 vice chancellor justifies several senior appointments at national university vice chancellor justifies several senior appointments at national university vice chancellor justifies several senior appointments at national university webmaster fri 7072017 1800 some basic things to ensure the efficient management of the university of guyana ug have been neglected for so many years that some people have accepted them as the norm this was the assertion of vice chancellor of the national university professor ivelaw griffith there are some things for the management for the efficiency of the economics and operations that we have neglected for years so much so that people think it s normal it is a university that has been so accustomed to managing on a shoestring budget that people think that anytime you do a little you are being profligate the vice chancellor s remarks were forthcoming in response to concerns about allegations that his appointment of a number of senior officials at the national university has resulted in the institution becoming top heavy the university last year released information to the effect that on august 22 2016 the finance and general purpose committee f gpc the second highest policymaking body after the council approved a proposal by the vice chancellor griffith to comprehensively restructure the university s leadership this move it was revealed was designed to create greater levels of efficiency and effectiveness and set the stage for innovation in academic and nonacademic areas the changes which became effective on october 1 2016 entailed having dr michael scott the immediate past dean of the faculty of social sciences become deputy vice chancellor dvc of academic engagement the former dvc of academics dr barbara reynolds was named dvc for planning and international engagement a new entity intended to streamline and extend ug s international relationships and build new grant research and other relationships with other universities and with international organizations dr paloma mohamed a former director for the centre for communication studies and a former dean of the faculty of social sciences now occupies the newlycreated position of dvc of philanthropy alumni and civic engagement pace which has the mandate to enhance ug s fundraising rebranding alumni relationships and public interchange all of which are said to be crucial to the university s renaissance added to this the new administrative team was expected to be strengthened with the establishment of an office of strategic initiatives in the vice chancellery to undertake institutional strengthening project management and allied services appointed to head this area is dr fitzgerald yaw consultant on governance sustainability and economic development who has worked across the americas and the caribbean added to this ms karen wishart who was the programme officer in the office of the vicechancellor was promoted to the first chief of staff in the vicechancellery this promotion was said to coincide with the renaming of the senior administrative group to the vice chancellor s cabinet which includes the dvcs registrar bursar human resources director director of the berbice campus the legal officer another new position the director of the office of strategic initiatives and the chief of staff but there have been numerous concerns voiced that the size of the university does not warrant the magnitude of appointments vice chancellor griffith however made it clear that while the proposal was his to present it certainly wasn t suddenly conjured up upon his appointment as the principal of the university he explained that the university over the years benefited from a number of assessment studies intended to help improve its operation among the most recent was one completed by hamilton associates in 2012 the assessment in question professor griffith said not only recognised that the university was neglected in terms of its human capital but went on to outline that it did not have sufficient lecturers or administrators for that matter he underscored that the one of the things that the hamilton report highlighted is that the university is too big and part of why it has not done well is that it is running on a shoestring budget both on the lecturers side and on the administrative side part of the recommendation to help address the shortcomings of the university that is detailed in the report is the appointment of at least four deputy vice chancellors in addition to the vice chancellor but according to professor griffith although he saw the need for the recommended measures to be implemented i said we can t afford four but let s move from one to three in fact he noted that among the neglected human resource area of the university is the lack of a civil engineer an attorney and even a chief accountant partly because of the low salaries at this university both on the teaching and administrative sides we have had difficulty recruiting people said professor griffith as he related that the recommendation for an augmented staff did not even taken into consideration the university s current 8000plus student population moreover professor griffith has said what i have begun to do and i make no apologies for doing this is to try to rightsize both the teaching staff and the administrative staff how are we going to get grants if we don t have people to write them how do you get the alumni to give back if you don t have the mechanisms how do you get the corporations to give if you don t have people who will wine and dine them and follow up with them questioned the vice chancellor as he added there is a lot of vacuous misinformed commentary about big spending the vice chancellor also made it clear that i am going to always make the right decisions for the right reasons irrespective of the criticisms because sometimes the people don t know the facts so i would say to anyone the documents are there article adapted from  http wwwkaieteurnewsonlinecom 20170630 vicechancellorjustifiesseveralseniorappointmentsat  vicechancellor promotions appointments senior administration uog 