The Faculty Structure

A Faculty is a loose collection of departments, which have subject links around a core theme e.g. Engineering has departments of Mechanical, Civil & Structural, Biological & Chemical Engineering etc. Within the the Faculty of Arts and Humanities there are the departments of Archaeology and History which have obvious links in subject matter, and the Faculty of Science clusters departments with pure, biological and environmental sciences together.

There are 5 faculties based at the University of Sheffield:

Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Faculty of Engineering
Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health
Faculty of Science
Faculty of Social Sciences

There is also a 6th International Faculty at City College based in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Each Faculty has a degree of autonomy or independence in regards to finance, learning and teaching, research and administration. However, Faculty Pro Vice Chancellors (PVCs) and Faculty Officers meet with their counterparts in other faculties to ensure that their strategies and plans are consistent and in line with the University's overall goals.

If you're not sure which Faculty you belong to, click here to find out.

 Each Faculty has a Faculty Pro Vice Chancellor who is responsible for the overall management and leadership of the Faculty. This person represents their Faculty on the University Executive Board (UEB) where they help to shape the University's overall goals and priorities, and then ensure that their Faculty develops in line with these. They work closely with 3 other senior Faculty roles.

The Faculty Director of Learning & Teaching (FDLT) assures that the Faculty's delivery of teaching and learning is of a high quality, and is always seeking to enhance and improve the academic experience for its students, ensuring that the Faculty is meeting the priorities outlined in the Learning & Teaching Strategy. This person, along with their team of representatives from all academic departments, works closely with Faculty-facing staff in Learning & Teaching Services (LeTS).

The Faculty Director of Research & Innovation (FDRI) ensures that the research carried out by the Faculty is continually developed and supported. This person also promotes the innovative work of the Faculty to the outside world, and looks for opportunities to engage in inter-departmental and inter-disciplinary research activity.

The Faculty Director of Operations completes the senior Faculty roles, and is responsible for the overall strategic and operational planning of the Faculty. This includes making sure that any recommendations for improvements to the organisation, the structure or the service that the Faculty delivers are identified and carried out.

Most changes that happen in Universities are a direct result of decisions made at a Committee. A University Committee is a group of staff and student representatives who regularly meet to receive information, discuss issues and make decisions, for example, to recommend action to address concerns.

Faculties have all sorts of Committees which discuss the different areas of business a Faculty deals with. For example, there is a Faculty Learning & Teaching Committee (FLTC) where representatives from each department in the Faculty get together to discuss priorities from the Learning & Teaching Strategy, and how the learning environment can impact upon these.

For example, Employability might be an important topic for your Faculty. The members of FLTC will discuss how the courses it delivers can best develop students' skills in order to make them more prepared for the workplace. Decisions of what action to take are made in these meetings and then implemented in the departments and courses. If there are higher level decisions to be taken, the Faculty will report them to an institutional committee e.g. Learning & Teaching Committee.

If you are interested in getting involved in the Learning & Teaching Committees in your Faculty then please look at the pages on Representation and Student Ambassadors for Learning & Teaching.

A structure of the Universities committees can be viewed here.