JCU – The Future Chris Cocklin

Why?

• Natural progression in JCU’s strategic planning framework, eg:

– Statement of Strategic Intent, first drafted in 2007/08 and revised 2012

– University Plan, Mark 1 2007/8, substantially recast in 2012

– Four themes of the University Plan

– Singapore Campus acquisition 2011

Why?

The world around us:

– Internationalisation

– Quality

– Pedagogy

– Participation

– Public vs Private

o Business sustainability o Core business o Organisational structures o Nature of work

Time to trade in…

The future of higher education globally is bright, but the current conception of a university in countries like Australia is not sustainable in the long term, except perhaps for a small number of institutions. The organisational forms, cultures and practices which developed over the centuries to provide university education for society’s elite have been stretched and panel-beaten as far as they will go for an era of mass participation in higher education. The model is too expensive, capital-intensive and inflexible.

Prof Stephen Parker, Campus Review, 2 October 2012

An ‘inflection point’?

Are universities currently experiencing an unprecedented volume, velocity and variety of change?

…I would argue that universities are facing a unique confluence of trends at the same time, creating an unprecedented ‘inflection point’. [Funding, Quality, Fairness Technology]

Louis Coiffait, Blue Skies 2012 Edition.

E&Y - A Case for Change

University of the future:

A thousand year old industry on the cusp of profound change

‘Universities face their biggest challenge in 800 years’ (VC cited in E&Y, 2012)

Kennie & Price, 2012

Terms of Reference

1. Affirm JCU’s fields of intellectual excellence, represented in the domains of learning and teaching, research and innovation, and engagement. 2. Develop a distinctive ‘JCU model’ for learning and teaching, building upon the outcomes and activities of the Curriculum Refresh project and giving account to both ‘content’ and ‘delivery’. 3. Review and refresh the priorities and strategies in the JCU Research Plan as the basis for the further development and growth of JCU’s research and innovation portfolio. 4. Strengthen the framework for engagement and partnerships, regionally, nationally, and internationally.

Terms of Reference

5. Seek efficiencies and productivity improvements in the ‘enablers’ – professional services, capabilities and operations. 6. Identify the opportunities for harmonisation of campuses, with a view to both the scholarly and service activities of the University. 7. On the basis of 1-6, deliver recommendations as to which activities within the University might be enhanced (‘power up’), those that might be curtailed (‘power down’), those that might be refashioned and new areas in which we might invest.

Project Phases

• Crystallising our purpose - to improve the preciseness with which we define our fields of endeavour.

• Redesigning - Working across the four domains (Learning & Teaching, Research, Engagement, Services & Operations), the objective was to identify innovative approaches to ways of working.

• Implementation - develop an implementation plan, with a focus on integrating the redesign to maximise gains.

Strategic Leadership Dimensions

• Programs – the array of projects in student learning, research and third stream work that an academic enterprise exists to pursue

• People – the various groups who support and deliver academic programs and related functions

• Systems – the authority structures, technologies, policies and procedures that enable people to manage programs and support functions effectively

• Strategy –plans to develop and maintain the capabilities needed to sustain the whole enterprise: its programs, people and systems.

• 'A Professional Community’ (with its own culture, aims and values)

• ‘Creative Engagement’ (to pursue

new projects in learning, discovery and innovation)

• ‘System Integrity’ (with consistent

approaches to governance, quality and standards)

• ‘A Sustainable Enterprise’ (with

clear plans to build and manage resources and capability).

Strategic Dimensions

Promote initiative, external collaboration and innovation; win support for new projects

Establish overall outlook, priorities and responsibilities; act on risks and opportunities

Apply robust systems, policies and standards; track programs and budgets

Support shared identity, expertise and values; build trust and consensus

Be strategic

Be collegial

Be systematic

Be engaged Seeking (local)

flexibility

Seeking (overall) stability

Looking outward

Looking within

Adapted from G Sharrock, ‘Four management agendas for Australian universities’,

Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, June 2012.

Consultation

• Submissions (web page, email, face-to-face) – 72 in total

• Word Cloud – 409 contributors

• Scenarios workshops – 420 participants

• Services & operations – 230 staff consulted

For the Greater Good

Paper Tiger

The Enterprising

Revolutionary

Immersed in Asia

The Rise of Asia

Continues

Higher Education as a Public

Good

Higher Education as a

Private Good

The West Regains

Dominance

World Economy

Social Perspective on Higher Education

For the Greater Good

A world where Western economic models have reoriented their basic premises towards social outcomes and human well-being. Higher education is highly valued as a core element of these new models and focuses on social capacity building and problem solving in regions.

Paper Tiger

The Asian Century is a reality and education is highly valued across the world. Universities re-orient their activity to connect with Asia and contribute to enabling both economic and social development in the region.

The Enterprising Revolutionary

A world where Western economic models have just survived, and where any semblance of education as a public good has disappeared. As traditional business models crumbled, universities have all but gone private.

Immersed in Asia

A world where the Asian Century has become a reality and where most universities are now businesses like any other. Higher education in this world is valued as a private benefit with the focus on customised learning.

Scenario Learnings

Organisational Characteristics

• Multi-disciplinarity – learning and research

• Outcomes focus

• Outward looking

• Efficient & effective processes and procedures

• Problem solving focus

• Niche

Scenario Learnings

Culture

• Courage, in terms of capacity to take the hard decisions when they are needed

• Collaboration, in terms of working across artificial organisational boundaries internally, and with external stakeholders

• Commitment, to making a difference in the Tropics, however defined

Scenario Learnings

Staff Capabilities

• Digitally adept

• Agile thinkers

• Good communicators

• Global, networked, and connected

• Futures oriented

• Boundary-less

2019 entries consisting of 517 unique words contributed by 409 users.

