University Registrars Talking About Stuff

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 decadesThis 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).