Do you, like me, remember those seemingly endless car journeys as a child? "Are we nearly there yet?". Hopefully, the answer to our search for our next Vice-Chancellor is "just round the next corner" (another of my parents' favourites). This week we have the final five candidates visiting the University to learn more about us and for us to learn about them. Over the course of a day they will take part in:
- a workshop with a small group of academic staff about how we sustain and build our academic reputation
- a presentation on their vision for the University to a mixed audience of staff, Court and Council members
- an executive meeting on the risks and opportunities facing this University
- an engagement with students (organised by the SU, and will be a bit of a surprise)
- a tour of the campus
If any of you have ever been through an 'assessment centre' as part of recruitment or promotion, you might recognise this approach. We are looking to test all of the parts of the person specification in a range of different scenarios. Thank you to all who are taking part on the day; I am sure that it will be an interesting experience for both candidates and participants.
All of the feedback from those events, and we expect quite a lot of it, will be brought together by the Committee on the Office of Vice-Chancellor to inform the final interviews on the 31 July. We will have learned a lot about the candidates through this process, and I am hopeful that we will then have enough information to identify a preferred candidate, and make an announcement in September.
So are we nearly there yet? I hope so, and I expect so do the candidates.
Richard
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