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News Archives

Let’s plan, let’s Get Out the Vote!

Published: 15th August, 2019

From September 9, all UCU members will receive two sets of ballot papers, asking whether we are prepared to take strike action in defence of our pension and in support of our pay-and-equalities demands. It’s essential a high proportion of members vote. For the result to be legally valid turnout must be at least 50%;…

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Moving towards a safer campus

Published: 14th June, 2019

University leaders’ decision to repurpose the Brookfield campus such that it becomes home of the School of Business (ULSB) have been contentious to say the least. Few of the professional services staff who had been located there wished to move to the main campus. Few ULSB staff wanted to move to Brookfield, believing that the…

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Gender Pay Gap Continues at University of Leicester

Published: 3rd April, 2019

The Suffragettes chained themselves to metal gates and held hunger strikes in order to receive the vote for women in the early part of the 20th century. Dagenham plant and Ford machinist women workers fought in the 1960s to be paid the same amount that men were being paid to carry out the same work…

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AGM – Tues 7 May

Published: 2nd April, 2019

Our annual general meeting will be on Tuesday 7 May, 12.15–2pm in Ken Edwards lecture theatre 3. This is your chance to question committee members, meet other members and get more involved. Come along!

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Get Out the Vodka! Tues 7 May

Published: 2nd April, 2019

Originally scheduled to coincide with the one-year anniversary of our USS pensions strike, we had to rearrange this party because of problems with the venue. But rearrange it we have. It’ll now be on the evening of Tuesday 7 May (the same days as our AGM). So please join us, along with our friends from…

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University of Leicester CONVOCATION – 8 May

Published: 2nd April, 2019

Wednesday 8 May. 4.30–6.30pm. Rattray Lecture Theatre Confirmed speakers: Natalie Bennet – University of Leicester graduate and former leader of the Green Party Ambrose Musiyiwa – poet, journalist and facilitator of Civic Leicester Jacqueline Sanchez-Taylor – lecturer in sociology Elsie White – co-chair, Intersectional Feminist Society Marta Gasparin and Jan Zalasiewicz – convenors, Anthropocene Research…

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Views on a new VC

Published: 23rd March, 2019

On Wednesday (March 20) representatives from Leicester UCU, along with reps from Unison and Unite, the other two unions that represent University of Leicester employees, attended a meeting entitled ‘Selecting our next Vice-Chancellor: we want your views’. The meeting was facilitated by Fiona Carruthers of ‘international executive search firm’ Perrett Laver – which has been…

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A(nother) letter to David Willetts

Published: 22nd March, 2019

Dear David Willetts, It has been a year since I last wrote to you, and I must say I was disappointed to never receive a reply. You will recall that I wrote on behalf of Leicester UCU to express our disgust at your appointment as Chancellor of the University of Leicester. I made the letter…

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The Kathleen Kenyon Building

Published: 20th March, 2019

Weathering the equinoctial gales that battered the celebration of International Women’s Day during the UCU pensions dispute of 2018, staff of the School of Archaeology and Ancient History renamed their building after Dame Kathleen Kenyon.  Kenyon is renowned for pioneering projects in the Middle East, at Jerusalem and Jericho, and she led the Institute of…

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Into the University of Leicester’s second century

Published: 4th March, 2019

Given today’s news of Paul Boyle’s resignation as VC, we reflect on his five years as helmsman of University of Leicester, consider the broader failures of governance at our institution, and propose a way forward. Paul Boyle, President and Vice-Chancellor, 2014–2019 It began, in September 2014, with the news that the Bob Burgess’s successor as…

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