New Head of School appointed

There had been rumours going around about our current Head of School (HoS), John, retiring. And then the moment came he announced that that was indeed going to happen. But there wasn't much talk about a replacement. Or rather; of course there was talk, but nothing official. John would leave in January, and it was only on November 18 that we got an email informing us that there was a vacancy, and we could apply. The deadline was November 26. But I suppose anyone who was considering taking on this job would have started writing a letter long before. 

It’s not a popular job! It’s hard work. You are the highest authority in the School, but you have all of the management of the university above you. They make the decisions, which may well involve budget cuts for the School, and you have to implement them. An excellent opportunity for becoming unpopular. And you have to sit through buckets of meeting about things such as strategy documents. That sounds so dull! 

A long time ago, when the HoS who was in place when I arrived at Bangor University retired, there were actually several people who were keen to take over. The position went to a bit of an outsider candidate. Chaos ensued. My then line manager James left, and in the wake of that, I got a permanent job.

When the outsider quit, there was no crowd wanting to follow in his footsteps. But John ended up doing it. He has done two stints. 

On Monday the 15th we received an email that a new HoS had been appointed. It was Stuart Jenkins. That won’t mean much to my readers I suppose, but it means something to me. I am cautiously optimistic. 

From Stuart’s public profile on the University website 

John was what you imagine some old-fashioned Oxbridge-educated Englishman to be. Stuart is a Yorkshireman. He is much more loud and direct than John. So much more my style! So I’m sure we’ll disagree on plenty, but at least we will probably be communicating on the same channel.

He will officially take over by February. Time will tell how his tenure develops!