Author Archives: southampton

Happy Birthday, Fixed Term Regulations 2002!

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The 1st of October, 2012 marked the 10th anniversary of the Fixed Term Regulations 2002.  In celebration of these regulations which provide critical rights to staff on fixed-term contracts, Southampton UCU held a birthday party and set up an information stand to tell staff about how these regulations can protect their interests.

Fixed-term contract information stand

Our very own Vice-Chancellor Don Nutbeam stopped by the stand, and cut the cake for us.  He expressed support for the general plight of fixed-term staff at the University and noted that he himself is on a fixed-term contract.  Not to worry, Vice-Chancellor — we’ll be sure to get you the information and advice you need in order to ensure you’re treated properly!

Vice-Chancellor Don Nutbeam cuts the birthday cake

The Vice-Chancellor (center), together with Joe Viana our Fixed-Term Contract Representative (left), and Southampton UCU President Eric Silverman (right)

Thanks to all our members who helped out with the stand, and to those staff who came by to talk with us about their rights as fixed-term contract staff.  If you or any of your colleagues need some information or advice regarding these Regulations, be sure to get them in touch with our office.

For those who are interested, you can find the full text of the Regulations here.  DirectGov has an informative summary about the protections in place for fixed-term employees here.  Finally, we have prepared a page of useful information for managers of fixed-term staff (which is also useful for fixed-term employees themselves), which is available on this blog post.

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Eric Silverman

Southampton UCU President

 

 

 

Result of Higher Education Sector Conference, 13 September 2012

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As some members may be aware, at UCU Congress this year a vote was taken to reinstate industrial action over USS pensions.  Predictably, the employers reacted badly to this and immediately pulled out of negotiations and removed what progress we’d made in those negotiations so far.

Given the response from members at Southampton and throughout the country, at a recent Higher Education Sector Conference a number of motions were presented to return to negotiations.  The details below are from our Executive Committee members who attend the conference on behalf of Southampton UCU:

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Conference overwhelmingly rejected all motions and amendments to escalate action on the USS negotiation. Just as overwhelmingly, Conference accepted the motion to suspend action and resume negotiations.

Conference passed the following motion (Motion 2 (Composite)):

 

“Conference notes that our current USS negotiating objectives are contradictory, and have established preconditions that make it impossible to reach a negotiated settlement.

 

Conference re-affirms the HESC policy of May 2011 to:

  • de-risk USS through the introduction of an acceptable CARE scheme for new entrants;

  • close the gap between the value of the CARE and final salary sections by negotiating improvements to the CARE scheme which would secure broad comparability with TPS, including the removal of inflation caps; and

  • protect the final salary pensions of existing members.

 

Conference believes that it is a priority to resume negotiations in order to achieve these objectives, and therefore authorise HEC to:

  • suspend industrial action if the employers agree to negotiate on the above agenda within an acceptable time scale; and

  • maintain this suspension while serious and constructive negotiations are taking place and an acceptable settlement might be reached by early 2013.”

 

After some debate, and only by a vote of 64 to 54, Conference also passed the following amendment to Motion 2 proposed by the Open University.

 

To add at the end of motion 2

“• agrees that although the work-to-contract is no longer a useful lever in the USS dispute, many members feel individually protected by the action;

  • instructs HEC to ensure that the suspension for this dispute is accompanied by members’ guidance on excessive working hours and relevant legislation;

 • notes that UCU will be launching a major campaign on workload in the autumn and that work-to-contract is a necessary sanction for disputes in that campaign.”

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We at Southampton UCU are very pleased about this outcome.  Many members contacted us to express their concerns with restarting industrial action over USS, and thus we’re glad to see the Conference acted in the best interests of our members.

If any members have further questions about the outcome at the Conference, please feel free to contact us through the usual channels.

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Eric Silverman

Southampton UCU President

 

UCU Career Development Seminar and Strategy Day – 1 August

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UCU Career Development Seminar

Open to all early career academics /fixed term contract staff

Date: 1 August

Time: 10-12pm

Venue: Room 67/1007 Nightingale Building, Highfield

 

Southampton UCU will be holding a Career Development Seminar on 1 August, which is open to all early-career academics and fixed-term contract staff at the University.

The seminar will cover: transferable skills; training and development opportunities; research careers; fixed-term contracts; writing CVs; fellowships and lectureships; the Concordat for Researchers; the Research Excellence Framework; mentoring; probation and promotion; redeployment procedures; CROS; planning, appraisal and setting objectives.

The seminar is open to everyone, so please do spread the word to colleagues who may be interested regardless of their UCU membership status.  There will be an opportunity for members to get additional, focused support — details will be available on the day.

Later on the same day, we will be holding a Fixed-Term Contract Strategy Day:

 

UCU Fixed Term Contract Strategy day

FOR UCU MEMBERS ONLY

Date: 1 August 2012

Time: 1.30pm – 3.30pm

Venue: 67/E1001 Lecture Room C Nightingale Building, Highfield.

Complimentary lunch provided

 

Fixed term contracts are a priority for Southampton UCU.  We’ve been working continuously on this issue over the past year, starting regular discussions with HR on fixed-term contracts and holding a UCU Researcher’s Workshop.

At our recent Annual General Meeting, a motion was unanimously agreed which calls upon the University to stop exploiting fixed-term contract staff; to provide better career development and training opportunities; to provide bridging mechanisms for those supported by external funding; and to move toward the provision of open-ended contracts for early-career academics and academic-related staff.

We’re holding this Strategy Day to hear your views on how to progress this campaign.  We believe that fixed-term contracts have a detrimental effect, both personally and professionally, and with your help we can work to make a difference.  Therefore we invite all members on fixed-term contracts, as well as members on permanent contracts who wish to help on this issue, to come along and share your views and help us develop our strategy.

If you’d like to attend, please email Amanda Bitouche at ucu@soton.ac.uk for catering purposes.  If you can’t attend but would like to help out, perhaps by flyering, putting up posters, or distributing information to colleagues, please get in touch.

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In solidarity,

 

Eric Silverman and Amanda Bitouche

Southampton UCU

Information for managers of fixed-term contract researchers

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Many of our members are in positions where they are now responsible for managing early-career researchers, most of whom are on fixed-term contracts.  With the impact of changes in law such as the Fixed-Term Regulations 2002 and the Equality Act 2010, as well as Southampton’s commitment to implement the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, the landscape for fixed-term contract researchers has changed significantly in the past few years.

As it stands now, Vitae provides a useful guide for managers of fixed-term researchers working at institutions implementing the Concordat:

http://www.vitae.ac.uk/CMS/files/upload/Vitae_brief_Managers%20of%20researchers.pdf

Vitae also provides an excellent guide for managers of researchers with respect to equality and diversity issues:

http://www.vitae.ac.uk/CMS/files/upload/Vitae-HEFCE-ERC_Principle%20Investigators_Oct_2011.pdf

In addition, however, it is worth noting that UCU, while generally supportive of the Concordat, does not believe it goes far enough to protect researchers from insecure, under-valued employment.  As a consequence, UCU has issued additional guidance for managers of researchers who wish to support researchers in their struggles to build a strong career in a difficult environment.  You’ll find the relevant PDFs attached below.  These PDFs also contain useful summaries of the provisions within the Fixed-Term Regulations 2002, which require that fixed-term employees are treated the same as permanent employees:

Member’s advice sheet

Manager’s briefing on FTCs

UCU also encourages managers to remember that the tribunal result of Ball v Aberdeen has set a precedent under which short-term funding is not an automatic objective justification for employment on a fixed-term contract.

Similarly, we note the recent ruling against Lancaster University: “The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1982, section 188, obliges employers to consult meaningfully with unions when more than 20 members of staff are expected to be made redundant in a 90-day period. The ruling against Lancaster reinforced the principle that “redundancies” in this context includes termination of fixed-term contracts, and strengthens the expectations on employers to do everything they can to mitigate against the redundancies” (quoted from http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/430121-279991/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-fixed-term-contracts.html which is another useful page for managers of researchers).

If you are a manager of fixed-term researchers at Southampton, and you have further questions about how best to support research staff, please do contact the UCU office for further guidance.

We also urge all managers to remind their research staff that, under the Fixed-Term Regulations 2002, any staff on successive fixed-term contracts for four years or more are to be considered permanent staff unless there is sufficient objective justification.  Fixed-term researchers may exercise this right by writing to their employer, who then has 21 days to respond that they are indeed permanent, or otherwise an objective justification must be cited for why they cannot be permanent.  Many researchers are not made aware of this regulation, and are not supported in exercising this right, so please do encourage your researchers to make use of this provision within the regulations.  Southampton UCU has a form letter available which researchers can use to inquire about their status in this respect.

As a final note, please find below the text of a motion passed at the Southampton UCU Annual General Meeting on Thursday 28 June 2012.  The motion was carried unanimously, with no abstentions.  As a consequence of this overwhelming support, we will continue to push for the improvement of working conditions for fixed-term contract staff at this University as one of our primary campaigns this year.  We welcome any and all input and feedback from members who wish to get involved in this campaign.

