President’s Blog – Have your say on the VC recruitment

As you know that currently university is in its transition phase in hiring a new Vice-Chancellor. Recruitment agency Perrett Laver were recently appointed to organise and run the recruitment process to find the most suitable candidate to fill the vacancy of Vice-Chancellor, following Koen Lamberts’ departure. They are undertaking a broad consultation exercise to develop a thorough understanding of our requirements, to discuss the skills and experience required of our new Vice-Chancellor, and to consider the University’s opportunities and challenges.

I believe that students should be the part of consultation process in VC recruitment where they can voice their opinion. Today, we organised an open forum with the support of YUSU to provide this chance to our PG students. It was well attended and there was an active participation seen from students. They voiced their opinions on what do they expect from their new Vice Chancellor. For example, most of the students said that they want from their VC to be more visible and proactive on certain issues e.g. mental health, diversity. There were also some opinions that next VC should take more steps to improve student’s experience by funding student societies. Students will be encouraged to involve in more societies and it is very productive experience for them and will have more positive impact on their wellbeing. One of the opinion was that VC should be like a figure head who can lobby for University on core issues, like mental health, Unity Health issues. One of the student mentioned that there should be a more direct collaboration between VC and students. VC should make sure that all the executive members should engage more with students then they can get the direct input from students’ experience. This will help to develop the strategy. Another student voiced his opinion by saying that we are not aware of what University is doing for accommodation and how it can improve the situation. Another opinion was that next VC should consider the fact that University is an academic institution rather than a corporate sector, so the real focus should be to improve the student’s experience.

If you were unable to attend today’s open forum, don’t worry. You can still submit your responses/views by email to york@perrettlaver.com.  Your views on the following areas would be welcome:

•  What makes York special that you want a VC to understand, value and preserve?
•  What the greatest challenges are for students and subsequently for the University and what these might be in 5 or 10 years’ time?
• Which demographics are underrepresented within senior leadership at the University and should perhaps be targeted in the recruitment process?
• Where the University should be heading to in the future in order to set itself out as a great choice for prospective students?
• What sort of relationship do you think a VC should have with students and how do you think they should practice that?

I am also collecting student input in person and online throughout the week, so that as many students as possible can input into and support the process. If you have any questions, you can contact me on Facebook or email president@yorkgsa.org