Two interim heads of faculty have been appointed at The Open University as part of a reorganisation of the senior management team.
Dr Sally Hayes
Dr Sally Hayes is to be acting Executive Dean for the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies and Professor Devendra Kodwani is to be acting Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business and Law. An internal recruitment will take place to fill both posts permanently.
The changes were announced by the acting Vice-Chancellor, Mary Kellett. She said the two senior academics embodied the experience and expertise available to the OU. She added:
“We need to draw more on skills abundantly present in our own staff who understand the context in which we are working and how changes we need to make will impact and play out across the institution.”
Sally Hayes joined The Open University in March last year from Leeds Beckett University, where she was an Associate Dean. She was previously Head of School (Health and Wellbeing) at Leeds Beckett for five years. She managed two research centres – Men’s Health and Health Promotion – and developed and managed both international and local partnerships. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy UK; and an alumnus of the Florence Nightingale Foundation and Council of Deans for Health Leadership Scholarship.
Sally Hayes was drawn to the OU by its social mission, which aligns closely to her experiences and aspirations both as a nurse and when working in partnerships across the public and voluntary sector, taking a collaborative approach to tackling health inequalities. She wanted to have a greater role in helping more individuals to make the most of the life-changing potential of higher education.
Passion for education
Devendra Kodwani joined The Open University Business School in 2004 as a Lecturer in Finance at the Centre for Financial Management. He has passion for education and its power to transform lives. The Open University social mission and values resonate with his view of the role of education in society. He was previously employed at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; Gujarat University and the Tolani Institute of Management Studies. Devendra Kodwani has produced accounting and finance modules and led development of the triple-accredited MBA programme at The Open University.
Dr Dev Kodwani
As Associate Dean for Curriculum Learning and Teaching at Faculty of Business and Law, Devendra Kodwani embedded quality enhancement and learning design for distance and online programmes. He is also Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. His research focuses on the evolution of regulatory institutions in India, corporate governance and ethics. He has supervised several doctoral students and relishes working with people and being part of their development.
