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There was a Student Support and Experience meeting this morning in which they were told that the student support service is being scrapped. This means there will be 16 redundancies – this is two thirds of the staff. We haven’t heard as yet whether they will be providing any kind of student support at departmental/school level and if so, what this will entail.
I’ve worked alongside some of the student support team and have seen first hand what a vital service they provide to students; it is an absolute travesty that the unit is being closed whilst money is being used to fund unnecessary building projects and increases in the salaries of management. This coupled with the proposed USSU cut in funding will impact severely on students; students who are paying ever increasing fees to the university – and for what?
Yet another manifestation of this management’s warped priorities; they are concerned with large scale financial matters, whilst the needs and experience of the individual are completely marginalized. Students and staff suffer in order to right a financial disaster caused by management, whilst management rake in juicy salary increases.
DISGUSTED
I am going to totally agree with this, last year i nearly died and if i had not had student support for my long term illness, i would have not been able to return to university. It is the management that need to have their salaries reduced if it is only a short term thing surely a gesture toward a large reduction in their salaries would be something. i am and along with everyone i’ve spoke to including a news paper (national) are disgusted, this story will be reported in not just one but several of the national news papers, as i think it is truly a travesty and injustice, and it shows just what this country is coming to, lead by a blind government with warped priorities! i compare this to the governments expenses scandal because it is along the same lines.
Why has every other possibility not been exhausted, if we haven’t seen someone or heard of someone going round the uni looking at ways to save money, like for instance restaurants do we really need all of them???? or why not write to all the alumni and ask for ten pounds or a donation of some sort, if there are say 100,000 of them that a mill straight away!!! come on i bet there are tons of ways of saving these jobs. My father is a good a very very very good management consultant and he would see cutting jobs as the last thing you do!!! i have not seen a anyone exploring this area? there hasn’t been someone going round talking to people and looking at every single aspect down to what loo roll we have in the toilets, if that meant we could save just one precious job surely its =worth looking at. I think all the piss poor management have done is look at the figures and say “they are not making money , we will cut them, they are we wont cut them” why not use that extra money to enable the other departments to at least break even. come if closing a restaurant or stopping the building work on that new teaching building for a short time will save just one job, 1 job = someones life! someones bread! these people who teach us and make us who we are or who we will become are in trouble we need to stand up and say management you are not doing enough!! you haven’t spent time looking at everything and we all know this for a fact!!!
Absolutely right Alan.
I would add that if the pre-requisite is to “make money” as it seems to be, well then, what sort of university is Sussex to become?
Arts departments will not make money nor should they. They will not attract private funding in the same way as economics and business departments for obvious reasons.And now they are attracting less government funding too They cannot be treated like for like. If departments are to become self-sufficent then higher education education as we know it will come to an end.
Arts subjects will be limited to elite universities that can continue to subsidise it by charing higher fees. Oxbridge once again will attract only rich students. The rest of the universites will become what polytechnics used to be. Vocational training schools. Churning out more dull bankers ready to bring this country to its knees.
Sussex University not for profit – Stop The Cuts!
I object to the underlying rationale of the current management which seems to view the role of univerity as being that of a business, seeking departments to pay for themselves. The cuts to English are a disgrace – it’s one of the most distingished departments in the country, & has an important relationship with Social & Political Thought, & Philosophy. Furthermore why are perfectly seviceable buildings like the tower in Arts D being pulled down, & so much money being pumped into new buildings. Does the senior management have a Ducesque building fetish? I also feel a real sense of digust about the pay of hte senior management. That the Vice Chancellor earns over £20 000 more the Prime Minister is outrageous! Nobody in the univerity should earn more than twice the pay of a full professor [even that is too much]. All the senior management shoulf face a 50% pay cut. This selfishness & greed has a corrosive effect upon the university, bringing in the ethos of the market into the culture of learning, ethics & self development.
“Oxbridge once again will attract only rich students.”
Once again?
I agree Stephen. It sets completely the wrong tone. By paying even twice the salary of a full professor we are saying as a society that they are of twice the value in their work. This is nonsense. We, as students all know the value of an engaging and knowledgeable professor and this doesn’t reflect our experience.
In my mind, I appreciate running a university is a complex operation though he is not doing it on his own – as we know form the increased composition of those on six figure salaries. Twice the salary of the best paid professor would be more than fair. I think a 50% management pay cut would be a worthwhile objective for the movement.
SussexSecondyear – I know what you mean, though I was referring to the historical context of Oxbridge where entry was strictly limited to gentleman. It is at least, nominally open to all today
The student support available to me was brilliant. It is imperative to able to speak to people who are there to help, and they did their utmost to help me- I can’t thank them enough and it is a shame, and probably symbolic, that people who care are not economically functional and easily disposable.
Solidarity Harald Stubbe Job Stuard Eurest Germany member of the Compassgroup plc