14 Oct 2012

Service Delivery

26

1,128 FTEs currently deliver 19 support services across JCU at an estimated labour-only cost of $90.7m

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

JCU Services – 1128 FTE Effort

Source: Services Analysis interviews, EY and JCU analysis. Notes: 1- It is acknowledged that this is currently being addressed with by the Estate Office Organisational Structure project which contains sound recommendations. Underpinning assumptions are provided in the appendix section of this report

• 8 services involve at least 60 FTE

• Facilities management is the most effort intensive service, with 160 FTE delivering the service at an estimated staff cost of $11.3m – excluding third party spend

• The estimates exclude academic effort hence should be considered conservative

Observations

1

Service Delivery

27

There is inadequate to poor integration of support services across the university, especially in the areas of Compliance, HR, Procurement, Marketing and Student Services

JCU Services – Delivery Split (% of FTE Effort)

Source: Services Analysis interviews, EY and JCU analysis

• Total effort captured is split between the service owner and non-service owner at a 51% / 49% ratio

• Less than 40% of total effort is delivered by the Service Owner for: Strategic; Marketing, BD & Communications; Council, Secretariat & Committee Support; QIAP; Compliance, Assurance & Risk Management; Legal & Legal Related; HR; and Procurement

• There is no apparent service owner for Courses & Student Pathways

Observations

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Service Owner Non Service Owner No Clear Owner

Key Improvement Themes

28

The review identified six key themes to improve JCU Service and Operations, namely;

• Establish a services culture: to create a much stronger service culture, particularly in light of the strong service culture that prevails at Singapore

• Clarity of roles and responsibilities: to ensure much greater clarity of roles and responsibilities across most support services, and that staff are suitably empowered to make decisions

• Increased accountability: to create clear ownership for key end-to-end support services, in particular, student experience and marketing

• Improved processes: to standardise, simplify and communicate processes across faculties, schools and campuses

• Enhanced information and data: to develop more reliable, accurate and consistent data and there needs to be a better way to share information across the university

• Better leveraged technology: to rethink the use of technology in both attracting and retaining students (e.g. course finder, website, online learning) as well as facilitating internal processes and delivering teaching and learning and research

Reorganisation Principles The organisation of the University should: • Be commensurate with our size and activities; • Promote efficiency and cost-effectiveness of operations, underpinned by a strong and proactive

service culture; • Support the priorities expressed in the University Plan; • Deliver internal units of a size that is appropriate to the scale and complexity of our operations; • Deliver clear lines of responsibility and accountability; • Realise the opportunities provided by our tri-city configuration and achieve an appropriate

distribution of leadership responsibilities across campuses;

• Facilitate whole-of-institution approaches; and • Foster scholarly collaboration amongst the academic units.

Aims of the Proposed Structure • The proposed University headline structure is aimed at shaping the

architecture for JCU in order to give greater strength to our distinctiveness, lay the foundation for greatness and provide for an organisation that is resilient and sustainable.

• The proposed University headline structure enables JCU to also deliver on its remit - as articulated in the James Cook University Act 1997, the Strategic Intent and the University Plan, and responds to the reports and the guiding principles.

• The ambition is to uphold a University that is unique in the Australian higher education setting, in terms of its focus, the student experience and its engagement.

• To this end, substantial changes in learning delivery, organisational culture and structure, and the way we work will be required.

Reasons for Change

The proposed University headline structure:

• Promotes logical/intuitive groupings of disciplines to make it easier to implement a Grand Challenges framework and the potential development of signature programs;

• Creates a new context and organisation of disciplines which will foster innovation among cognate disciplines and potentially identify areas to be powered up; and

• Provides enhanced opportunities for collaboration across disciplines in learning and teaching, research and engagement;

• Encourages growth in inter-disciplinarity and provides a basis on which to secure and enhance learning programs in high demand areas.

Former Structure

Consultation Objectives

• Provide balanced and objective information to staff and students to ensure they are aware of the proposed headline restructure, the rationale for it and the level of change proposed

• To provide staff and students with the opportunity to contribute to and influence the decision making process

• To provide staff and students with the opportunity to raise areas of concern and provide written responses including alternatives

Consultation Methods

Information distribution:

• Individual meetings with senior staff

• Staff forum on 6 December

• Special forum for Senior Staff

• Information sessions during December and January

• Joint Consultative Committee

• Dedicated website (FAQs, Change Plan, links to relevant documents)

• Email messages

Feedback received via:

• Information sessions

• Email submissions

• Web-based feedback facility

Participation

• 41 senior staff participated in individual meetings with VC, SDVC or Executive Director (FARP)

• 700 (approx) staff attended staff forum on 6 December

• 500 (approx) staff attended information sessions in December/January

• 202 written submissions received

• 2,073 page views of dedicated website

Headline Structure

Features: Academy

• A focus on scholarly mission

• Administratively light

• Deans of Colleges are scholarly leaders

• Coherent, and enables inter-disciplinarity

• Orientation towards grand challenges

• Broadly comparable

• Divisions provide strategic, administrative and professional services to the Colleges

Features: Corporate

• Accountability: aligning portfolios with domain responsibilities – for example student life

• Consolidation

• Clarity of purpose

• Remove duplication and overlap

Summary

• Reorganisation followed a deliberative process of strategic positioning

• The reorganisation emerged from broad-scale strategic planning, as a means to various ends

• Significant consultation engendered staff support for change

• The reorganisation was underpinned by analysis, a defined set of principles and process planning