“WELL, the Provost has done well in his mission to re-brand UCL,” said a friend of Mr Chatterbox’s, who is a senior academic in an academic institution across the herring-pond, “if he wants the old place to look like a cheap, third-rate polytechnic.” Before going on to point out that he doubted very much whether the logo would appeal to our foreign brethren.
But I am not a man to harp on about former arguments and as my friend pointed out, what is interesting about the scum on a pond is not the scum itself but the life that teems beneath it.
It is the same with UCL plc.
Alongside Provost Professor Malcolm Grant’s revised corporate plan for UCL, published during the summer, lies the divisive issue of jobs cuts amongst academic staff. The figure of 15% in staff cuts has been bandied about as a necessity to reduce UCL’s £7 million deficit. However, the only thing that seems to be clear about that figure is that the fact that the Provost has been unclear on the issues. Academic staff and academic support staff, even now, after two months of debate and attempts at clarification, are unsure as to whether this means a cut in just academic or in academic and administative staff. The Provost, however, told The Cheese Grater that “it applies to all so-called HE-FCE-funded staff”, i.e. all staff not employed under research grants, “and those employed in the central administration, to which a parallel efficiencies programme is being applied.” But it is notable that no staff interviewed knew this.
Either way they are unhappy. Indeed I myself was shocked at the level of mistrust, uncertainty and anger directed towards the Provost and his senior management team that now exists, with one member of staff complaining that the Provost had been “even less clear on this issue that he normally is.” Furthermore the Provost’s prevarication has led to a considerable loss in morale amongst staff. One academic alleged that, even after prodding, the Provost was unaware as to whether the figure of fifteen percent was accurate. At one point, he said, the Provost had said that the cuts would be 5% of the total pay bill per annum for three years, which he estimated to be “twenty-odd percent”. The Provost denied this: “The programme has always been based on staffing numbers. The simple financial reality is that UCL is overstaffed in terms of its budget.” He repeated that the current financial situation is untenable, and stated that “the object of the programme is to turn the budget around and allow us to invest for the future in infrastructure”.
While staff question the need for such cuts as out of “proportion to the problem” – the deficit being less than 1.5% of UCL’s total turnover - they also question whether it should be they who pay for a deficit that is not their fault but, they say, the fault of the senior management. But, as one pointed out, when was the last time a member of that august body was ever sacked? Instead a “terror campaign” by the senior management has allegedly been launched to force individual academics into voluntary redunancy or early retirement.
What lies at the heart of this issue is the fact that academic staff see this cut as an affront to basic academic freedom by the university itself. Heads of department, they complian, are being forced to comply with across-the-board cuts regardless of research or student needs and departmental situations. In response, the Provost told us that “implementation is for the Deans, in consultation with heads of departments.” But what of research?
The Provost’s top-down, target-driven, corporate-style strategy, as displayed in his recent White Paper, would strangle long-term research projects in the hunt for research marks given by the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), which are based upon the number of papers published per year. Sean Wallis, a researcher within the English department and senior member of the AUT union, which is fighting the proposed cuts, asserted that long-term research projects would undoubtedly suffer because of the Provost’s emphasis on “unfeasible research imperatives” from on high. The Provost told us that his plans are to prevent “second-rate research”. “We are a world-class university, and we have large numbers of academics whose research is internationally renowned....If we let that slip, and fail to sort out the budget, I fear a gradual but steady drift to mediocrity. Outstanding academics will go elsewhere: there is no shortage of job offers for them.”
Meanwhile the Provost is is left facing several questions. Can he guarantee the quality of courses? Can he guarantee that UCL will maintain its variety of courses? Of course not, claim senior academics, who are worried that the job cuts have already lead to an increase in teaching from both postgraduate students and external researchers, who have little knowledge of teaching methods and students’ needs, while other academic staff are forced to teach outside their specialism to cover lost staff. Grasping the nettle once again, the Provost informs us he took a straw poll at a meeting of Academic Board last week, “which showed that in a few departments PhD students were being invited to offer lectures, but the phenomenon did not seem widespread. It’s a matter of balance and safeguard I think. We should be providing opportunities for PhD students to undertake teaching...But UCL policy is that they should have proper training.” But the concerns remain.
Many staff do not disagree with the need to trim down the academic budget but believe that Professor Grant has gone about the issue in the wrong way that has led to “intolerable working conditions”. They also question the manner in which staff have been managed and the appraisal system they have been subjected to. Furthermore, they complain, because of the unique nature of a university, a corporate hierarchial structure, which the Provost favours, is not suitable for University College or any university. Meanwhile a senior member of UCL Union described themselves as “flabbergasted” that the Provost’s recent strategy document made no mention of students’ needs and questioned whether the Provost had got the balance right between the need for research and the teaching of undergraduates.
Sean Wallis agrees: “UCL students will lose unless they do something. UCL Union has a constitutional obligation to protect and maintain the integrity of teaching standards within UCL.” He went onto to say that he encouraged every student to fight the proposed cuts in a spirit of enlightened self-interest.