In my first newsletter, I reflect on the Race Equity Town Hall event, held as part of Black History Month, and Loughborough’s contribution to COP26.

My first month

I have now been at Loughborough for a few weeks and it has certainly been a busy start to my term as Vice-Chancellor.

My wife and I have now moved to the area, and I’m slowly beginning to find my way around Loughborough. I’ve started visiting the Academic Schools and the Professional Services, and I’m learning about new parts of the University every day as I venture into different corners of the campus. I’ve also watched my first Loughborough sport match – although our team unfortunately lost, which is something I wasn’t expecting! 

I’ve been posting details of some of my visits on Twitter, so please do take a look and follow me if you wish – @LboroVC. 

Everyone has been so welcoming and people here have such warmth and enthusiasm for the University. As part of our Black History Month celebrations, I attended Mike Wedderburn’s talk earlier this month, which was expertly hosted by Renae Huggan-Broughton, one of our Graduate Management Trainees. Mike is an alumnus and Sky Sports News presenter, who gave an illuminating insight into his career. He spoke about the University with such fondness and pride, and that’s been reflected in so many of the conversations I’ve had so far. It’s very humbling to be leading an institution that our staff, students and alumni, as well as others outside the University, think is so fantastic and has played such an important part in their lives.

I’ve also been astounded by the commitment and care we show to our students, both when they are on campus or out in the local community. So many staff really do go above and beyond to make sure our students’ experience here is the very best it can be. Thank you for all that you do. That sense of care is really special and epitomises the sense of community we nurture here. It’s a sentiment that I wanted to reflect in my message about sexual violence earlier this month. I hope we can all work together to create an inclusive and safe environment that we all want to be a part of.

I would also like to thank those of you who continued to work regularly on campus during the pandemic. You helped to ensure that we could support our students and continue to deliver vital services – your contribution was fundamentally important to our Covid response and epitomised the Loughborough ‘can do’ mentality.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be visiting more Schools and Professional Services – I’m aiming to get round them all before Christmas so if I haven’t met you yet, I very much hope to do so soon. I’m looking forward to continuing my learning about Loughborough.

Watch my interview on the University’s YouTube channel.

Black History Month

Throughout October we have marked Black History Month, to celebrate the achievements of Black people and reflect on our progress as a university towards racial equity. We hosted some very thought-provoking and inspiring events, culminating today in the Black History Month parade around the Loughborough campus, with staff and students gathering together to talk about race at the University.

On Monday this week we also held our first Race Equity Town Hall to share the outcomes and action plan of the Race Equality Charter (REC) Bronze application, which we submitted in July 2021. The REC is part of the broader development of a University-wide Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy. I know that many colleagues and students have been involved in the extensive preparation for the REC submission and are supporting us as we continue to drive forward our EDI agenda. Thank you to all those who are helping us to take these hugely important steps.

I was pleased to see so many colleagues and students in attendance for the Town Hall, both in-person and online. If you weren’t able to attend, a recording of the event is available. The session allowed us to reflect on our progress to date, identify the key issues based on the data gathered for the submission and discuss the actions we now have planned. In my opening remarks, I said that it is now time for all of us, especially white colleagues, to make sure change happens. Our end point must be to create an anti-racist Loughborough, a university that isn’t passive but takes action. 

EDI will continue to be at the forefront of our agenda as we move into the next phase of the University’s development. The Race Equity Town Hall showed that we are making good progress, but that we need to, and shall, continue to do more. 

Our Black History Month website has details of all the events we have held during October, as well as inspiring stories from the last 12 months and some informative and educational resources, such as Dr Ksenia Chmutina’s curated reading list of books on Black history, Black narratives and the Black experience. If you haven’t had the chance yet, please do take a look.

Our contribution to COP26

From 31st October to 12th November the UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow. The summit will bring countries together to review, for the first time, the vitally important action plans they developed as part of the Paris Agreement.

COP26 provides a unique opportunity for the UK to show the world what it is doing to tackle the climate crisis. The summit will feature exhibitions, demonstrations and talks, and some of our Loughborough colleagues will be contributing their research.

On 4th November, we will launch the Centre for Sustainable Transitions: Energy, Environment, Resilience (STEER) at a COP26 fringe event. STEER brings together two multi-million-pound international research initiatives – Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) and Climate Compatible Growth (CCG) – to support low carbon development and investment in green infrastructure in countries in the Global South. The Centre is led by Professor Ed Brown, Professor Mark Howells and Dr Long Seng To from the School of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Research under the CCG programme will also be part of the global Green Grids Initiative, which is due to be launched at COP26. CCG researchers will help to develop the infrastructure needed to support countries’ transition to clean energy.

Over a number of days, members of the sport community will take part in Sport@COP, the organisation of which has been led by Dr Madeleine Orr, a Lecturer in the Institute of Sport Business at Loughborough University London. Sport@COP is a forum to help drive climate-focused action in the sport sector. Dr Orr will also speak at the Extreme Hangout, a youth-focused hub bringing together those who share a passion for the health recovery of the natural world.

The climate crisis is one of the most pressing issues facing us today. We have so much great research, enterprise and education at the University that is contributing to the UK government’s efforts to meet its 2050 net zero emissions target and is also helping people across the world live with and mitigate the impacts of climate change. We need to make sure we continue to advance this further and embed sustainability into our everyday operations and developments at the University.

Dynamic Working

As you will know, the University has been working towards the introduction of Dynamic Working for some roles, with effect from 1^st November 2021. By now I hope you have had the chance to discuss with your manager how Dynamic Working might apply to your role.

As part of the development process, and following extensive engagement with colleagues, we have brought together a website to provide information about the implementation of Dynamic Working. If you haven’t yet done so, please do take a look. 

Dynamic Working offers us the opportunity to review working patterns on our campuses, while still maintaining operational effectiveness, team interactions and University culture. The pilot phase, to bed in and review the new arrangements, will run throughout the first semester. I very much hope we can all work together to ensure it is a positive step forward.