Toolkit for University Heads of Department

English Studies: Leading the Subject

This toolkit has been created for Heads of Department/School/Subject (and indeed all colleagues in English Studies who are interested in leadership) by the English Association’s HE Committee and University English Executive, with the Institute for English Studies. It is informed by what we have learned as Heads of Department/School, and by what Heads across the discipline have shared with us.

This Toolkit has three parts:

1. Do’s
2. Statistics on Employability
3. Further Resources

 

Do’s for Heads of School/Department/Subject when they take on the role

1. Be open to change: keep exploring fresh ways into English Studies, and new combinations of subjects: i.e. English+.
2. Stay on top of the market research: i.e. UCAS data about applications, enrolment and retention trends; the offer of comparator departments; most importantly, know your students: i.e. who they are, where they come from, where they go to if they don’t come to you (and why), what their aspirations are, etc.
3. Stay informed: make sure you read policy documents/data shared with you/cascaded down. WonkHE is a good source of intelligence.
4. Engage with your University’s vision and strategy and adopt its language: be clear about your school’s/department’s/subject’s fit with/contribution to it.
5. Keep horizon-scanning: stay connected with the professional bodies in your subject like the subject associations; and stay in touch with fellow heads in other universities. This is your support group!
6. Find out which subjects are currently recruiting well in your university, and cultivate alliances as part of a longer-term strategy, e.g. joint honours, co-teaching, shared MA.
7. Understand what English Studies can contribute to disciplines outside traditional humanities, e.g. Business, Computing/Data Science, Environmental Science, Health and Social Care, etc.
8. Understand where influence lies in your university, and encourage staff to take on leadership roles at faculty or university level: i.e. get a seat at the decision-making tables to explain and influence.
9. Build relations with senior management so you get early notice of issues and a better understanding of macro developments, as well as developing alliances.
10. Develop understanding of financial issues (e.g. by asking finance people to meetings to talk about their trade). See if your university has funds for sending you on internal or external training courses on university finance and go on them.
11. Seek out information on your fee income versus salary costs so you know exactly what the bottom line is; be aware of what the expected ‘contribution’ is from departments in your university and how your department compares with other departments.
12. Prepare and keep up to date a School/Department/Subject strategy which includes sections on how you plan to increase enrolments, e.g. by cultivating relations with local schools; curriculum development; research and knowledge exchange income generation. Ensure that the Head of the next level up (School/ Faculty/Department) has a copy of your strategy and involve them in updating it.
13. If your university starts using external audit companies to assess the portfolios of different units, look at their websites (even if they are not subjecting your unit yet to those audits) so you are well-informed and prepared.
14. Be clear about the social, cultural, and economic value of the work you do, including the impact you have on partners and the contribution you make to local communities/ cultural sectors.
15. Be clear on which social challenges/Sustainable Development Goals you contribute to.
16. Have a story to tell about the employability of your graduates; find advocates among your alumni, who can provide good case studies and work with your students.
17. Cascade all these kinds of information to your colleagues so that they understand how disciplines can suddenly be vulnerable.

This is a live document. Please tell us what else we need to add based on your experience.

 

Do’s for those writing counter-proposals to save jobs:

1. Keep your counter-proposal short. You can spend hours crafting a long explanation of why your subject/s matter/s, but who will have the time to read it with care? The risk is that key points will be missed.
2. Keep your counter-proposal focused on hard data and concrete, credible proposals for increasing student numbers and/or shedding staff through ‘natural wastage’. Be aware that the financial bottom line may not be the only thing your Senior Management Team cares about, but it will be the most important. UG (and sometimes PGT) numbers will be the most important, but grant income and PGR numbers may also have some influence, not because it makes a financial difference (this is generally ‘money in, money out’) but because it confers prestige.
3. Keep your language measured and neutral, especially if you feel unfairly under attack. Address key concerns and data with a cool head, with hard evidence to support a different vision.
4. If your department/subject is one of the only ones in your geographical region, or one of the only ones catering to particular demographics, say so, using terminology that shows you are up-to-speed (eg polar demographics). Senior Management Teams can sometimes be sensitive to such concerns (and in this case, your local MPs may be prevailed upon to exert pressure).
5. Show that you are willing to come up with creative and informed solutions that respond to the challenges your Senior Management Team may be facing.
6. Acknowledge but don’t rely on positive news stories, and make sure you are referring to up-to-date reports.
7. Value all members of staff and the different areas/historical periods of your subject to avoid ‘picking off’. Tell an integrated story of your subject and its component parts.
8. If a Voluntary Severance scheme is being rolled out, keep staff informed of its progress and draw on their experience and suggestions regularly to mitigate a sense of isolation.

