Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Appointment Brief March 2020

Annabel Leech, MA Fashion. © Kev Foster

Norwich University of the Arts Walk around the campus at Norwich University of the Arts and you will see evidence all around of artists, designers, media producers, makers and innovators at work. The University is a small and agile institution with approximately 2,500 students in a creative community in the heart of the City of Norwich. Our students bring a diverse range of interests and unique perspectives; they share a desire to be challenged and inspired. We are one of the great British art schools: a specialist arts, architecture, design and media university that draws on 175 years of history but with our focus on the future. We were granted university status in 2012, with the late Oscar-nominated actor, Sir John Hurt, serving as NUA’s first Chancellor. The current Chancellor is British filmmaker Amma Asante MBE. We are renowned for our teaching quality. NUA was awarded Gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework and praised for how we encourage our students through “experimentation, creative risk-taking and team-working.” We were named University of the Year for Student Retention by the Sunday Times 2020 Good University Guide for the support we offer pre-enrolment to post-graduation. We are also proud of our award-winning campus and facilities and have a national reputation as an innovative and creative academic community, with a firm commitment to offering vocational, practice-based courses. Our 21st century teaching spaces and workshops are housed in renovated buildings with a medieval, Victorian and Edwardian heritage. NUA won the Outstanding Estates Strategy Award at the 2018 Times Higher Leadership and Management Awards, and was ranked as one of the UK’s top five universities for facilities at the WhatUni? Student Choice Awards in 2019. We welcome diversity. Whatever your background, wherever you are from, you’ll be welcomed as an innovator and leading practitioner in your field. You will join a community of creatives and makers who are committed to delivering expert academic tuition and who are supported by visiting specialists from the creative industries. You will work in a stimulating and critically-engaged environment. Ninety-four per cent of our graduates are in work or further study six months after graduation, and NUA won a Guardian University Award for Employability and Entrepreneurship in 2019 for our innovative gamification of careers advice. You will find our graduates in key positions at leading arts organisations, museums, galleries, fashion and textile houses, design and advertising agencies, UX and game development studios, film and media companies across the globe. There are Oscar nominees and BAFTA winners, and rising stars who are honoured across the creative industries: from D&AD Pencil winners, to acclaimed fine artists, photographers and fashion designers. We understand that making career choices requires careful consideration. We hope that as you learn about us you will be inspired by our ethos and plans for the future. Professor John Last OBE Vice Chancellor

Hillary Marerwa, BA (Hons) Fashion. © Kev Foster

The Senior Management Team

VICE-CHANCELLOR Professor John Last OBE

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Angela Robson

Pro-Vice Chancellor (Academic) To be appointed

Academic Registrar Angela Tubb

Director of Finance Stephen Belderbos

Dean of Arts and Media Professor Richard Sawdon Smith

Director of Human Resources Kate Secker

Dean of Design and Architecture Professor Hilary Carlisle

Director of External Relations Sarah Hamilton Director of Innovation and Engagement Sarah Steed

Our Strategic Plan in Development

As the University develops its new 2020-2025 Strategic Plan, this is the time to join this community and help shape its future. Students, staff and Council are working together to create the new plan for the next five years.

Our Strategic Plan 2020-2025 Norwich University of the Arts is an inclusive community transforming lives and creating futures.

Our Mission To inspire creativity and originality, encourage ethical thinking and sustainable practice, and develop skills and expertise valued by industry today and tomorrow.

Our Vision To be seen as the UK’s leading university for creative thinkers, makers, and designers whatever their background.

To become industry’s first choice for innovative collaboration, the creation of new courses, and development of new creative skills.

To be a leading advocate for ethical thinking and sustainable practice across all fields of creative endeavour.

Our Values We aim to be sustainable in everything we do

We value honesty and integrity as key to our success

We are a caring community and value the contribution of all of our members

We are a community that nurtures creativity in all its forms

We are ethical in all of our dealings

We are ambitious for our staff and our students

We are disruptive challenging established ideas and practices

We are original as a community of professionals who can think creatively and be the catalysts for change

NUA in Numbers

18 9 2,320 Undergraduate courses

Postgraduate courses and PhD research

Student population in 2019-20 (+31% increase over 5 years)

88% 94% 93% Of academic staff with teaching qualifications (Sector benchmark 46%)

Of undergraduate students in work of further study 6 months after graduation

Undergraduate retention

No. 1 Top 10 No 2 For Art & Design in The Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey

For teaching quality in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2018

For student experience overall in The Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey

The role On the retirement of the current post-holder, Professor Neil Powell, NUA now seeks a replacement for the PVC Academic role, who is the Senior Academic at the University under the Vice Chancellor. The post holder will be a member of the senior team and will attend University Council meetings. The successful applicant will have an established track record in senior leadership in Higher Education or the Arts, ideally in the creative disciplines we offer. We seek someone to lead Teaching & Learning and Research, who is confident in the management of senior staff and the oversight of Quality Assurance. The post holder will have direct line management for two Deans of Faculty (Arts & Media and Design & Architecture) as well as the Director of Research and the Learning and Teaching Development Lead. As the University is both small and specialist, the post holder is a significant member of the University community, and the role offers the successful applicant the opportunity to shape and develop a specialist arts university as it embarks upon a new strategic plan. The post holder will develop our systems for responding to the student voice and shaping the student experience at NUA. Experience in culture change would be an advantage.

Given the scale of the University, the post holder will be involved in operational as well as strategic management and should not expect to find as large an infrastructure as might be more common in universities with higher numbers of students. There is however an opportunity to make your mark in a successful and specialist institution. For those who meet NUA’s requirement for Professorships, a Chair may be available to the successful candidate.

Key responsibilities The post holder will undertake the following responsibilities, which may evolve in time:

Strategy & Leadership

• Contribute to and support the delivery of NUA’s strategy as a member of the Strategic Management Group

• Develop the strategy and underpinning systems for responding to the student voice • Shape and provide leadership for the student experience • Provide leadership and take overall responsibility of the management and operation of

undergraduate and taught postgraduate courses Learning & Teaching, Research

• Chair the Undergraduate and Post Graduate Award Boards, Learning, Teaching and Quality Committee

• Manage Learning, Teaching and Excellence Fund administration and selection, manage the budget for Course Development, and chair Course Periodic Reviews and new course approvals

• Provide leadership of research as a Member of the Research and allied committees Students

• Chair the Student Representatives Group, and the Student Conduct Committee • Chair the Student Focus Groups working closely with the Student Union President • Act as the Senior Manager presenter at open days, alongside the two Deans

Management

• Lead and Manage the three Pathways Groups for academic staff (Research, Knowledge Exchange and Learning & Teaching)

• Lead, manage, plan and control various budgets External

• Provide leadership for all outreach work with regional schools and further education colleges

• Liaise with Advance HE as he University’s senior contact • Act as the external liaison with Arts Council at a regional level, alongside other regional

cultural partners • Provide leadership for Erasmus+

Lauren Price, BA (Hons) Fashion.. © Kev Foster

Person specification The post holder will bring the following skills and attributes:

Experience

• The ability to achieve results, demonstrated by an established track record in senior leadership in higher education or the arts

• Teaching, learning and research leadership and management skills, and the ability to inspire others across these areas

• Experience of leading and managing high performing services from both a strategic and operational perspective

• Experience of leading cultural change, and the ability to get buy in for change • External stakeholder management experience, and the ability to collaborate and work in

partnership with a variety of external organisations • Line management experience

Personal

• Exceptional interpersonal skills • A strong drive to improve the student experience • Comfortable delivering at both a strategic and operational level • An ability to lead cultural change • Enthusiasm for innovation and ability to constructively challenge • An understanding of the current challenges and opportunities facing higher education

providers, ideally in a specialist context

East Gallery NUA, Orla Kiely: A Life in Pattern

Our City and Region Norwich sparks with creativity. You’ll encounter a flourishing music and cultural scene in one of the UK’s ‘greenest’ cities. An easily walkable city centre houses six theatres, a permanent six-day market, the vintage and independent shops of the ‘Lanes’, two shopping malls and four cinemas. But don’t be fooled by the city’s medieval architecture; Norwich has a history of radicalism, of innovators, creators and makers. You’ll find the NUA campus in the city’s cultural quarter at the centre of a buzzing and diverse social and creative landscape. An ever-growing number of independent galleries, museums, theatres and events, including the oldest international arts festival in the UK, reflect the diversity of creative interests represented in the city. UNESCO named Norwich as England’s first City of Literature in 2012, recognising the city’s celebrated literary tradition, spanning Booker and Nobel prize winners and the new National Writers’ Centre. Norwich has a wealth of independent galleries and internationally renowned public art spaces featuring artists from Rembrandt to Paul Nash; Henry Moore to Antony Gormley. The city is also a thriving hub of creative business and enterprise; home to one of the UK’s most highly concentrated and diversified creative industry clusters (The Geography of Creativity in the UK, NESTA 2016). The campus is a 10-minute walk from Norwich Train Station and there are regular buses from the city to suburbs and surrounding villages. Trains to London run on the half-hour on a 1hr 50 minute journey to Liverpool Street. A short flight from Norwich International Airport to Amsterdam’s Schiphol connects the city to continental Europe and beyond. Students ranked Norwich as one of the UK’s best university cities for its creative scene, according to the Which? Student Survey 2019. It’s no wonder Norwich has also been voted one of the best small cities in the world. The city is one of the UK’s safest with a warm and welcoming attitude to its 40,000-strong student population. Beyond the city limits, Norfolk is famed for its 90-mile coastline of big skies and stunning beaches. The tranquil waterways of the Norfolk Broads National Park span 120 miles of rivers and lakes – a perfect place to seek inspiration. Green spaces and medieval villages offer historical and architectural interest within easy reach of Norwich.

Jess Anderson, BA (Hons) Fashion Communication and Promotion

Terms of appointment

Location Norwich Salary £80,000-90,000 Pension TPS Holiday 35 days plus 8 bank holiday days, up to 5 additional concessionary days Health BUPA Health insurance

How to apply

Saxton Bampfylde Ltd is acting as an employment agency advisor to Norwich University of the Arts on this appointment. Candidates should apply for this role through our website at www.saxbam.com/appointments using code WAJAH. Click on the ‘apply’ button and follow the instructions to upload a CV and cover letter. The closing date for applications is noon on Monday 30 March 2020.

Lara Chandler, BA (Hons) Photography

Saxton Bampfylde LONDON 9 Savoy Street London WC2E 7EG EDINBURGH 46 Melville Street Edinburgh EH3 7HF saxbam.com Partners in Panorama - Search around the world panoramasearch.com

Annabel Leech, MA Fashion. © Kev Foster