An anonymous source sent Critic Te Ārohi the proposed changes to the University’s Senior Leadership Team (SLT). Sparing students through trawling through pages of bureaucracy, here’s a summary of these changes, and what it means for your University experience. These changes were announced a few months ago, and consultation with University staff recently closed. Don’t get too used to the acronym SLT, though: part of the proposal is to rename the Senior Leadership Team to the ‘Vice Chancellor's Advisory Group’.
Wait, what even is the SLT?
Currently, the SLT are the key group of University staff who work with the Vice-Chancellor (that’s Grant Robertson, if you remember), to keep the Uni ticking along day-to-day. This is the more ‘managerial’ side of the University, while academic and learning policies are set by the Senate. Above the SLT and the senate is the University Council, who can be thought of as a Parliament or City Council, and our campus can be imagined as its own city state. So, basically these changes are around the structure of the group that liaises with the Vice-Chancellor on operational and management related things – but this proposal doesn’t affect the governing powers of the senate nor the council.
Why were these changes proposed?
These changes are being proposed to foster more co-ordination in implementing the University’s strategic goals. It’s hoped that clearer integration of University operational matters will allow more effective delivery of long-term plans for staff and students. Underpinning this all is Pae Tata, the University’s long-term plan to 2030. This basically lies out all of the Unis hopes, dreams and strategic priorities.
New role just dropped: Provost
Currently, leadership of the academic side of things lies with the Deputy Vice Chancellor (DVC) Academic. The University currently has lots of DVCs, who each work with the Vice Chancellor on a specific area of the University. Under this proposal, the DVC Academic role is going to be replaced with the ‘Provost’ (just a fancy title for the head of academic affairs).
Confusingly, Otago already has a Provost, who is in charge of student discipline. As such, the current Provost role is now being renamed to Student Conduct Adjudicator. Under the proposal, an Establishment Provost will lead the transition to the new structure, where Pro-Vice-Chancellors (the head of each University division, such as Humanities or Health Sciences) will now report to the Provost. Currently, Pro-Vice-Chancellors report directly to the Vice-Chancellor. Other areas will be under the Provost’s portfolio now, including quality advancement, student experience, plus analytics and reporting, to name a few.
Meanwhile, in the operations world…
You may think our campus is just a collection of lecture theatres, but there’s a complex web of operational services that the University takes care of. Property services, sustainability, residential colleges and health & safety of just a few areas under this umbrella. Currently, the Uni has a Chief Operating Officer position, which is set to be replaced with a DVC Operations role. The new DVC Operations will also oversee the Chief People Officer and the new Chief Students Officer. The introduction of that latter role is intended to group together student-facing services staff members under one leader, rather than being divided across various departments. On top of all of this, a new (and yet to be named) role will sit under the DVC Operations, providing extra support with the complexity of operations.
Health Sciences gets a special committee
During staff consultation on the changes, it was noted that the Division of Health Sciences is a particularly complex case. With a presence across Dunedin, Wellington and Christchurch, lots of clinical and regulatory rules to follow and a sizable number of staff and students (thanks health scis) – there’s a lot going on. A new ‘Health Sciences Leadership Forum’ will be made and chaired by the Vice-Chancellor, allowing strategy and advancements of the Health Sciences to be taken into account by senior leaders across the University.
Other swaps in leadership
The changes don’t stop here – there’s quite a few smaller ones (that didn’t get their own subheading). The DVC Research & Innovation will now look after libraries, moving over from the academic division. Meanwhile, the Pathways and English Language Centre will now be looked after by the Humanities Division. The Director of Strategy, Analytics and Reporting role is getting retitled to the ‘Executive Director, Strategy and Government Relations’. The analytics and reporting side of that role will now be under the Head of Planning, Analytics and Reporting, who will report to the new Provost Role.
This only very briefly scratches the surface of the changes proposed, so keep an eye out for more announcements as plans are finalised. As you can see, any organisation with thousands of staff and students find themselves in quite the bureaucratic maze trying to keep everything organised and running well. Get ready students – a grad role in an organisation just as complicated as the Uni awaits you.
