Published: 1st June, 2018
There was nothing new from President Boyle at Wednesday’s Missive to the Masses. We’ve heard it all before…challenging times ahead, too much expenditure on staff, don’t recover enough research spend, pensions cost too much (ha!) and, as had been revealed the previous day, the University’s league table positions leave something to be desired (having plummeted…
Published: 29th May, 2018
Last week, we reported on University of Leicester’s performance in the Complete University Guide. Published this morning, The Guardian’s Good University Guide. Below we plot our institution’s trajectory over the past decade. Will it end in a sudden stop?
Published: 24th May, 2018
Last Thursday (May 17), Paul Boyle sent an email to all colleagues on behalf of the University Leadership Team (ULT). The vice-chancellor announced that – only two years after the last ‘manufactured crisis‘ – the ULT had decided to embark on another campaign of redundancies – compulsory as well as voluntary. This is on top…
Published: 17th May, 2018
This afternoon, Professor Paul Boyle emailed all University of Leicester employees with a ‘University financial planning update’. The content and language was all too familiar. The president and vice-chancellor informed us that ‘we continue to face a number of financial issues, both local and national’. He also wrote Whilst other universities have reduced their staff…
Published: 11th May, 2018
On May 9, the House of Lords debated the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. Viscount Hanworth, aka Stephen Pollock, is emeritus professor in the University of Leicester’s economics department (now subsumed into the School of Business) and remains a member of Leicester UCU. Below, we reproduce his contribution to the debate. My Lords, the…
Published: 2nd May, 2018
The scandal about the Home Office’s mistreatment of the Windrush generation has dominated the news in the past week. Students at UK universities have also been victims of the ‘hostile environment’ as this story in the Financial Times makes clear, and British universities have themselves become ‘enforcers‘. The University of Leicester is complicit. At the…
Published: 28th March, 2018
Last week, University of Leicester employees were the lucky recipients of two reports. One contained the results of the 2017 staff survey – our response is here. The other was the Gender Pay Gap Report. Below, one ‘dejected but unsurprised’ colleague explains why the institution’s proposed strategies for change are ‘narrow, unradical, and wholly inadequate’….
Published: 25th March, 2018
At the end of last week, Paul Boyle wrote to all University of Leicester employees about the results of the 2017 staff survey – conducted in October and November. The timing of the release – Friday afternoon, when many employees’ heads were full of pension-dispute thoughts – led some to speculate that our president and…
Published: 21st March, 2018
Here are two lovely fliers distributed at a meeting of Leicester Students’ Union – where students took the decision to back UCU in any future strike action over the pensions dispute. PDFs of the fliers are here – lists and here – sausages & classroom. A more generic one – i.e. without specific references to…
Published: 15th March, 2018
Today was a day of high spirits. The excellent news from yesterday afternoon that strike pay is to be deducted at a rate of 2 days per month over the next 7 months resulted in a particularly buoyant mood on the picket lines. (More info on this deduction agreement is here.) As we came together…
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