New Deputy Vice Chancellor wins national award

The University of Northampton’s new Deputy Vice Chancellor Shân Wareing took up her post on November 1st and has already won a national award for her contribution to the higher education debate.

This week the sector came together in London for WonkFest 2019 – billed as “a festival of ideas and cutting edge debate about the future of universities”. On the programme was the third annual Wonkhe Awards which celebrate the best of the higher education community’s contributions to policy. Shân was nominated in the Leadership, Governance and Management category following a piece she wrote last year entitled “Beyond the brown bear: stewardship, collaboration and cost control.”

In the article – written while Shân was Pro Vice Chancellor for Education and Student Experience at London South Bank University – she argues that the university sector has to show stewardship of its mission, collaborate more, and redesign its cost base if it’s to survive.

The article argues: “For HE, planning to outrun the slowest camper won’t be enough in the face of our financial challenges, and nor will hoping to be bailed out when the true scale of the national risk becomes obvious. We need to take our future in our own hands, with a focus on stewardship of our purpose, collaboration, and cost control.”

Following her win Shân said: “It was a huge surprise to see my name appear. I read Wonkhe contributions regularly, and it is a community I admire for its rigorous analysis.  I write because I have a problem I am trying to solve and it’s a pleasure to find other people have read and enjoyed my article!”

It was Shan’s second award for one of her blogs. Her Open letter to Michael Barber won the ‘Best Piece of Original Analysis or Argument on Wonkhe’ category at the first annual Wonkhe awards in 2017.

See all of the 2019 Wonkhe winners.