Objetos simbólicos: caracterización de los espacios con arte mueble

There are eight thematic issues found in the meeting minutes from the School of Education at the University of Leeds.

• The first issue analyses and presents findings on the overall structure of the documents themselves. This is a salient point to get a general feeling and idea about documents and of course, most importantly, the organisation itself.

• The second issue is to present the role and input of the Senior Management Team into documents, policy and decision-making. This issue shows the relationship between the school, its teaching staff members and the Senior Management Team. It also shows the influence of members of the Senior Management Team members on decisions and policies in the School.

• The third issue analyses and talks about the discussion section. This issue is of pivotal importance, as it shows the time allocated for discussion in meetings conducted, which shows that decisions made are not final and are subject to be change as per the discussion.

• The fourth theme looks at the research.

• The fifth theme relates to learning and teaching. It was felt that the role of the teaching staff in these two issues, research and teaching, is more obvious and even more dominant as they are more clearly related to the teaching members of staff.

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• The sixth theme looks at the development, followed by the seventh issue of resource administration.

• The final issue contains several subcategories, which were moderately discussed in documents, and combining them into one would save space.

I highlighted all these issues because they are of relevance to decision-making as within each of these themes different decision-making dynamics are evident. An issue discussed is of pivotal concern to this study.

Overall Structure and Organisation of the Documents

The initial thoughts about the meeting minutes when analysed was that they were well structured, well written and well presented. They have a clear and systematic structure, which is consistent throughout all minutes presented by the School. This could indicate that the meeting itself is also well managed. It is also understood that the format and structure of minutes were prepared well in advance to the meeting itself. The minutes are categorised under several headings, which are the University and School, Staff Team Meeting and the Agenda. The documents start by setting the time and place of the meeting. It is noticed that each of the meetings were arranged in a different place, showing that there is not a fixed meeting room for the School. This is significant in the sense that the School does not assign a room for meetings, and this could show cost efficiency as such as rooms would be used for teaching purposes. The documents are all highlighted in a very distinct manner with the following:

In a change to previous practice to allow more time for discussion of key agenda items, colleagues should note that all minutes received in the meeting will be treated as accurate unless advance notice is given to the Head of School to the contrary. Similarly, matters arising on minutes will not be considered in the meeting unless they have been brought to the Head of the School’s attention before the meeting. Thank you. (Documents 1, 2 & 3)

The quote shows that emphasis is placed on the idea that the meeting is well organised, managed, and conducted. This conclusion is reached as such notification makes it clear to attendees that any matters arising for discussion at the meeting should be identified in advance, and brought to the attention of the Head of School and are not permitted to be raised at the meeting without prior agreement from the Head. The aim of starting the document with this quote is to ensure that the meeting has a clear structure with a pre-agreed agenda, which specifies the agreed agenda items for discussion. This ensures the smooth running and time

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effectiveness of the meeting and will prevent any unnecessary time being wasted on ad-hoc discussions, which have not been scheduled. In some respects, focusing on specific matters appears to be time efficient, but this also raises concerns, as it could create some bureaucracy and cause delay in addressing important or serious issues that have not been brought to attention in advance.

The Role of the Senior Management Team

The role of the Senior Management Team (SMT) is strongly evident in documents. For example, there is a whole section in the “Contents Page” on the “Senior Management Team”, and this section indicates their approval on issues raised in the earlier meeting minutes. In this regard, it is shared and split into two categories, namely the SMT and the Staff. The SMT’s influence or presence in the meeting is aimed to bring the School’s attention to issues relating to the University. In other words, the University aims to communicate its new decisions and policies in the School. This sounds important as it shows that the School does not function on its own and is not an isolated organisation, but functions on the basis of the University. This brings the idea of centralisation and decentralisation, and it would appear that the University of Leeds perhaps matches both styles of management and decision-making. This is evident in documents as it shows that the SMT mainly bring to the meeting issues relating to university policy and strategy. For example, in meeting minutes (1), the SMT brings into discussion issues relating to new strategies for the budget and spending allocations. One remark regarding the SMT relates to their influence in making decisions in meetings.

Discussion at Staff Meetings at the University of Leeds

All meeting minutes analysed included a separate section on “Discussion”. Giving discussion a separate section shows emphasis on the importance of integrating discussion into the meeting itself. This shows that the School of Education at the University of Leeds understands the importance of discussing issues with School members. It is not only a matter of conveying or implying decisions to the people in meetings, but involving them with issues relating to the management policy. Nonetheless, when reviewing the issues raised in the “Discussion” section in documents, it was found that issues are mainly brought up by the SMT or the meeting Chairperson.

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Focusing on the content of issues under “Discussion”, it was found that all three documents, in the main content, discussed the same issue, namely the Integrated Planning Exercise (IPE), and this raised curiosity about its importance. The naming of this exercise gives the feeling that the University and the School aim to integrate staff members into the planning process. This also shows the importance that the University places on the role of staff team members in shaping the policy. Among issues discussed under the Integrated Planning Exercise there are also other programmes and initiatives. For example, in Document 3 (Page 2), there are discussions on the Economies Exercise (EE). This exercise implies that, “Schools and Faculties set out their strategic and financial plans for the next five years”. This quote is quite interesting as it shows the level of power and freedom passed over from the University to Schools and Faculties. The document goes on to set three guidelines for this exercise: “(1) addressing the remaining deficit from the previous review / integrated planning exercise (IPE), (2) giving the REF entry early immediate attention, and (3) putting forward further options for the change involvement investment”. These three points, actually, show important points related to empowerment and responsibility.

