GuildHE grows its membership and hits above its weight for another year. And that’s down to McKenzie’s pragmatic, sensible, and clear leadership – drawing on all his Westminster and Whitehall experience. Vice chancellors in other groupings may too often get sucked into trying to create dividing lines between themselves and other parts of the sector to justify their subscriptions.
GuildHE and McKenzie, however, have a much more outward looking and politically acute perspective: a promise to build and champion a diverse HE sector, supported by an established policy platform, a solid advocacy operation, and strong retail offer to its members. GuildHE is in the right place at the right time as OfS establishes itself and has worked hard behind the scenes to make sure new providers are not being set insuperable barriers or get a fair crack of the whip in TEF.
GuildHE also still “co-owns” the established infrastructure – including nominating member VCs and principals to the governing bodies of key organisations from the QAA to HESA, Advance HE to Jisc.