Episode 1: Leadership legacies and avoiding the chasm of emptiness

The first episode of Season 2 of University Registrars (and others) Talking About Stuff is a landmark in more ways than one. My guest this time is Professor Chris Husbands, Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University, who has just announced that he is to leave his role at the end of the year after eight years in charge.

We talk about Chris' career prior to Hallam which included six years teaching in urban comprehensives, stints training teachers and as head of two university schools of education before he became Director of the Institute of Education and led it into merger with UCL.

Exploring the distinctive nature of and challenges faced by schools of education we also discuss the transferability of classroom teaching skills to university leadership from assembly organisation to debates about bog paper requirements in mediaeval monasteries (really).

As VC at Hallam Chris initiated some significant strategic and cultural changes which he feels have really had a major long term impact including the Hallam model for the curriculum, which will certainly continue, along with the civic impact of the university. Part of the approach is also about ensuring fully joined up operations across academic and professional departments, learning from The Blob (the movie), focusing on a shared plan and avoiding trying to do too much.

Finally we learn that Chris has no plans for what he is going to do after Hallam but he does not want to find himself staring into a chasm of emptiness in a year's time and yearning to read health and safety reports and financial statements. I am sure we will see him involved in the sector in some capacity though.