Peter Neil

Last year was a very significant year in the life of Bishop Grosseteste University. We continued making progress in our strategy, focusing specifically on our work with our partners and stakeholders and increasing our research activity.

We firmly established our place as a quality university, being the second highest ranked public university in England for student satisfaction and named as one of the top three institutions in the UK for student employability.

We passed three major quality inspections (from the Quality Assurance Agency, Ofsted for our teacher education and the British Psychological Society for our courses in psychology) with flying colours.

These results confirmed that we provide high quality courses for our students. Further evidence that we are among the best universities in the country came in the form of the score we received from our students in the National Student Survey which with 92% satisfaction ranked us in the top group in the UK.

Also the number of students getting jobs was amongst the highest in the country with 96% of our graduates being in employment or further study six months after graduation.

So these results, together with the increased number of students joining both our traditional courses and new courses, meant that 2016 counted as one of the most successful in the history of the institution.

On a personal note, however, it was a sad year for me as I lost my little cat, Sparky, who had been with me for the past 13 years, travelling with me from Wales to Scotland and then to Lincoln.

She died in the wonderful vet hospital across the road from BGU in Newport, while I was away in Izmir in Turkey on business. I now have another tabby who came from the Lincoln Cat Care; I have called her Izzy, (to remind me of Izmir) and she is settling in well.

So what of 2017? I will be starting the year at a conference of the Colleges and Universities of the Anglican Communion (CUAC) which is taking place in Chennai in South East India. BGU is part of that international group and it is a great opportunity to hear what is going on across the world in similar institutions and also an opportunity to tell the international community about education in Lincolnshire.

Those of you who pass by on Newport will notice that BGU is reaching for the skies with the second phase extension to the Constance Stewart Hall which will be an iconic front at the roundabout on the corner of Longdales Road.

This will provide additional, flexible teaching spaces for our students and it will bring the campus out from behind the trees to the road. We are looking forward to opening this building in the summer. This will be very useful as we introduce yet more new courses – in Business and in Geography, to name but a few. We also have additional places in teacher education courses at all levels.

We will also be opening our Centre for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT) which will provide a major focus for all work in relation to the student experience.

We are also looking forward to starting a major project with our partner institutions in higher education in the LincHigher project which will encourage potential students from across the county to enter university level education. So there is a lot happening next year.

Along with the usual well-intentioned resolutions to eat less, or at least more healthy food, do more exercise and get out more, I think I want to use my time more effectively as I have less time left than I had at the end of last year! I should like to wish all readers on behalf of BGU a happy Christmas and New Year.

For Bishop Grosseteste University the year 2015 was a significant one. It was the year in which we started to see the first results of our new five-year strategy benefiting our students, staff and local communities.

As an institution we have been offering high quality courses of higher education on this site in Lincoln since 1862, and we are constantly evolving to improve the BGU experience and our contribution to the development of the city.

We have introduced several new courses this year – Archaeology, Business, Counselling, Health and Social Care, Sociology – which are now up and running, together with several at masters level in English, History and Theology.

We have invested over £1m in transforming Constance Stewart Hall (the 1950s building visible from the Newport roundabout) into eight state-of-the-art teaching and learning spaces of various sizes to accommodate different styles of teaching and learning.

Our School of Teacher Development continues to provide high calibre graduates both in more traditional university based learning and more modern school led partnerships. This year the provision was inspected by Ofsted and we are waiting for the results of this, but the experience of the review process was a positive one.

Following a very pleasing outcome in the national Research Excellence Framework exercise last year, in which we were rated world leading and internationally excellent in the three areas of Education, English and History, we continue to invest in research and are focusing on specific areas such as Children and Young People; Identity, Culture and Communication; Public Policy and Professional Practice in Education; Transitions in Higher Education and Wellbeing and Resilience. We are currently advertising six PhD studentships in these areas.

As part of our research we organised the first international research conference on the work of George Meredith, who was a well-regarded Victorian novelist and poet.

BGU will be building on its strengths in research and enterprise development, to create a stronger focus on connecting our research, innovation and enterprise with the community. Our partnerships in the local community continue as we work with schools, businesses and voluntary organisations.

We set up a Centre for Autism to provide an original focus as a centre for excellence for education, training, research and consultancy and to strengthen links with the NHS.

The Venue, our on campus cinema has attracted large crowds; this year they attended Hamlet live-streamed from the National Theatre, the Nutcracker ballet, Take That and a live performance by Noel Gallagher. It also offers a wide variety of the latest films throughout the year, a favourite this year has been Suffragette.

A highlight of the year was the first ever Matriculation Ceremony held in Lincoln Cathedral on October 8, which is Bishop Robert Grosseteste’s day. This was an opportunity for our new students to be welcomed to Lincoln and to the BGU community as soon as they arrived. It also showcased one of Lincoln’s most recognisable landmarks and reinforced the strong links BGU has with the Cathedral.

In 2016 the exciting challenges continue, kicking off with a whole-scale review of our provision conducted by the Quality Assurance Agency in a Higher Education Review which will examine our processes and procedures, highlighting our strengths and areas for improvement. We will be continuing our preparations leading up to Christmas, with a short break for the staff Christmas dinner.

Next year we will be offering additional courses such as Sport, an MA TESOL and our single honours degree in Psychology will be reviewed by the British Psychological Society.

My New Year’s Resolution

My personal new year’s resolution is ‘to get out more’. Last year I spent the grand total of £34.90 on petrol, but having a chapel, a gym, a refectory, Curiositea and a cinema on campus, with the veterinary hospital across the road for my cats, I have to find a good excuse to travel; my trips out tend to centre on the excellent restaurants the city has to offer, all within walking distance. Now that I have been in Lincoln for three years, I think I need to explore and discover more of Lincolnshire’s hidden gems.

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The Rev’d Canon Professor Peter Neil is Vice Chancellor of Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln and a Canon of Lincoln Cathedral.