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Southampton UCU believes that the University’s reliance on fixed-term contracts is detrimental both personally and professionally for our staff. We note that the insecurity created by FTCs has a disproportionate impact on those who have caring responsibilities. Southampton UCU believes that the University can build a more stable and sustainable environment for research and teaching by reducing the use of FTCs. Southampton UCU calls on the University to:

a) Develop an effective redeployment system which avoids FTC researcher redundancies by matching staff to vacancies and provides training to enable them to meet skill needs;

b) Develop ‘bridging’ mechanisms, similar to those used at other Universities, to fund FTC research staff between research grants (to allow them to contribute to publications and/or teaching, and apply for further research funding);

c) Increase provision of training for FTCs to enhance research and teaching skills for future roles;

d) Move toward the provision of open-ended contracts for academic and academic-related staff.

Proposed by: Dr Eric Silverman (President)
Seconded by: Professor Catherine Pope (Equalities Officer)

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Eric Silverman

Southampton UCU President

UCU Congress Report From Your Delegates

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Congress report from your branch delegates (Catherine Pope, Joe Viana, Jeremy Jones)

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The annual congress is the place where UCU policy gets made – some 500 delegates from FE and HE branches and from regions and other committees debate motions. This year Congress was in Manchester and began on Friday with Higher Education business. This included a number of largely uncontroversial motions, many of which reaffirmed existing union policy for HE. There were motions against performance related pay, the inappropriate use of student feedback in performance management, REF, workloads, casualization and grade drift. Of note for this branch was the motion HE13 calling for representation of the professoriate so that UCU can act for all levels of academic staff, and a request for equality impact assessments of the ESRC decision to focus doctoral training in research intensive universities.

We were provided with an update on progress with talks about USS pension. It was clear that some progress had been made although comparison with TPS suggested that the current offer was less favourable than that proposed for TPS. Our national officers advised us to continue our suspension of strike action to enable the negotiations to continue. A motion was put calling for reinstatement of industrial action and this was passed. All three of your delegates voted against this but the vote for reinstating the action was won by 6 votes. Later on in the evening there was a set of motions about the TPS pension scheme. Your delegates felt it was not appropriate to vote in this debate because this pension scheme is not available to our members. The result of the debate and voting was that UCU is committed to involvement in industrial action in June about TPS and there is to be a financial levy on all members to fund indefinite strike pay.

Saturday and Sunday covered education, equality and strategy and finance business. Again many of the motions on equality and education policy were uncontroversial and were passed with no or minimal debate. We affirmed the union’s opposition to marketization and the cuts, upheld our defence of academic freedom and national pay bargaining. Colleagues at London Met proposed a motion to enable branches to call a ballot without input from the union officials. Michael MacNeil as the paid official for HE reminded us that union officers are legally liable for any calls to ballot and was concerned that legal challenges arising from these actions might prove costly. However this motion enabling branches to bypass the officers was passed.

On Saturday afternoon Sally Hunt our recently re-elected General Secretary talked about the challenges facing post-16 education and the key issues to be addressed by the union. Over the sound of some barracking and noise from a section of the delegates she also spoke about her proposals to reform the union’s structures (by slimming down the national executive committee, using more email/consultative ballots, and changing the way we choose our negotiators).

Later on Sunday in a private session (without members of the press present) we returned to this in our discussion of a series of motions around the General Secretary’s proposals. Our branch had submitted a motion (number 65) to the debate stating our support for these proposals not least because they offered the possibility of freeing up financial resources at local level to support members. The text of the speech made proposing this motion can be found below. We had much needed support in the debate from delegates from Warwick, Essex and Chester but the case against the reforms won out and our motion and the associated changes to the rules fell.

The above account is a very brief summary of some of the key debates and motions. Full details of all the motions to congress and supporting papers can be found on the UCU website.

Below we give some rather more personal reflections about congress.

It takes a very particular kind of union activist to give up three days of their time (especially a weekend in half term) to attend Congress. Nonetheless Congress has representation across all the sectors of post 16 education covered by UCU and is attended by academic and academic- related staff at all levels of the pay scale.

Congress is the ‘sovereign policy making’ mechanism of our union. Every year delegates from branches are sent to propose, debate and vote on some 150 motions. Proposers of motions have 4-5 minutes to state their case, shorter speeches of support or opposition are made and eventually the motion is put to a vote – usually by a show of cards but occasionally (where the vote is close) formally counted. There are complex rules about how Congress is conducted and much of the language and process would be clearly recognisable to the 19th century founders of trades unions (indeed at times it also resembles that other ancient political institution the Houses of Parliament). Newcomers (and there were 100 first time delegates this year) can find Congress bewildering.

