S2 Ep3: Episode 3: Transformation, More Transformation and Tortoise Time

University Registrars Talking About Stuff

My latest guest on University Registrars (and others) Talking About Stuff is Keith Zimmerman who has just started a new role at King's College London as Executive Director for Transformation of Education and Student Outcomes. Keith has a long and varied career in the sector which began at the University of Exeter where he started a PhD but then had so much fun working as the departmental administrator that he decided to pursue a career in university management. We learn a lot about Keith's time at Exeter and the huge changes he was involved in, working with big figures including Phil Harvey, David Allen and, of course, Steve Smith who had an enormous impact in his time as Vice-Chancellor at the university.

Keith learned a lot from all of them before leaving for Oxford where he worked for five years on a range of administrative reforms and widening participation activities. Finding the pace of change to be just a bit too slow Keith then moved on to the very different environment of the Open University where, once again, he found himself at the heart of transformation activity and spending a great deal of time on the floor of Senate making the case for change. Further change beckoned and, after a brief stint as a head hunter, Keith joined the University of Bath right at the beginning of the first Covid lockdown where, having experienced an extremely rapid induction, he enjoyed a distinctive and productive set of experiences working intensively with senior colleagues across the institution.

Keith has since joined King's where he expects to be involved in yet more transformative activity and at the same has taken on the honorary presidency of the AUA, through which he hopes to make some contribution to the promotion of professional service roles in the sector.

Finally we learn about Keith's experience at an unnamed Oxford College where wholly disproportionate time and energy was devoted in meetings to detailed consideration of care arrangements for the college tortoise.

It's a great journey through a long and really varied HE career and I'm grateful to Keith for sharing his thoughts.