If you are in this position, remember your colleagues at EA, UE and IES are here to help you craft a counter-proposal. We will work at your side, reading drafts and providing suggestions, if you need us.

 

STATISTICS ON EMPLOYABILITY

English graduates are highly employable. English is a SHAPE subject (Social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and economy)

SHAPE graduates have higher earnings growth than STEM graduates: +26% after 3 years and +43% after 5 years for SHAPE; +18% after three years and +32% after 5 years for STEM. (British Academy, Understanding SHAPE Graduates dashboard).

In terms of future prospects, English is joint fourth in terms of annual average wage growth, with an average annual growth rate of 6.2%, vs e.g. Physics (6th) at 5.9%. (British Academy, Qualified for the Future, 2020).

SHAPE graduates have comparable employment rates to STEM graduates: in 2023 87% and 88% respectively. (British Academy, Understanding SHAPE Graduates dashboard).

25% of SHAPE graduates work in the creative sector (worth £84.1bn to the UK Economy). By 2030, it is expected that there will be 900,000 new jobs in this sector. (British Academy, Qualified for the Future, 2020).

English graduates have skills that are valued across a great number of sectors, from education to computer programming, from public sector to legal industries. Employers value the ‘advanced critical thinking and communication skills, creative approaches to problems and comfort with ambiguity’, that English studies cultivates and that are vital to the economy. (British Academy, English Studies Provision in UK Higher Education, 2023).

 

FURTHER RESOURCES

Reports, articles, websites you may find helpful include:

Demand-for-Higher-Education-to-2035_HEPI-Report-134_FINAL.pdf (with predictions on the changing student demographics to 2035). It is worth noting that this report was published in October 2020 and therefore does not reflect the long-term impact of the pandemic on recruitment patterns.

See also The Humanities in the UK Today: What’s Going On (2023).

Humanities and data science | The Alan Turing Institute on how Humanities and Data Science can intersect.

There are lots of good ideas, data, and quotations in this report by Prof Katy Shaw: https://northernculture.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/NCAPPG-The-Case-for-Culture-Report.pdf

The British Academy hosts the SHAPE Observatory, which is home to a rich array of reports and data including core sections on:

• SHAPE Key Facts and Figures
• Pathways to SHAPE Degrees
• Disciplinary Analysis (including a report on English Studies)
• the Skills of SHAPE Graduates
• SHAPE Research Impact

On the EA’s website:

We host regularly updated data on English Studies in numbers showing A-level and Highers numbers, undergraduate intakes, and HE student numbers including PGT.

If you want to understand the architecture of a university and where power (usually) lies, or how data might be used better by University Executive Boards, or why QR matters to English Studies, watch this video, with contributions from senior leaders, produced by The English Association: Speaking for English Studies in UK Higher Education | The English Association

If you want to engage with the conversation about the future of English, particularly collaboration with other disciplines, our Thinking Forwards project with IES and the School of Advanced studies will be of interest.

Our Skills for the Future project has great resources for evidencing the skills that English Studies develops and their uses for graduates.

If you are looking for arguments about the link between English Studies and Employability, or you want to find out what is working elsewhere, you can find resources on this webpage produced by The English Association, shared by colleagues from across the UK: Action on Employability in English – an English: Shared Futures Satellite Event. | The English Association

On the UE Website:

The #EnglishCreates Campaign mission is to champion, defend and expand access to the study of literature, language, and creative writing in English. See The Value of English section infographic for statistics on employment, career statisfaction, etc.

To think about how best to articulate the strengths and benefits of the discipline, see the Speaking For English Series. These sessions offer practical advice about how to advocate for the discipline in relation to the economy, technology, the environment, etc. See in particular the two sessions on ‘Speaking for English Studies in UK HE’, available here and here.

Further ‘English’ resources, including the 2022 WonkHe article on current debates about English by Clare Lees, Gail Marshall, Jennifer Richards, and Robert Eaglestone, are available here.

On the IES Website:  On Leadership and Collaboration