Some activists and Congress Delegates belong to political groupings such as ‘UCU Left’ and ‘UCU Independent Broad Left’. These groups tend to take positions on particular issues and the different stances they take are often apparent in the debate. Outside the congress other groups try to influence and inform delegates for example there is a strong presence from the Socialist Workers Party. As delegates from University of Southampton we are clear that we are not part of these groups – although we engage in debate with their members on issues of importance. We feel that it is important that we try to represent what we understand to be the views of our (diverse) membership rather than being tied to bloc voting with a particular group or faction.

This year it was clear that there was a significant, but minority voice at Congress who supported the General Secretary’s proposals. However there is also a large opposition the use of consultative email surveys/ballots to gauge the views of members . This is predominantly from, but not limited to, UCU Left. These surveys, whilst not substituting for other democratic processes, are often useful in taking the temperature of our members’ views to inform our decisions and strategy and as a local branch delegates it was useful to know that when consulted in this way members of this branch overwhelmingly supported all the proposed changes to union structures.

We believe that we had a mandate from you try to get Congress to support these changes. We did not succeed on this occasion. Sally Hunt in her speech reaffirmed her desire to listen to union members and make the union fit for purpose. We will be seeking your views on how you would like the branch to procede.

Over the three days of Congress the quality of the debate was often low and the pattern of voting was often rather depressing. That said there were important issues – motions on anti-casualisation stand out as important. Some of the best debate occurred outside the voting hall, in the fringe meetings (your delegates attended meetings on casualization and NHS reform), in the Developing Activists Network (DAN) event where we previewed a film about the Southampton Union Cities project and in the meal breaks where we sat with colleagues from branches across the UK and shared stories about negotiations, disputes and casework. We were also privileged to hear a moving and uplifting speech from Dr Beltran, the Columbian education trades unionist talking about union oppression, education rights and international agendas.

Over the coming weeks this branch will need to consider its responses to the new policy made at Congress 2012. We will be actively seeking your views. At the end of the day UCU is you – its members. We have been deliberately honest about our views of Congress 2012. We need you to help us shape local branch policy to meet the challenges ahead. Please come to the AGM on 28 June 2012, and do let us know if you would consider being our delegate to Congress or other national meeting of the union over the coming year.

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Motion 65 UCU Congress 2012

Congress notes that in the increasingly difficult times facing the post-16
education sector we need an effective union structure and processes which
represent the views of our members and respond to their needs. The General
Secretary has proposed to:

1 reduce the size of the National Executive Committee to a maximum of 40 and
use the savings to improve services for members and branches.

2 give members a right to be directly consulted on a final offer from employers
before the union decides whether to accept it or reject and escalate action.

3 allow members to elect lay national negotiator posts

Congress supports these proposals.

 

Speech made by Catherine Pope, proposing motion 65:

 

Congress, we are a democratic organisation. We represent members across FE and HE. We represent members with diverse and conflicting political views.

I have been in this Union since my first job some 25 years ago. I love this union – it has protected me, supported me, developed me and thousands of others like me. I am proud of the things we have achieved locally and nationally.

But sometimes this Union and Congress drives me crazy. And I know my members back at University of Southampton feel the same. Our ways of doing business were designed for 19th Century political debating chambers and industrial workplaces, and we need procedures that are fit for purpose in the 21st century. We have a clunky, centralised over large executive – much as I admire and respect the individual members of NEC – and not nearly enough support locally, on the ground, where we need it. We fail to make use of new ways of communicating and interacting with members despite using these technologies in all other areas of our lives. This motion is about inclusion – about listening to our members.

These are difficult times for HE and FE. Free access to education is being eroded. Staff – at all levels are overloaded. Academic freedom, our pensions and terms and conditions are under attack. Commercialism and marketisation threaten our members’ vocational and educational core. Union case work is increasing and we need to respond locally and nationally to assaults on our profession. We need a strong, agile, responsive, union if we are to face the challenges.

Congress is great. We have important debates and make policy. But we are here as democratically elected representatives – our job is to help shape this union and make it work for all our members. The majority of our members want a union structure that enables us to meet the challenges we are facing. The proposals to change the way we do things will allow us to do that. Congress – whatever your personal politics – I urge you to do what you do best – to represent our members and deliver a union structure that is fit for the fight ahead of us.

I urge you to support this motion and the associated rule changes.

Why Women Don’t Want to Work Here

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The recent publication of the results of a longitudinal study of PhD students in chemistry in the UK (in PDF form here) has received a lot of attention in the press. The figures look bad, and highlight the enormous gender gap that persists in higher education; by the third year of PhD studies, the percentage of male students who wished to continue on an academic career path dropped from 61% to 59% — but for women, the drop is from 72% to 37%.

Curt Rice writing for the Guardian asks the all-important questions “How can it be this bad? Why are universities such unattractive workplaces?” The possible answers to this are many and varied, of course, but the report shows that many women are deterred by the ‘macho’, competitive and solitary nature of the academic life.

Perhaps we need to take a deeper look at our work environment to understand how we ended up where we are. I’m sure many of you would agree that the academic career path has become harder to navigate. The ‘perpetual postdoc’ problem has increased as permanent lectureships or research posts are thin on the ground, and talented researchers are pushed out of academia as they seek to avoid casualised insecure employment (perhaps because they wish to start a family or buy a home). The long-hours culture also takes its toll and makes our profession less attractive to many. All these pressures have a disproportionate impact on female colleagues.

Instead of addressing these inequalities university managers focus on such things as getting us higher up the university rankings or obtaining ever-larger research grants. In this context, the current hiring practices of universities make a lot more sense: they are driven by a need to make tables of arbitrary numbers go up (in league tables, departmental rankings, and finance reports), and the human cost is invisible or secondary.

At this University the decision to focus on achieving a top 50 world ranking (discussed in my previous blog post) has produced hiring practices directed at snatching up ‘research leaders’, rather than developing our own staff and offering them opportunities to shine.

UCU are pushing for improvements in the working environment at this institution. We have held informative workshops, created a Fixed-Term Contracts Working Group, pushed for  negotiation on the Academic Reward and Recognition project, and sought your input and feedback. But on a broader level, we face challenges extend far beyond the borders of this  institution. We have an academic culture now so focused on short-term goals and externally imposed metrics that it is tearing itself apart. Gender inequalities are just part of the evidence for this; clearly our institution fails to attend to the barriers facing women here. But we are also so pushed to seek grant funding that we give no time to the plight of postdocs on casualised contracts who we fail to develop and who have little hope of advancement or job security.

We need a work environment and culture that develops and nourishes its staff, and supports enthusiasm, intellectual vitality and academic freedom. Instead we often offer a workplace which forces all of its members to give up their lives and families to focus on short-term goals. This promotes gender inequality and produces an exploited academic underclass. We know why women can’t and don’t want to work in these environments. We know it is not good for them or anyone. Isn’t it time we did something about this?

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Eric Silverman (President) and Catherine Pope (Equalities Officer)

 

What’s Wrong With DAP?

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We’ve been touring the University with our DAP-Alternative roadshow to try to gauge UCU member responses as well as soliciting feedback from staff who might not yet be union members (the meetings were open to all University of Southampton staff) on the proposals to introduce a new ‘reward and recognition’ policy or DAP (Development and Appraisal Process) as it is otherwise known.

Our Provost, Adam Wheeler, and Director of HR, Janice Donaldson, had a series of open meetings to explain their proposals for a new matrix model that they want to use to ‘manage up performance’. Whist these meetings were not part of the formal consultation process (which has to be conducted via UCU as the recognised trades union) they were useful as a briefing about the new plans.

I think it’s probably fair to say that Adam and Janice have been surprised by some of the negative reaction to the DAP ideas. Things came to a head in March when, in response to members concerns and our own concern about the failure to consult the recognised Trades Unions about this important and significant proposed change to our terms and conditions, we called an Emergency Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) to talk to senior managers about DAP. As a result of this meeting the senior management agreed that they would consult with the recognised trades union on this matter and a series of meetings between UCU reps and senior management began on 21 May.

At our UCU general meeting on 28 March we received overwhelming support for a proposal that we should ask our management to halt the DAP project. We put this to Adam and Janice at the meeting on 21st May along with summaries of the earlier feedback we have received.

Our series of meetings at WSA, Highfield, Waterfront, SGH and Avenue gave you the opportunity to air your concerns about the proposals. I thought I would take some space on the blog to describe in-depth three of the concerns expressed by staff at these meetings and in some of the correspondence we have received from members on this issue.

Why don’t they just fix PPDR (the existing performance and development process)?

This theme turned into something of a mantra in our discussions with staff. Rather plaintively you just kept saying ‘why do we have to have yet another new system?’ and perhaps more perceptively ‘what makes them think anyone will do this new system when we failed so abysmally to get buy in for PPDR?’ We gathered stories of staff who had not had a review for 5 years, or had been told they were too junior or senior to need one, and of others who had perfunctory PPDR which began with a heartwarming ‘Let’s get this over with for another year’ and ended with the crunch of the filing cabinet as ‘the form’ disappeared never to be seen again. In contrast there were also some good examples of PPDR working positively – managers who regularly review progress and staff development, work together with staff to set achievable expectations, try to address workload problems overload and seek to create environments where staff can succeed.

We don’t want performance related pay

There continues to be opposition to the increased use of performance related pay. One manager at our meetings said he categorically did not want to be in the position of deciding people’s salaries as he felt that would damage research and teaching teams. The University already has some flexibility to offer enhanced increments, to recognise higher responsibility and pay market supplements to attract staff. Managers can also withhold the annual increment if performance is deemed unsatisfactory. While pay is increasingly important in this economic downturn it is not the only thing that motivates our staff: we are typically motivated more by our science; our research; interacting with students, and so on. Many staff report that their workloads are now too high and are having a detrimental impact on their lives or health and – understandably – they would prefer this problem was addressed before paying a few selected individuals a little more.

Rejection of more complex change

One of the most overwhelming responses from staff as we toured the University was that this was yet more change at a time when everyone is already struggling to adapt to the radically new structures and reduced administrative support. Staff were unconvinced by the 9 matrix which they felt did not address the problems with the promotion system and introduced unhelpful additional layers within existing grade levels. They were worried that unreliable, unvalidated, and subjective measures of performance would be introduced. Staff in the meetings and in correspondence with us report that there continues to be a problem with bullying in the University and that promotion appeared to be dependent on patronage rather than merit in some cases. They were anxious that the proposed DAP system might exacerbate this. The key issue for staff centred on being valued. Many felt that the culture of the University and some of the ‘messages from the top’ (the hundred heavy hitters policy was one frequently mentioned, and the idea that everyone needed to be ‘over capacity’ in the early DAP diagram was another) devalued their contribution. They felt that management practices tended to be disciplinary rather than developmental, and that performance management was based on punishments/sticks rather than incentives/carrots.

WHAT NEXT?

We’ve had our first meeting with Adam and Janice yesterday and discussed how we might take this negotiation forward. Adam and Janice have prepared a revised version of the DAP proposals which is currently with the Vice Chancellor and this will go to the University Executive on 29th May. After that UCU will be asked to comment on the proposals and we will be using all the comments you have given us to prepare this response. We have a series of working party meetings scheduled with Janice and Adam and will continue to use our Joint Negotiating Committee to represent staff on this issue. We are grateful to the members who have volunteered to help us with this and will be involving them in the negotiations alongside the executive group. As ever we welcome your comments and views about the DAP proposals so please do keep sending them in.

A personal reflection

One of the things that strikes me about the debate around DAP and performance review is that most staff are in complete agreement with the goal of these processes – in the meetings this was often phrased as ‘of course we want the university to succeed’ or ‘we understand that there are targets that we have to do well against’. (There was much less consensus about the feasibility of getting into the top 50 world ranking (see Eric’s previous blog post about this), but staff genuinely want to do a good job – whatever their level and role). What makes me sad and frustrated is the fact that there continue to be places in this University where staff are not supported to deliver success.

We continue to fail to develop the talents of all our staff. In part this is because of casualization – the regular ‘dismissal’ of some 200 fixed term contract staff means there is little inbuilt incentive to develop a significant proportion of our colleagues. We appear to spend far less on training and development than many comparable institutions (we no longer have a member of staff devoted to developing Early Career researchers and delivering the Research Concordat, for example). Continual change has often had a negative impact on culture and morale – staff feel that they are not valued and their views about the negative effects of reorganisation are not heard. We have broken up the academic team – by separating our professional services and academic roles such that it is increasingly difficult to work effectively in teams, and many of the technologies introduced to replace staff (banner, agresso, managed print) have displaced work rather than reducing workloads as promised. We have failed to share good management practice and remained silent about poor management and the reasons for it.

The University has significant problems with promotion processes and valuing its staff. We know that there is a gender bias in promotion and this perpetuates the gender pay gap (and wastes talent). We do not adequately develop and support our staff to deliver their best. In some places we manage performance well but this is not consistent or universal — we need to improve. A good PPDR system – backed up by supported and well trained managers/appraisers – could address these problems. As someone who has had, and has benefited from, positive and supportive management I know this is possible with the existing PPDR system. Rather than investing in a new DAP system we could channel resources into training and developing our staff, and encouraging positive people management.

We might also want to reframe the questions we ask – what if instead of being in the top 50 our aspiration at University of Southampton was to be the best place to work?

——-

Catherine Pope

UCU Executive Committee

The Top-50: Is This A Place Southampton Wants To Be?

