UCU QMU
@ucuqmu.bsky.social
Posting updates from UCU at Queen Margaret University Edinburgh and sharing thoughts about UKHE more generally
One table has moved on to how much extra work reorganisations have created, & how moving people into open plan spaces means they can no longer work on campus or meet students easily. Increasing workloads while also making familiar tasks more onerous & crushing morale is the theme. Familiar.
Doing some work in one of our university cafes prior to a meeting. All I can hear is people around me talking about the shabby way they've been treated in the latest cost-cutting measures, misery about redundancies & departmental closures, & discussion of retirement. Things are grim.
Shocking behaviour
HWUCU@hwucu.bsky.social · 2w agoWE HAD A DEAL! Watt happened? HWUCU back on strike today because our employer has signalled they won't keep their side of a deal made in June to protect jobs. No Compulsory Redundancy. @ucu.org.uk @joshpizpom.bsky.social @timeshighered.bsky.social @theferret.scot @ucuscotland.bsky.social
It's really important to emphasize this: the reason that conservatives are arguing for increased teaching loads is that they want to END mainstream humanities research
Chronicle of Higher Education@chronicle.com · last mo.Conservatives have argued that adopting minimum teaching loads will curb a proliferation of “intellectually unserious” research. https://chroni.cl/4wmW9iZ
That includes so-called “non-research” or “teaching-intensive“ institution. Time for research and knowledge creation is important for everyone.
On the teaching load thing: professors actually teach far too much; universities should be hiring more faculty so that nobody has to teach more than a 2/2.
Cutting courses is the easy choice. The difficult choice is saying “we don’t have the money right now, but the future is important. Somehow, we’ll find a way to prioritise a long term vision of governing a country (and its people) over the short term expediency of running an economy.”
QMU staff strike during graduation days amid jobs cuts dispute #StopTheCuts #SaveHE www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/qmu-sta...
QMU staff strike during graduation days amid jobs cuts dispute
The dispute is over proposals by senior managers to cut £4 million in staffing costs over the next two financial years.
edinburghnews.scotsman.com
So many departments right now dealing with this exact thing: the massive extra push of work to launch a new curriculum, mandated from above, while under threat of redundancy
Plashing Vole@plashingvole.bsky.social · last mo.The new academic year starts in 2 months. The modules to run are set in stone even if the all-new first year ones haven’t yet been designed. All that remains is to decide which 3 of the 23 of us will still be here to teach them. The redundancy selection criteria has not yet been announced…
Our fantastic pickets this morning and afternoon 💗✊🏻💗 The number of students and parents thanking staff on the pickets for their dedicated hard work as lecturers and support staff AND for fighting against the cuts made us a bit teary. Thank you for all your support #StopTheCuts
We're being treated to a pipe band on the picket line this morning! Out of sashes but plenty of stickers left. Loving the student solidarity: "What do you mean? That's wild - this is what QMU is all about - the support is better than anywhere else" #StopTheCuts
Academics fear they are being “set up to fail” after several institutions finished the academic year by announcing fresh job cuts, casting doubt over who will return after the summer break, and what courses they will be teaching #highered #jobcuts #edusky https://ow.ly/VJVG50ZkBOr
One thing that I suspect is now going to happen is that universities will realise how many academics have been self-funding research when less of it starts to appear.
Back on the picket line this morning to #StopTheCuts, 9-11 and 1-3 outside Usher Hall, see you there! Managed to reclaim most of the sashes from our amazing students and our armbands will be replenished! ✊🏻
I can tell you already how universities are going to adjust: firing more people, increasing the student to teacher ratios, reducing degrees offer and increasing any other charges they can find. Why is the UK so determined to destroy Higher Education?
Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · last mo.Breaking: Ministers confirm cut to Strategic Priorities Grant for universities. Teaching funding reduction will be sharply felt by some institutions, says Office for Students. Free to read. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
Strike at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh over job cuts #StopTheCuts #SaveHE news.stv.tv/east-central...
