Hello Qmunicate! I am Andrew McLulass and I am the Executive Vice-Director of Educational Synergy, Brand Management and Corporate Learning Opportunities at the University of Glasgow.
As many of you may know, everybody’s favourite senior management team member (none other than Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli himself!) has recently started writing blog posts discussing matters at the university. So, in solidarity with Anton, I have decided to start one too, here amongst the humble pages of QMU’s magazine. My aims of these columns of mine are threefold:
- To communicate and explain the complex university administrative decisions to the educational consumers at the university.
- To add the time writing the column on to my pay roll.
- To advance and amplify the brand awareness of the senior management group team among key demographics of student consumer groups.
When I left my previous professional position as a non-executive director at the Argyle Trust Insurance and Holdings PLC, I thought I really needed a break from the fast-paced world of board meetings, endless email chains, and exhausting working lunches.
So naturally, academia became my calling. I remember fondly my student days which were full of marvellous fun; I simply didn’t have a care in the world (apart from recovering from the ravishing hangovers)! So, I talked to my old course mate from St Andrews and he helped me land this very important position of Executive Vice-Director of Educational Synergy, Brand Management and Corporate Learning Opportunities, which I humbly accepted in January 2021.
But you can simply imagine my horror at the terrible problems facing the Senior Management Team when I arrived this year: Covid 19, Flat Shortages, Lecturer Strikes, Student Protests, Allegations of Systemic Racism etc. etc. I wouldn’t be the first to say that the brand perception of the team is sinking a little, and that’s an awful shame because we do try terribly hard to make your experience a good one (often at the expense of our profit margin and mental health, I hope you’ll understand).
I hope therefore, that this column will help throw a light on my thoughts and the important work of the Senior Management Team and how we work tirelessly to provide good value for money for students from their integrated university-based learning experiences. This year especially we are investing (our time and effort of course) on ensuring that self-directed learning and weekly online lectures, labs and seminars go ahead, not to mention the cheap and easily available student housing in the west-end, so that it will be inevitable that students will get more than their value for money for the thousands of pounds of loans they’ve taken out.
There is a lot to look forward to in the semesters ahead! I can practically feel the excitement from our budding educational consumers from my house here on professor’s square. I didn’t get to see the grateful faces of last year’s graduates (mostly because they didn’t get to go to their own graduations), but I know that they’d be looking on with pride at the Freshers about to embark on the amazing and life affirming experience produced right here at the University of Glasgow! If I was young and naïve enough, I too wouldn’t think twice about enrolling, saying goodbye to mummy and daddy and slumming it down in a tenement on Elmbank Crescent with my new university chums.
Unfortunately, this cannot be the case. So, for now, all I can do is wish you all good luck for the academic year ahead! Make sure to look out for my monthly columns right here in the Qmunicate magazine.
Andrew McLulass is the executive vice-director of educational synergy, brand management and corporate learning opportunities at the University of Glasgow. He is also chairman of the Glasgow Insurance Management Professional Society (GIMPS) and a regular contributor to the Brand Affiliation Magazine (BAM).
[Luke Hills- he/him]
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