At Guildhall the student body is represented in all important committees and boards across the academic year. The President of the SU sits on all meetings which require student representation and on many of these committees student reps also take part. Student reps are elected on an annual basis to represent students in the same year of their programme or pathway. They are invited to attend the various board and committee meetings that make up the School’s governance structure, acting as a contact point between students, the SU and the School.
If you want to find out more about what being a student rep involves, you can find an info sheet here. You can contact the SU President to find out who your rep is, or how to become one!
The Board of Governors for the Guildhall School contains elected members from the City of London, elected independent members drawn from the relevant professions, elected members from the Guildhall School staff and the Students’ Union president.
The governing documents for the School and the Board of Governors are the Instrument and Articles of Government. The Board has an approved statement of compliance with the CUC HE Code of Governance.
Common Council Members
Graham Packham (Chairman)
Vivienne Littlechild (Deputy Chairman)
George Abrahams
Munsur Ali
Randall Anderson
David Bradshaw, Deputy
Simon Duckworth
Marianne Fredericks
Andrew Mayer
Jeremy Mayhew
William Russell, Alderman
Principal of the Institution
Lynne Williams Principal of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama
Institution’s Staff
Andy Taylor elected by the Academic Staff
Steven Gietzen elected by the Administrative Staff
Institution’s Student Representative
Harry Plant as President of the Students’ Union
Co-opted Governors
Natasha Bucknor
Professor Geoffrey Crossick
Maria Delgado
Paula Haynes
Neil Greenwood
vacancy (currently recruiting)
The Chairman of the Barbican Centre Board, Chairman of the Culture, Heritage & Libraries Committee and one representative of the Centre for Young Musicians shall be permitted to attend the Board/Sub Committee meetings in a non-voting advisory capacity.
Public meetings papers, profiles of common council members and the register of interest are available on the City of London website.
Academic Board meets twice per term. The Chair of Academic Board is Lynne Williams (Principal), and the secretary is Claire Rutland (Quality Assurance Officer, Registry). The membership includes senior members of staff, programme leaders and student representatives. Student Reps are invited to attend.
Individual programmes of study are overseen by the Music Programme Board, the Drama Programme Board or the Production Arts Programme Board. Students are represented on all of these Boards. The School’s validation arrangement for its research degrees with City University is overseen by a Course Board comprising members from the School and City University.
The SSLC reports to Operations Board. SSLC meets twice per term and is Chaired by Lynne Williams (Principal), and the secretary is Amy Grimes (PA to the Principal). Membership is made up of the Vice Principals, heads of non-academic departments, the Students’ Union and student representatives. To provide a forum for formal liaison between the Student Body and the Principal and Staff of the School in order to address non artistic and non academic matters. Student Reps are invited to attend.
Equality Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) comprises 21 people from across the institution, and we have 3 student representatives on this new committee. The VP Diversity, VP Welfare and one other student representative from the SU Welfare Committee attend the EDI Committee on behalf of the student body.
The Sustainability Steering Group is a forum for dealing with sustainability and environmental concerns at the Guildhall School, it includes staff, student and senior management representation and will recommend actions to Operations Board and/or Senior Management Team as appropriate. Working within the City of London’s Sustainability Policy and in liaison with similar groups at the Barbican Centre the group will develop the sustainability strategy for the Guildhall School by which it will endeavour to improve the School’s practices.
Its specific Terms of Reference are:
- To develop and maintain School-wide policies through which to improve the sustainability of the School
- To provide a channel for ideas from all staff and students
- To prioritise actions and recommend solutions to Operations Board and/or Senior Management Team as appropriate
- To raise awareness of sustainability issues amongst students and staff and act on feedback to implement suggested initiatives.
- To identify and promote good practice within the School
- To monitor the implementation of actions through collection of data (e.g. electricity usage, waste production)
- To communicate outcomes of actions to students and staff
- To be responsible for coordinating a response to the Green League
- To annually review the Travel Plan
Please contact sustainability@gsmd.ac.uk if you require any further information.
In light of the success of the Sustainability Steering Group and the increasing appetite by both staff and students to become ever more involved in sustainability we have, in 2019, introduced a new informal sustainability group open to all staff and students. This group’s main purpose is to ensure effective communication of sustainability policy and strategy throughout teams and the student body, to capture local initiatives and to feed-back suggestions to the Sustainability Steering Group. This group meets once per term and has the opportunity to input into strategy development.
The Digital Strategy Group focusses on how Guildhall can improve itself digitally generally. Items that have been on this recently include the new laptop loan scheme, online learning and technology, online library provisions and much more. The SU President is the student representative on this committee.
The President sits on this committee on behalf of the student body.
SU President: Darcie Jago
Academic Affairs Officer: Violetta Suvini
Events & Societies Officer: Justin Anderson
Marketing & Communications Officer: Lucas Houldcroft
Finance Officer: Jeremy Mitchell
Diversity Officer: Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh