I sat down with Adam Ramejkis for help understanding how people, positions, and departments fit together at UAL. He has a flexible role and works with many of the different divisions so maybe has more of an understanding of how different areas interact with each other than people who are static in one role.
In the image, Blue ink = Central (or UAL-wide), Red ink = at specific schools (CSM, LCF, LCC, CCW), Green indicates chains of command, and dotted lines indicate communication but not line management, and black is outside that system or things that need further investigation of where they fit in the system. There are obviously areas unaccounted for, and there are probably inaccuracies in this diagram, but this framework helps me to begin to understand how decisions are made.
A lack of availability of this information is something I have been discussing with different people in the university. It’s frustrating as a student to hear that there is a directory, Canvas, that staff have access to in order to understand who is in what role within the university, but for students to only have access to the website which doesn’t give us any of this information. This seems to be a specific UAL issue as I’ve looked at other Arts HEI and they have more publicly available information regarding departments, staff, and administration.
I understand this is a very messy and imperfect diagram, but as I speak with more people, this sort of mapping is helpful for me to understand people’s roles. And potentially it helps me to understand how funding structures work, which might make it possible to understand where funding for ideas like community, social learning, cross-disciplinary exchange, and collaboration could fit. As I’m thinking about ways to make change happen, I’m identifying multiple different areas these issues could be addressed from.
I would like to talk to someone in the employability department, Associate Dean of Student Experience Jonathan Carson, Dean of C&E, Spatial Practices, GCD Rebecca Wright, Director of Education Danielle Tran, and maybe more people from Arts SU.
*in messy, possibly inaccurate ways. But it’s a start thanks to Adam’s generosity in walking me through it!