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As our members are probably aware, the University has set a strategic goal of achieving a spot in the top 50 in the world university rankings.  On the face of it, this seems an admirable goal; after all, who wouldn’t want our University to be recognised worldwide as a top-notch place to learn and to do research?

However, when we take a closer look, we begin to see how ludicrous this goal would be for our institution.  For comparison, let’s examine Penn State University, currently sitting at 51 in the rankings (just below Brown University and Peking University, which are tied for 49th).  Penn State — which also happens to be my undergraduate alma mater — currently sits on an endowment of $1.52 billion (about ￡955 million), with net assets of $8.73 billion as of 2010 (about ￡5.48 billion; Southampton’s net assets last year totalled ￡330 million by comparison).  Their operating budget last year was over $4.1 billion (approximately ￡2.56 billion).  Penn State’s research income last year was $780 million (￡490 million; compare to Southampton at ￡93.6 million).  On top of this, the main University Park campus of Penn State has 44,000 students (compared to 23,000 at Southampton); but when you include the other 23 Penn State campuses, the total reaches around 95,000.

So, at number 51 on the rankings, we have an institution dealing in budget numbers far beyond the reach of this institution, educating
nearly four times the number of students, and earning more than 5 times as much research income.  Is this something we can compete with?  Moreover, is this something we *want* to compete with?

I’d argue that we absolutely do not want to get sucked into this kind of competition.  The further we look up the rankings, the worse the
numbers get (Harvard has an endowment of $32 billion, or just over ￡20 billion!).  There is every indication that these rankings are based upon these silly number games, and very little evidence that they provide any useful information to students looking for a place to study.  Meanwhile, there are institutions that do very well for themselves while abstaining from these prestige competitions entirely.

One of the more notable of these is St John’s College in Annapolis and Santa Fe, which has a remarkable letter on its website from its
presidents (http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/about/rankings.shtml) discussing why they have chosen to abstain entirely from the US News and World Report Rankings.  Here’s a small sample:

“Over the years, St. John’s College has been ranked everywhere from the third tier, to the second, to the first, to the “Top 25” among
national liberal arts colleges. Yet we haven’t changed. Our mission and our methods have been virtually constant for almost 60 years. We would rather be ourselves and have our college speak for itself, than be a part of this fluctuating outside analysis. The distinctiveness of each individual college and the diversity among them tend to be lost in a scale of “best-good-worse.” Research university or small liberal arts college? Religious affiliation or pre-professional training? Core curriculum or a multitude of majors? America’s colleges offer all of these. A college that is exactly right for a particular student– in its mission, mode of teaching, location, moral or religious
character– might receive a lower rank in the survey than a college which would not suit the needs of that student.”

I’d argue that this is the problem with university rankings: they attempt to quantify an experience that, by its very nature, is different for every student.  Our placement on an arbitrary table, decided by constantly-changing criteria, is not an adequate measure of the incredible variety and diversity present at this institution. Even if we were to reach the heady heights of the Top 50, there is still no guarantee that the following year would not see us displaced — and not due to a fall in research outputs, or student survey numbers, but simply due to a small change in the ranking criteria.

Where we certainly can, and should, compete however is in the area of the student experience.  This is an area where Penn State also excels and has excelled for many years.  Penn State has an alumni association  with 500,000 members or so, the largest in the world, and out of those, more than 160,000 pay dues every year to be a part of that association.  Think about it — 160,000 people paying money to the university, every year, simply to retain an association with their alma mater, to get a newsletter, and maybe a discount on football tickets.

Dedication and pride like that doesn’t come from arbitrary and constantly-fluctuating ranking positions.  It comes from having a fantastic student environment, top facilities, excellent teaching, and efforts to build a community that fosters cohesion, trust, and student identity.  These are all areas where Southampton absolutely *can* compete.  We can develop this institution into a nourishing and edifying community for our students — a place that remains with them, even when they go off to other institutions or into the workforce. These things do not require budgets in the billions to accomplish — they require dedication, support for our facilities and our staff, and the creation of an environment that fosters learning and a sense of community.

I worry that the focus on rankings takes us away from focusing on things that can truly bring character and reputation to our university.  They make us focus on budgets, surpluses and ‘economic impact’, rather than student satisfaction, staff development and retention, and community support and cohesion.  Rankings may bring us applause from University Deans, Presidents and Vice-Chancellors, but what brings the same from students are other things entirely. Likewise, creating a dynamic and challenging learning environment for students rests on giving our teaching staff the support and development opportunities they need to give every lecture their full attention, instead of being forced to worry about rankings, research output requirements, promotion panels and inter-departmental politicking (all things that an all-encompassing focus on numbers and rankings exacerbates).

