Vice-Chancellors in trouble

[atrium]

I work for a uni and we got an email to say our VC has been suspended while allegations are investigated. I googled to see if there was an external announcement yet. There isn't, but I was interested to see many other recent headlines in my search results about VCs being suspended from other unis. It seems to be remarkably common. I wonder why? 🤷‍♀️

She only ever had contact with senior managers. However, her impact on them, and on their work, was felt by everyone.

I recommend that you wait for the outcome of the investigation. A lot depends on whether the allegations were high level or backed up by detailed examples with evidence.

Our vc mentioned the UL suspension in a meeting three weeks ago. But nothing in the public domain until now

Gosh. But why just now when it seems she’s been there for some years. Did anyone know the previous trustees.

Here's the announcement from May 24: https://www.london.ac.uk/news-events/news/university-london-board-trustees-welcomes-new-chair-independent-members .

It shouldn't be too hard to find the names of previous trustees in the public domain.

Senior manager turnover has been high during the VC's tenure. There was no formal restructure, but what seems like a high proportion of long-serving senior leaders have left and some senior positions have had multiple incumbents during that time.

I don't know if signatories to the allegations include former staff but it wouldn't surprise me.

Going off at a bit of a tangent, but I'm always amazed when I realise that the U of L still exists. ICL has left. UCL and KCL are huge and well up the world rankings as independent HEIs. Queen Mary, LSE, Goldsmiths, Birkbeck, all well regarded and quite large too. Then there are the surviving smaller places, all very specialist in nature. What purpose does it serve these days?

It's the central body of a federation of institutions, some large, some small. It's headline offering is its worldwide distance learning programme which runs courses on behalf of many of its federation members. It has 50000+ students (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_London_Worldwide). Its other main academic offering is the School of Advanced Study, which is a federation of Humanities research institutions.

Beyond those academic functions, it also provides accommodation, library, careers, and IT services to its federation members, and has historically been the awarding body for federation members that don't have their own awarding powers (therefore curates a very large and historical transcript archive).

You seem to be very well informed. Assume you work or worked there. Are there any good people working there? Pleased I’m not!! I wonder what the old Trustees who left would think of all this. Do you know any of them ?

It's a very odd career trajectory that Thomson has had. It looks like she had no previous experience of senior leadership in UK HE? And even outside the UK, she'd only done a head of school kind of role? I can imagine why strategic leadership might be lacking (yes, she was renewed but her first tenure was under COVID, which was more of a crisis management situation).

I can't comment on bullying allegations.

I think this is a very dangerous time to be a senior leader in HE. You have to make very tough decisions that will affect people’s lives and livelihoods. Everyone is at a different point in the change curve and academics can be notoriously difficult to persuade that they need to adapt to the new financial and regulatory environment.

The report is unlikely to present a complete picture (unless it is so clear cut like Bolton).

Thanks, I'd forgotten about the external degrees. Too complicated to dismantle the federal structure, I suppose. (I graduated from one London college and worked for another, so I have some familiarity with the structure, but not up to date.)

I did say in my original post that I worked there.

And yes, of course there are good people working there. Strange question

What's your specific interest? (Sounds like you're digging for dirt).

No I’m not. It’s just my boss said he knows her and he thinks she’s very good . So I am really curious that’s all. I forgot you had said you worked there. I guess at some point the result of the investigation will come out one way or another. I don’t know her but I just feel sorry because of the ghastly press story. Whoever leaked it must be a horrible vindictive person. That’s it!

Yep, it shouldn't have been leaked. It could have been someone in the union because I heard they were sent more info than everyone else. 🤷‍♀️

UoL isn't structured or funded like other universities - its main revenue stream is from distance learning, and most of its students are international. Its main challenges are:

1. Competition in the distance learning space, though its prestige significantly helps with this.
2. Its administrative and operational complexity which has evolved over the decades to serve the many differing wants and needs of its Federation Members.

The leadership wants to grow the distance learning offer but has been held back by challenge 2. The VC (Wendy T)'s focus over the last 5 years has included some much needed internal transformation of systems and processes. However, there have been significant issues with how this has been planned, budgeted, led, managed and, most importantly, governed.

I'm not a senior manager, and have never met the VC in person (she resides in the Corridor of Power in Senate House and doesn't tend to visit the "shop floor") but everyone knows about the issues. Wherever the blame ultimately lies, I know that senior managers have, on multiple occasions, come out of VC Exec Group meetings looking pale, shaken, and asking each other if they are ok.

Whether or not the bullying allegations are upheld, the maladministration issues are easily provable, e.g. through transformation benefits not being realised, forecast timelines not being met, and multiple internal audit report recommendations not being implemented.

You seem to have an interesting insight. But would it all be the VC fault. It seems that some of them are out to destroy her even before we know the outcome of everything. The previous chair must have supported her so why has this all suddenly bubbled up.

As I said up thread, I think it may have come to a head now because 2025 marks the end of the VC's 5 year strategy: https://www.london.ac.uk/about/strategy and she was also preparing her strategy for the next 5 years.

Over the last 5 years, multiple long-serving senior leaders and managers have left, and those that remained or joined have had to become adept at managing upwards. Reading between the lines, some of these individuals have got together and collectively logged a complaint. The wording quoted in the Times article implies that their primary motivation is concern for the University's future. They presumably shared some or all of the allegation info with the union, who circulated it to their members.

It was publicly announced on 13th May that the PVC with responsibility for Governance will be leaving to take on a prestigious new role elsewhere. He was appointed by the VC in 2021 and almost certainly saw the writing on the wall. Senior leaders are human and need to safeguard their own careers.

The PVC who was given responsibility by the VC for leading the internal transformation has reportedly not been seen since around the time of the Trustee Board meeting that suspended the VC. She has been taking leave.

There is undoubtedly a blame game taking place (as implied by the VC's brief quote in some online articles), so the independent investigation could take some time.

Hi. Think my boss mentioned that person if also in charge of finance. Very tricky with big turnover in that department. Will carefully speak to my boss tomorrow and let you know. I assume he’s not on mumsnet 😂

Yes, the financial system and processes are the current focal point for transformation. It is an expensive project - reportedly more expensive than originally budgeted - so its governance may be earmarked for some examination.

And just realised the other trustee that suddenly left the board was I believe also chair of finance. I think I overheard my boss mention something but I didn’t think it was connected but maybe it is. Mmm. Sounds suspicious don’t you think with your info.

Possibly related, yes.

However, he was responsible for external governance. When I talk about governance issues I mean internal governance. The governance of technically complex transformation projects has being led at VC and PVC level. Delivery deadlines were set by the VC, and expensive contractors and suppliers were hired to deliver to those deadlines without realistic planning, with inadequate internal resourcing, and with naivety about underlying complexities. Any managers who questioned timelines or who did not have a snowplough approach to clearing hurdles, were made to feel the heat, so learned to keep their heads down, manage upwards, or leave.

Managed to speak to my boss today, just curious. Said he thought the pvc finance was in but not sure . Also said much more issues than generally known . Wouldn’t expand .

@atrium Look at info about Buckingham University in The Times today. Depressing.