Queen Margaret University staff strike over job cuts on graduation days
The dispute comes amid plans to save £4 million from staffing costs.
news.stv.tv
Staff at QMU strike during uni student graduation ceremonies #StopTheCuts #SaveHE www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinbur...
Staff at Edinburgh QMU vote to strike during uni student graduation ceremonies
'Strike action is always a last resort, but we’ll continue to defend all jobs.'
edinburghlive.co.uk
QMU @ucuqmu.bsky.social on strike today & tomorrow to defend jobs, opposing possible compulsory redundancies and cuts to research & scholarship time. At graduations today and tomorrow at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh congratulating the students they've taught ✊️ #StopTheCuts #SaveHE
We're celebrating students' success on the first day of graduation ceremonies and calling for QMU management to stop the cuts and changes to working conditions that will damage the student experience, staff wellbeing and quality of the university #StopTheCuts #UCU
Would be nice if our leaders would challenge this situation in any way, rather than enthusiastically line up to put us through an experimental mini-merger by sharing with ENU and SRUC as many professional services and academic programmes as they can manage 😶
Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 2mo ago‘We urge the Government to prioritise this issue. Should this situation continue unchecked, the damage to the health of higher education, research and innovation will be profound and have long-lasting consequences.’ www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/stateme...
Morning folks, it's our first strike day against compulsory redundancies and reduction in research and scholarship time. Members, check your email for picket details, see you there ✊🏻
"[Universities]were here long before the locusts [(aka management consultants)] started eating the harvest: they will be with us long after the plague has passed." I sincerely hope so. The locusts are amongst us, and too few see their evil ways. www.ft.com/content/5032...
Management consultants are ruining UK universities
Relentless off-the-peg commercial rewiring has undermined British higher education
ft.com
"Wildly optimistic management may dream that the remaining staff can be stretched further, but in the real world that will just lead to further staff losses as the burden and stress on remaining staff increases."
Liesbeth Corens@onslies.bsky.social · 2mo agoHe published it as a LinkedIn article. And any staff member and manager in #UKHE should read it and keep bringing it up in any meeting about cutting into departments.
I like this idea: mandatory arts and humanities classes for university leaders. No cutting / devastating / de-staffing disciplines without at least a basic understanding of what they do & and how they can enrich our approach to questions like what education is for…
Sarah Pyke@sarahpyke.bsky.social · 2mo agoThinking about these demands to ramp up teaching at the expense of research time. What do these people imagine arts and humanities teaching is, working through a textbook? Even if it were, written by?? Petition not only for VCs & senior managers to have to teach one class a year but also to take one
Lobby of court by @ucuqmu.bsky.social defending jobs and opposing cuts. Calling for management to rule out compulsory redundancies & stop proposed reduction in research time #SaveHE #StopTheCuts
This. I don't see a long-term future for UK universities unless: a) we de-professionalise upper management; and b) we ban the use of external consultants
Frank Witte 🇪🇺 🇳🇱 🇩🇪 🇨🇵@alarcos.bsky.social · 3mo agoThe issues raised in this piece apply equally well, and perhaps even more urgently, to UK universities. Having been an elected Faculty Council member & Chair in the years before coming to the UK my impression is that managerial overreach and democratic deficits are even starker in the UK.
"The neoliberalization and managerialization of UK universities, where we are expected to rubber stamp top-down initiatives, have led to our infantilisation...& the erosion of the universities’ academic community and intellectual life" @isrfoundation.bsky.social isrf.org/blog/dispatc...
Dispatch From a Middle Manager
isrf.org
no point in playing an evidence-based game with people who expressly disavow it
what i love ("love") about data like this is you could show it to decisionmakers all day long; they will then proceed to cancel humanities programs as they intended all along
Albert Pinto@70sbachchan.bsky.social · 3mo agonot just anecdote! "graduates in the least-exposed quintile—studying subjects such as education, philosophy...—saw their avg full-time employment rate fall by just 1.5%. Those in the most exposed quintile—including computer science, computer engineering and information science—suffered a 6.6% drop.”