Focus on Research Issues

The three sets of meeting minutes allocate only a small amount of time to deal with issues related to the research. This minimal allocation did, in fact, raise curiosity about the reasons for this, which will be addressed in the later research phase. The reason is that there have been separate meetings specifically focusing on the research, chaired by the Director of Research (DoR). A question arose here about the role and background of this person. Are they considered and looked at as a teaching staff member or an administrative staff member? This actually depends on perception. I believe this is an important issue as it will reflect on the way they will be treated and looked at by the teaching staff. This could lead to a discussion about the struggle or clash of power and authority, so therefore this issue also requires further investigation. By far, what is transparent in the documents so far is that the DoR is like a mediator between senior management and academics? This is understood by the way that the DoR brings issues and reports from the senior management and forwards them to the academic staff. They also try to understand workload pressure of academic staff members.

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Comparing the time allocation on the agenda for the issue of “Research” on the one hand, and “Learning and Teaching” on the other, revealed that the “Learning and Teaching” item was allocated a longer amount of time. This was not the case, however, in Meeting Minutes (1). In these minutes, there was only one item presented, which related to the recent “Learning and Teaching Health Check”. The Chair thanked attendees for their work and effort in making this initiative a success. Although the Director of Learning and Teaching should have spoken in this section, it was the Chairperson who was recorded as doing so in the Minutes, and this raises some question about the reason why. Was it that the Chairperson had taken over the role of the Director of Learning and Teaching (showing dominance from the Chairperson), or had the latter been absent from the meeting?

In the other two sets of documents (2 & 3), the role of the Director of Learning and Teaching was evident, and they started by presenting a report on Learning and Teaching. Similar investigations about the way that the DoR was looked at, the role and image of the Director of Learning and Teaching should be investigated. However, from the meeting Minutes it was noticed that the Director of Learning and Teaching sought advice from colleagues. It was also clear that the Director of Learning and Teaching was more involved with the academic staff. The reason behind this is that the Head of the School is still regarded as a member of the academic teaching staff. Finally, most issues presented in this section were in respect of the daily practices of teaching such as, marking, external examiners, teaching room conditions and teaching aids.

Issues of School Development

Issues regarding development and new initiatives were also not given much space in documents, and consequently, this could imply that less attention is given to these issues. Issues on development and new initiatives presented by the Director of Development and Knowledge Transfer were similar to presentations given by the other two directors, which was in the form of a report. It is interesting to note how the School allocates several staff members to administrative positions.

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Regarding contents and issues discussed within this theme, the most dominant related to new projects or investments running in the School. An example was in relation to seeking financial support for School development opportunities and projects within the School. The Director of Development and Knowledge Transfer showed disappointment about the rejection of gaining this financial support from the Faculty.

Issues Relating to Resources and Administration

Resources and administration were not allocated much space in the meeting minutes and only took up a few lines. However, this was not the case in the meeting minutes (1) as more substantial space was allocated. The most dominant issue presented under this section was about prospective applicants and the numbers of students already applied. There is no doubt that the number of applicants is a key issue to all academic staff as this will affect their workload and also their job security. One issue presented under this section was finance. Another issue discussed was refurbishing the student common room (document 3). In this section, the School shows that it used feedback from other Schools and departments at the University to put together an efficient and effective design. This point is interesting as it shows that the School uses other Schools and departments as a source of advice to research better decisions; so academics’ input into this was present in influencing financial or expenditure issues. The final issue discussed was about the new changes for the School’s website (document 1). The document stated that “the University’s corporate website was changing and a prototype had been circulated recently asking for the feedback due by the end of June”. In this quote, feedback is sought, yet the document does not show details of the person from whom this feedback is sought. Is it from students? Is it from academic staff members, or from the meeting attendees? A final remark about the section of Resources and Administration is that, similarly to the previous areas and themes, there is a Director for Resources and Administration issues.

Equality and Diversity and Other Businesses

It was very important that all three sets of meeting minutes did not present or discuss any idea under the section of “Equality and Diversity”. This raises several questions and concerns. The first is that from this I would assume that the School has excellent Equality and Diversity policies, as no issues were presented. My other assumption is that issues of Equality and Diversity are not treated adequately. In this case, academic staff might not have felt confident

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enough to raise any issues for fear that this may affect them negatively or possibly endanger their career within the University.

Only one issue was presented in the “Any Other Business” section. This was to report that a colleague had successfully recovered from an operation (document 3). The document says “The School wished him well and had sent him flowers…”. This is interesting and relevant as it shows that acknowledgement is given to absent colleagues, which I thought was good for the School to feel for a colleague in such a way. It is questionable whether this is a matter of sentimentality or a good human resource management.