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Universities tell Gordon Brown: cuts will bring us to our knees.
Higher Education cuts will increase threat of university closures and put thousands of jobs at risk, warns UCU
See the latest article on our situation in the Gloucestershire Echo.
In November, students in Innsbruck protested with… well, see for yourself. It looks like a giant barn dance. Can we see this catching on in Cheltenham? A slow foxtrot outside Fulwood House? Perhaps a polonaise on the Promenade? Any volunteers to dance the Dashing White Sergeant with Keith Sharp?
In a letter to the Times Literary Supplement, published January 7th, Gabriel Josipovici comments on the bureaucratese used to defend proposed cuts at Sussex University. Students who are familiar with our own Vice-Chancellor’s communications may feel they have previously encountered Michael Farthing's ‘execrable English’. Josipovici concludes his letter as follows:
Are universities really businesses? And if not, what are they? Are they to become forcing houses for the immediate economic development of the country and nothing else (ie, are Business and Media studies to replace Engineering, English, History and Philosophy)? If that is what the country wants, so be it. But we should be clear that it means the end of universities as they have been known in the West since the Middle Ages.
Staff at the University of Leeds have been asked by the Institution's Communications Team to "demonstrate their positivity" when writing future official documents.
'We are disappointed the University of Gloucestershire Executive are considering compulsory redundancies, which will only impact on our students. The Executive’s militant (‘confrontational... combative... aggressive... vigorously active’) commitment to short-term solutions to the University’s parlous economic situation has already been rejected by the majority of colleagues who want to help the university flourish.' This was a comment posted in response to Paul Drake's comments in a recent article in the Gloucestershire Echo. Drake* is quoted as saying: ""We are disappointed the UCU are considering strike action, which will only impact on our students. The UCU has fewer than 300 members out of 1,100 staff so their militant line has already been rejected by the majority of colleagues who want to help the university flourish."
After consultation with the UCU Membership Secretary we can confirm that Paul Drake's statistics are highly inaccurate. UCU currently has 258 active members (61% of ‘all’ staff on their list; 57% of ‘academic’ staff). In other circumstances we might suspect Mr Drake of intentionally misleading the public – you'd think he must know that UCU doesn’t seek to recruit among all university staff – but sadly his confusion is characteristic of the misinformed chaos with which the whole redundancy process has been pursued. It’s therefore not surprising that the Vice-Chancellor and her senior management team have lost a vote of no-confidence among the majority of the academic staff. This is nothing to do with militancy; rather, the majority of academic staff, having considered management performance to date, do not believe these people can be trusted to make responsible decisions that are in the university’s long-term interests.
Andrew Misiura, UCU branch secretary, commented on the news article:
‘As of 23 Dec 09 the University of Gloucestershire UCU branch had 259 members out of 379 Faculty Staff eligible to join UCU (about 70%). Nothing has been rejected as our members have not been balloted on action yet. However, we have been mandated to take a number of actions should the militant action of making staff compulsory redundancy remain. We have proposed a range of alternative measures to compulsory redundancy including using some of the proceeds of the imminent sale of the London Campus to alleviate the short term financial problem which is not of the staffs' making. The Vice Chancellor and her advisory group still has time to return to constructive negotiations with UCU. We continue to work closely with the National Union of Students.’
* We would like to be clear that Paul Drake isn’t the fictional detective from Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason novels. That Paul Drake (AKA Spudsy Drake), ‘described as tall and slouching, frequently wearing an expression of droll humour’, famously helped Perry Mason solve The Case of the Curious Bride and The Case of the Lucky Legs. Our Paul Drake is executive director of external communications at the University of Gloucestershire; to the best of our knowledge, he is not renowned as a sleuth.
UCU is now in formal dispute following management’s refusal to withdraw the threat of compulsory redundancies. A recent UCU EGM passed sixteen motions: it noted the deterioration of the university’s situation while in the charge of the current Vice-Chancellor, Professor Patricia Broadfoot (unanimous); it called for a management efficiency review (unanimous); it called for a ballot on industrial action if the threat of compulsory redundancies isn’t withdrawn by 31st December (unanimous); and, for – at least – the fourth time, UCU members voted no confidence in Professor Patricia Broadfoot and her senior management team (unanimous). We won’t pay for their crisis.
Strike action may hit university
An article in Friday’s Gloucestershire Echo reports on recent developments.
And it worked (see below)! The university governors at London met have resigned.
Campaigners opposing the disastrous management of London Metropolitan University have posted a video clip of their vociferous lobby of Tuesday’s Governors’ meeting.
On Tuesday 15th the number of signatories to the UCU petition against compulsory redundancies rushed to over one thousand. Opposition to current management strategy is fast spreading across the university and throughout the Higher Education sector.
Today, Tuesday 15th, there has been much discussion of clarity and honesty in management communication.
Jeremy Corbyn MP has today, Monday 14th, proposed an Early Day Motion on the future of London Metropolitan University. We know that it's up to the staff and students of UoG to defend our university and keep it successful, but many of us hope that Martin Horwood MP, like Corbyn, will show support for HE in his constituency.
The university’s branch of the University and College Union has called an Extraordinary General Meeting for Wed 16th Dec. The meeting will focus on the action now necessary to prevent compulsory redundancies.
An article in the 10th December Times Higher Education Online comments on the sudden departure of the deputy vice-chancellor, Paul Bowler.
