Interview with Dr Marnie Millard OBE: Chair of University Academy 92

First of all, hello. How are you finding things since taking over at the beginning of the year?

Its an incredibly exciting time to be part of the UA92 leadership team. Despite all the challenges we find ourselves facing into, UA92 is well placed to support all students. There are students at the beginning of their career journey and those students who have decided on a change of direction and have seized the opportunity to upskill or retrain. Clearly the wellbeing of our students and colleagues has been at the forefront of our minds and I am really proud of how we have ensured the students remain at the core of our decision-making and actions. We can already see some of our students “living their and our dream” of combining their studies with working life. For us at UA92, it has been very much business as usual, albeit as many we have embraced technology even further to ensure the progress of our students has not been affected by the current pandemic.

UA92 – What makes it different from other universities? What are its USPs?

From its campus in Old Trafford, UA92 offers a unique student experience, as well as a respected qualification from Lancaster University. The academic offer is co-designed and co-delivered with industry experts, and the development of emotional, social, physical TRAFFORDand cognitive intelligence is embedded throughout the curriculum. A focus on character and personal development with students, including work placements and one-to-one coaching, supports students to prepare for their careers and life after graduating. Students benefit from a stable timetable that doesn’t change, either studying in the mornings or afternoons. This allows students to combine full-time study with other commitments such as paid work, work experience, caring or family commitments, and/or other passions such as sport or music etc. Students study one topic at a time in six-week blocks. These blocks contain all the learning and assessment so there is no traditional end of year exam period! All of this combined helps our students to become more confident, more employable, and able to make a valuable contribution to the sector they choose after their studies.

What are the opportunities and benefits for businesses to engage with UA92?

Our partners play a key role in the development and evolution of our courses so that UA92 graduates have the knowledge and skills they need for employment.

There are plenty of opportunities for partners to connect UA92 students to industry including: delivering guest sessions and masterclasses; providing live projects for students to work on and offering insight days – where students come and visit a business to gain a better insight into the professional world. Partners also provide work placements for individual students to spend time in their business, or industry mentors to help our students prepare for employment.

All these activities enable students to connect with industry on a regular basis. Not only does this allow students to engage with advanced practitioners in areas they may want to pursue for a career, it also provides employers with an insight into the emerging graduate labour market – the very people that they may be looking to employ upon graduation. We work with our partners to identify gaps in their graduate recruitment programmes and help to provide employers with workready qualified graduates who can excel in their role.

Organisations have opportunities to engage in corporate social responsibility activities and help support the development of learning for young people, mature students, and underrepresented groups in higher education.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating to everyone. How has UA92 been responding to the crisis and what measures do you have in place going forward?

Our campus was designed around our educational approach, so there’s no large lecture theatres which has meant we haven’t faced the same challenges as some larger Higher Education institutions. Throughout the pandemic we have stuck to our timetable, so all our students are still receiving 16 hours of teaching per week, and up until December when Government mandated us to move online, all students were receiving 8 hours of face-to-face teaching each week on campus and 8 hours per week online through Microsoft Teams.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have taken a number of health and safety measures on the UA92 campus. These include: • Social distancing in the classroom and communal areas with signs and advice, along with clear systems for navigating around campus. • Enhanced levels of cleaning in all classrooms, touchpoints and common areas. • Hand sanitising stations placed in key areas such as entrances, exits and outside rooms.

We have worked in partnership with the Trafford Council Public Health Team to provide on campus lateral flow testing for our staff and students and then more recently to encourage vaccinations.

All our student apartments provided in partnership with Manchester Apartments have their own study area, bathroom and kitchenette facilities. This means that our students can be confident that their living space is COVID secure.

Has Brexit had any impact on UA92 and have any opportunities been identified even though it might be early days?

The majority of UA92 students are from the North West of England but we do have students from across the European Union and indeed the world. We are delighted to have recently launched UA92 Global with our partners Navitas. More information about this can be found at https://global.ua92.ac.uk/

How is UA92 supporting employers trying to find the right skills for their business?

The co-creation of our curricula with industry helps to ensure the discipline specific skills are embedded within UA92’s degree programmes, and our approach to Character and Personal Development has been designed to embed the skills and character traits that many employers are looking for.

UA92 has regular engagement with businesses to help us to better understand industry needs. UA92 also feeds into local council forums and the wider GM business networks.

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As a key educational asset in Trafford, what are your ambitions to work with the local community?

A core mission of UA92 is to unlock access to high-quality higher education for students from all backgrounds. Our academic model is designed to make degree-level study more accessible. We host an “Access to HE” provision (delivered by Trafford College) on campus to provide an entry route to UA92 for people in our local community who may not yet have the necessary entry qualifications. We are working actively to open up access via links with local community groups, schools and colleges as well as local businesses. We have also developed our Step Forward programme to provide an access route to those who don’t have the required entry level qualifications but do have an equivalent level of work experience to access higher education. In addition to accessible fulltime study, we also offer part-time study and 2 year “accelerated degrees” which we anticipate will be attractive to learners who want to study for an honours degree in 2 years rather than 3.

Can you tell us who your existing partnerships are with and the businesses you regularly engage with?

We are currently engaging with a number of businesses, including: • Microsoft – They are based on the UA92 campus and work with us in many ways including supporting the co-design of our Computer Science degree, digital literacy for all students and the digital learning environment. They have also helped us to use Microsoft Teams as our primary digital platform for learning and collaboration. • KPMG – In addition to providing input into finance/accounting and business subjects, KPMG are our “social mobility partner” – helping us to develop and execute our access mission. They provide insight days for groups of learners, guest sessions for

Accounting & Finance / Business

Studies, and have played a key role in the delivery of our Character and

Personal Development programme. • TalkTalk – They have sponsored several students by paying their tuition fees through the “92 Champions” scheme and also support with project briefs, guest sessions and joining us as Open

Days and Applicant Visit Days to meet with potential students. There are many other partners to note too, including The Trafford Centre, Salford City FC, Human Race, Code Nation, Insight, GG Hospitality and more. These have all been active in supporting UA92 and its students in many ways.

How is UA92 trying to attract and support people who wouldn’t normally think of going into Higher Education? What support and help can they expect to receive?

We provide a dedicated well-being service that engages with students before they start their studies to ensure they are fully supported with DSA applications and Learner Support Plans and it provides strong pastoral support when they become students.

UA92 teaches in small groups in an active way – so tutors get to know students very quickly. This can make higher education less daunting, as does the structure. Each student has a personal development coach who they have regular contact with, and they benefit from induction activities targeted to help students settle into learning quickly. In terms of attracting students, we provide financial support packages worth upto £5,000, some of which are particularly aimed at under-represented groups. In addition, we are getting out into the community as much as we can to speak to different groups. We have a lot of open days and very informal open evenings all year round to provide lots of opportunities to talk to us and visit our COVID-secure campus.

What is your strategy for engaging with more businesses?

Different partners have different strengths and can contribute in various ways, but most important for us is that any potential partner believes and fully supports our ethos of providing accessible high-quality higher education, and they are willing to support our students along their learning journeys at UA92.

We are looking to identify partners who can support new courses coming online in the areas of business, media, digital and sport, businesses that will resonate with students and to work with the key businesses and employers in GM.

What do businesses who want to work with UA92 do? How do they make contact?

Please contact our Partnerships Manager, Rachel Brydon, Rachel.brydon@UA92.ac.uk and she will be happy to have an initial discussion.