Alongside a fundraising feasibility study, Halpin was commissioned to undertake a set of projects reviewing strategy development, and examining the College’s current organisational structure, between summer 2023 and spring 2024. The College welcomed its new Master, Kate Mavor CBE, in September 2023, and sought to prioritise strategic transformation of St Cross, making it the graduate college of choice by delivering an exemplary graduate student experience. To support these future ambitions, the College wished to review the efficacy of its current organisational structure and to highlight areas of potential duplication, inefficiency, or resource gaps.
It became evident that St Cross wished to focus on areas including branding and reputation, student experience excellence, and a strong intellectual profile, amongst others. The College is technically a ‘society’, and consideration of the potential aspiration to achieve College status via royal charter formed part of our conversations. The final reports were delivered in February 2024 after an extensive consultation period, including interviews, workshops, Governing Body presentations, and the development of four potential strategic options.
Our consultations included:
- a desk review of materials to aid our understanding of the operational context of the review, including job descriptions, salary and grade structures, annual reports and financial statements
- a desk review of information available relating to six graduate colleges of a similar size and offering to St Cross
- interviews with the Bursars of the six benchmarking colleges
- a total of 18 interviews with individuals within or relating to St Cross, including Fellows, university administrators, and DPhil students
- a survey which was circulated to staff, students, Fellows and alumni between November and December 2023, which received 750 responses
- a workshop delivered to medical students, which sought to gather their feedback on emerging strategy options
- two presentations to the College’s Governing Body, comprising a progress update and discussion in November 2023, and a presentation of the final report in February 2024, which placed an emphasis on sector and landscape analysis.
Outcomes
- Two reports:
- The first report outlined a new recommended organisational structure, accompanied by a clear rationale for change, as well as a full cost comparison and the identification of existing duplication within job descriptions.
- A total of 16 built-in recommendations relating to prominent and consensus themes, including three core thematic priority recommendations.
- The second report documented the findings of our various consultations, including data analysis, reflections on achieving College status, and the position of the Fellowship in the future of St Cross.
- Four strategic options categorised under the headings of ‘independence’, ‘agile’, ‘modernity’, and ‘continuity’, each of which was derived from the consensus views of alumni, Fellows, students and staff respectively, accompanied by a full SWOT analysis of the pursuit of each.
- A total of 15 recommendations relating to core findings, as well as the identification of seven short-term recommendations that were identified as ‘quick wins’ for immediate change.
‘The consultants at Halpin were a pleasure to work with. They won the confidence of our academic community by demonstrating that they had genuinely listened to concerns and suggestions for improvement, while bringing to bear their own understanding of the University and college environment, derived from thorough benchmarking work. We now have very useful insights to support the development of a new strategy for the College.’
Kate Mavor CBE, College Master