 1980s. His memories of HEFCE are strongly positive and he feels the agency did a difficult job well and was never really captured by the sector as has been the more recent criticism. From HEFCE, John moved to the University of the West of England before eventually joining CUC as part of a portfolio of not really retirement roles. CUC itself is a small membership organisation which, along with other sector bodies, plays an important part in the under-recognised area of university governance. John draws an interesting comparison between governing bodies and bidets before stressing the vital role that chairs play in public advocacy for the value of higher education. Beyond the reputational, regulatory and financial challenges faced by the sector John notes the additional burden all of this places on unpaid volunteers on governing bodies. Finally he recounts some of the difficulties he has experienced with some of the more exotic meals he has enjoyed in his various sector roles. It's a really enjoyable discussion with one of the most respected and senior managers in the sector.
The first episode of Season 2 of University Registrars (and others) Talking About Stuff is a landmark in more ways than one. My guest this time is Professor Chris Husbands, Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University, who has just announced that he is to leave his role at the end of the year after eight years in charge. We talk about Chris' career prior to Hallam which included six years teaching in urban comprehensives, stints training teachers and as head of two university schools of education before he became Director of the Institute of Education and led it into merger with UCL. Exploring the distinctive nature of and challenges faced by schools of education we also discuss the transferability of classroom teaching skills to university leadership from assembly organisation to debates about bog paper requirements in mediaeval monasteries (really). As VC at Hallam Chris initiated some significant strategic and cultural changes which he feels have really had a major long term impact including the Hallam model for the curriculum, which will certainly continue, along with the civic impact of the university. Part of the approach is also about ensuring fully joined up operations across academic and professional departments, learning from The Blob (the movie), focusing on a shared plan and avoiding trying to do too much. Finally we learn that Chris has no plans for what he is going to do after Hallam but he does not want to find himself staring into a chasm of emptiness in a year's time and yearning to read health and safety reports and financial statements. I am sure we will see him involved in the sector in some capacity though.