14 July Update
Sorry this has gone a little quiet. We have now worked though all of your helpful comments and feedback to produce an amended version of the Core Values. This will be shared with the department very soon through a Google Survey to enable you to provide further comments should you wish. Look out for an email hitting your inbox soon!
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3 June Update
A big thank you to everyone who has provided comments and feedback on the draft Core Values up to now - more than 25 of you responded through the survey and in the meeting itself which was really great to see. There were some extremely interesting views and helpful suggestions put forward. We are working through all of the comments and will provide an update with next steps shortly. We are also engaging with some further groups of individuals including PHD students and Undergraduate and Postgraduate Reps to gain wider feedback.
More to follow soon!
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During our departmental staff meeting on Tuesday 26 May, we discussed the draft Core Values for our department.
Key Links
- A video of the staff meeting can be found here: https://york-ac-uk.zoom.us/rec/share/65J_D-rX2kVJa9LIy0_CeZ56NaK0X6a8h3JPqKALxUxrpTthwILPfKnQdJI3Zmmj (Password: 0s=221F4)
- The full presentation can be found here.
- Pre-reading material here.
The journey to developing Core Values
Roland started as Head of Department in October 2019. This came with a new leadership team: Sam Bayley (Department Manager, Director of Professional Services), Nicola Carslaw (Director of Research), Ioan Fazey (Director for Strategy), Claire Hughes (Deputy HoD, Director of Teaching and Learning).
In November 2019, the Department underwent a strategic review. A series of recommendations for improvements to the Department's strategy and operations were proposed and a detailed action plan was developed to take these recommendations forward.
We unveiled a new vision statement in January 2020, and in the past few months we have been working to develop our core values and accountability structure.
The leadership team have been considering our three-year strategy, and our long-term vision, alongside the University's work in developing its strategy.
Developing a set of Core Values for the department goes hand in hand with developing the accountabilities framework and strategy for the department. This is all about defining who we are and how we operate as a team.
26 May Staff Meeting
- Roland introduced the session and explained where the values had come. He talked through an SLT 'cloning' exercise where the SLT team worked to develop the draft core values by thinking about characteristics and traits of colleagues that they would like to personally emulate.
- Ioan proceeded to talk through a PowerPoint presentation. The main parts of this were to explain what Core Values are, why we are introducing them, how they will be used and finally what the draft Core Values are.
- The draft Core Values shared for consideration in the meeting were:
We believe in students
We make a difference
We step in and help
We are friendly
We are curious and committed to learning - The department were split up into small groups and took part in a short break-out exercise where colleagues were invited to consider if they agreed with the values, currently work to them and if they had any feedback that they would like to share at this stage.
- Following the breakout session, the full meeting was reconvened and the floor opened for feedback.
- Some great points were raised by around 18 individuals - a really open and honest dialogue flowed.
- A selection of the feedback covered points such as:
- What does 'believe in students' mean and is this the right language?
- Should there be something in here about being international, cosmopolitan, inclusive or diverse?
- 'Friendly' discussed, is this the right language and other ideas such as 'approachable' and 'supportive' were proposed.
- Other suggestions for further values were made, such as 'Working together for a common good.'
- There was a discussion around the distillation of the values into short, sharp sentences and whether they should be longer with more explanation.
- The environment, sustainability and green agenda discussed and there was some conversation around whether these are 'Core' Values or 'Permission to Play' Values (check out the pre-reading for more on this) .
- Following the feedback session, the next steps were shared: please respond to the google survey to put forward your own feedback and look out for further updates through this page and via future staff meetings.
Further Feedback and Next Steps
To allow us to collate all of your comments together in one place, please provide us feedback using this very simple google form.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1n1h3izimUzFscGgYI7V4hR62RCjs3cWG_nvYj_359xA
We are very keen to hear from colleagues! Thank you in advance.
If anything is not clear or you have questions about the presentation, please email Charlotte at Charlotte.Hartley@york.ac.uk or Lucy at environment-pa@york.ac.uk.