Higher Education cuts will increase threat of university closures and put thousands of jobs at risk, warns UCU
See the latest article on our situation in the Gloucestershire Echo.
In November, students in Innsbruck protested with… well, see for yourself. It looks like a giant barn dance. Can we see this catching on in Cheltenham? A slow foxtrot outside Fulwood House? Perhaps a polonaise on the Promenade? Any volunteers to dance the Dashing White Sergeant with Keith Sharp?
In a letter to the Times Literary Supplement, published January 7th, Gabriel Josipovici comments on the bureaucratese used to defend proposed cuts at Sussex University. Students who are familiar with our own Vice-Chancellor’s communications may feel they have previously encountered Michael Farthing's ‘execrable English’. Josipovici concludes his letter as follows:
Are universities really businesses? And if not, what are they? Are they to become forcing houses for the immediate economic development of the country and nothing else (ie, are Business and Media studies to replace Engineering, English, History and Philosophy)? If that is what the country wants, so be it. But we should be clear that it means the end of universities as they have been known in the West since the Middle Ages.
Staff at the University of Leeds have been asked by the Institution's Communications Team to "demonstrate their positivity" when writing future official documents.
'We are disappointed the University of Gloucestershire Executive are considering compulsory redundancies, which will only impact on our students. The Executive’s militant (‘confrontational... combative... aggressive... vigorously active’) commitment to short-term solutions to the University’s parlous economic situation has already been rejected by the majority of colleagues who want to help the university flourish.' This was a comment posted in response to Paul Drake's comments in a recent article in the Gloucestershire Echo. Drake* is quoted as saying: ""We are disappointed the UCU are considering strike action, which will only impact on our students. The UCU has fewer than 300 members out of 1,100 staff so their militant line has already been rejected by the majority of colleagues who want to help the university flourish."
After consultation with the UCU Membership Secretary we can confirm that Paul Drake's statistics are highly inaccurate. UCU currently has 258 active members (61% of ‘all’ staff on their list; 57% of ‘academic’ staff). In other circumstances we might suspect Mr Drake of intentionally misleading the public – you'd think he must know that UCU doesn’t seek to recruit among all university staff – but sadly his confusion is characteristic of the misinformed chaos with which the whole redundancy process has been pursued. It’s therefore not surprising that the Vice-Chancellor and her senior management team have lost a vote of no-confidence among the majority of the academic staff. This is nothing to do with militancy; rather, the majority of academic staff, having considered management performance to date, do not believe these people can be trusted to make responsible decisions that are in the university’s long-term interests.
Andrew Misiura, UCU branch secretary, commented on the news article:
‘As of 23 Dec 09 the University of Gloucestershire UCU branch had 259 members out of 379 Faculty Staff eligible to join UCU (about 70%). Nothing has been rejected as our members have not been balloted on action yet. However, we have been mandated to take a number of actions should the militant action of making staff compulsory redundancy remain. We have proposed a range of alternative measures to compulsory redundancy including using some of the proceeds of the imminent sale of the London Campus to alleviate the short term financial problem which is not of the staffs' making. The Vice Chancellor and her advisory group still has time to return to constructive negotiations with UCU. We continue to work closely with the National Union of Students.’
* We would like to be clear that Paul Drake isn’t the fictional detective from Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason novels. That Paul Drake (AKA Spudsy Drake), ‘described as tall and slouching, frequently wearing an expression of droll humour’, famously helped Perry Mason solve The Case of the Curious Bride and The Case of the Lucky Legs. Our Paul Drake is executive director of external communications at the University of Gloucestershire; to the best of our knowledge, he is not renowned as a sleuth.
UCU is now in formal dispute following management’s refusal to withdraw the threat of compulsory redundancies. A recent UCU EGM passed sixteen motions: it noted the deterioration of the university’s situation while in the charge of the current Vice-Chancellor, Professor Patricia Broadfoot (unanimous); it called for a management efficiency review (unanimous); it called for a ballot on industrial action if the threat of compulsory redundancies isn’t withdrawn by 31st December (unanimous); and, for – at least – the fourth time, UCU members voted no confidence in Professor Patricia Broadfoot and her senior management team (unanimous). We won’t pay for their crisis.
Strike action may hit university
An article in Friday’s Gloucestershire Echo reports on recent developments.
And it worked (see below)! The university governors at London met have resigned.
Campaigners opposing the disastrous management of London Metropolitan University have posted a video clip of their vociferous lobby of Tuesday’s Governors’ meeting.
On Tuesday 15th the number of signatories to the UCU petition against compulsory redundancies rushed to over one thousand. Opposition to current management strategy is fast spreading across the university and throughout the Higher Education sector.
Today, Tuesday 15th, there has been much discussion of clarity and honesty in management communication.
Jeremy Corbyn MP has today, Monday 14th, proposed an Early Day Motion on the future of London Metropolitan University. We know that it's up to the staff and students of UoG to defend our university and keep it successful, but many of us hope that Martin Horwood MP, like Corbyn, will show support for HE in his constituency.
The university’s branch of the University and College Union has called an Extraordinary General Meeting for Wed 16th Dec. The meeting will focus on the action now necessary to prevent compulsory redundancies.
An article in the 10th December Times Higher Education Online comments on the sudden departure of the deputy vice-chancellor, Paul Bowler.
News Archive
Above: undergraduates, Penny, Liz and Jenny, protest alongside staff against compulsory redundancies on 21st January 2010.
