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Kia ora koutou
Thank you for the understanding and continued commitment of our Academic Leaders who have been waiting since last year for a decision on their roles. I appreciate it created some uncertainty, but it had also been clear that you are wanting us to ensure any decision is informed by appropriate analysis of the current situation.
Our academic restructure, announced last year under our Renewal Plan, sought to create a flatter academic leadership model. The first step was creating 11 Schools, each with its own Head of School from the start of 2019.
The second step was to address the challenges faced by Academic Leaders and position Unitec for further change with the upcoming Reform of Vocational Education. This was put on hold while we undertook further review of the School structure and sought additional input from staff, particularly Academic Leaders and Heads of School.
During this process it became clear that the workload allocations for Academic Leaders have evolved over time to be largely inconsistent across Schools. In many cases, Academic Leader roles do not allow sufficient autonomy, authority or scope, and with responsibilities varying widely it is difficult to get alignment and build a cohesive team with the requisite capability.
Therefore, we have taken a blank page approach to determine how to structure the Schools to best reflect and achieve Unitec’s priorities. This is intended to enable consistency and transparency across the Schools while recognising the specificity and complexity of different programmes and the reality of our current financial constraints.
Moving forward each School will have:
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One Head of School position and two Academic Programme Manager positions EXCEPT; |
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Bridgepoint, Healthcare & Social Practice, and Trades & Services which will each have three Academic Programme Managers due to specific needs such as registration and professional body requirements |
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Supporting these positions, academic staff will have the opportunity for an allocation to perform the following roles/tasks:
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Programme Coordinators and/or Discipline Leaders |
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Course Coordinators |
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Research Leaders |
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Māori Success Champions |
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Pacific Success Champions |
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Pending specific need such as International, other student facing roles by negotiation with the Executive Dean |
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Administratively there will be support from School Business Administrators and Administrators, Academic Quality (which is the newly combined team of Academic Administrators and Academic Quality Administrators) as well as all the other School Business Partners such as HR and Finance.
This model allows ownership and development for current staff into the Academic Programme Manager positions, and enables development and leadership opportunities for academic staff in supporting roles. In many cases, it means academic staff will be able to continue to contribute via the leadership roles they are already performing within their Schools.
Next steps
Internal and external applications for the Academic Programme Manager positions will open this week. The final position description and information about each position will be made available as soon as possible.
At this stage Academic Leader allocations and allowances will end on 30 June 2019 as intended. However, depending on the recruitment process, individuals may be asked to extend in this role on a case-by-case basis to enable adequate cover and a smooth transition.
Following appointment of the Academic Programme Managers within each School, the Heads of School and the Academic Programme Managers will go through a process to confirm leadership allocation amongst academic staff for the remaining roles within their School. Other existing leadership workload allocations will cease. Current 2019 research allocation will be unaffected by this process.
Academic Programme Manager position
Based on feedback and input received:
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The position title will be Academic Programme Manager which reflects the academic focus of the position while being clear that it is a management position |
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The employment agreement will be a hybrid management contract. Please note that those internally appointed who are currently on an academic employment agreement will have a clause giving them an option to revert to their academic position and academic employment agreement after a period of two years if they so wish |
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The standard contract will be for 0.8 management and 0.2 covering teaching and/or research. There may be an additional 0.2 available for internal staff with established research records to undertake research, however this will need to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis and they will need to demonstrate that their position as an Academic Programme Manager can be successfully undertaken within the 0.6 allocation |
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Again, thanks to our current Academic Leaders for their patience and feedback and also to the Heads of School for their engagement and ownership of this decision which is key to the future success of Unitec.
Ngā mihi
Merran Davis
Interim Chief Executive
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