Don’t get me wrong — I don’t want to suggest that we turn ourselves into Penn State, Hampshire Campus.  Not to mention that, as recent events have shown, Penn State is not immune to rankings fever — as evidenced by the disgraceful behaviour of their football coaches and related members of staff who sacrificed even their basic morality to push that football programme to the top.  But I do think the comparison is illuminating.  As a student at Penn State, I never knew nor cared what our ranking was — nor, I suspect, do the overwhelming majority of students at Southampton.  What I cared about, and what our students care about, is what they experience day-to-day: how their learning is supported and nourished; how their facilities look and feel; what sort of opportunities they have to make friends, foster relationships and build connections for the future; and the enthusiasm and dynamism of their lecturers.

This University is blessed with a energetic and diverse student body and fantastic teachers and researchers, all of whom want this institution to grow and be recognised.  So let’s work together to build that recognition in a real, sustainable way — one built on making this a supportive and inclusive environment for learning and discovery.  If we do that, top-flight students and staff will come here in droves and continue to do so — regardless of what the rankings say.

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Eric Silverman

Southampton UCU President

Southampton UCU Spring Seminar Series

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Southampton UCU together with the Union Cities Project are pleased to announce that we are launching a Seminar Series this spring.  These public talks are intended to give University of Southampton staff a window into some of the broader issues being discussed in academia today, and to provide a forum for free and open discussion.

 

Our first two confirmed seminars are listed below, and we encourage all interested parties — members and non-members alike — to join the discussion.

 

Tuesday 28 February 4pm — Room 32/3077

 

Richard Murphy

“Tax, Justice and the State”

We are delighted that Richard Murphy has agreed to talk to us and hope this seminar will provoke lively discussion and debate about the relationship between tax policies, the economic situation, cuts to public services and Higher Education.

About the speaker:
Richard Murphy is a chartered accountant and economist. He has been described by the Guardian as an “anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert”. Richard was founder of the Tax Justice Network and is director of Tax Research LLP which undertakes work on taxation policy, advocacy and research for aid agencies, unions, NGOs and others in the UK and abroad. He is a University of Southampton graduate and his most recent book is the Courageous State: rethinking economics, society and the role of government.




Tuesday 3 April 2012 4PM – Room 32/3077

 

Dr Paulina Trevena

Research Fellow, ESRC Centre for Population Change


Exploring mechanisms for the retention of Early Carer Researchers at the University of Southampton.

 

A critical step in a researcher’s career is the transition from a postdoctoral post into a more permanent research position. Fellowships from the major funding bodies designed to ease these early career researchers (ECR) into their first independent position are scant and hugely oversubscribed. University lectureships also rarely become available, and receive many applicants. The general lack of adequate systems for retaining talented ECRs in higher education and the associated costs of research staff turnover have already been highlighted nationally. The ‘Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers’ states that ‘organisational systems must be capable of supporting continuity of employment for researchers, such as funding between grants, other schemes for supporting time between funding, or systems for redeploying researchers within organisations where resources allow.’ In this presentation we’d like to discuss the results of a small-scale project on retaining ECRs at the University of Southampton (UoS). As part of the project, we  explored the views, experiences and needs of UoS ECRs with regard to retention mechanisms, and examined existing retention mechanisms at our University as compared to other UK universities. On this basis, we have made recommendations for introducing certain ECR retention mechanisms at UoS.

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Eric Silverman
Southampton UCU President

Tying pay to performance does not work!

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As members may be aware, UCU has long stood against the introduction of performance-related pay in UK higher education.  We take this position due to the inherent nature of academic work, which requires long-term vision, patience, and the gradual development of expertise and knowledge — clearly not a match for performance-related pay policies, which encourage short-term gains above all else.

In the current climate, the University of Southampton is proposing the introduction of a new Academic Reward Strategy which threatens to bring related measures into our workplace.  We stand strongly against this move, and will continue to express to the University our opposition to performance-related pay — and the critical importance of non-monetary rewards in any proposed academic reward strategy.

Even in the business world, performance-related pay is a risky venture, and evidence continues to mount that such polices simply do not work.  Employees are encouraged by such policies to seek increased pay as the motivation for doing well in the workplace, rather than any intrinsic motivation.  In the pursuit of such monetary incentives, employees may begin to take risky paths to achieve the required short-term gains.

In fact, non-monetary rewards seem much more effective.  In the case of academia, we expect that many of our members might prefer additional research time, more administrative support, or other similar things much more than a simple bump in salary.  Over the long term, such rewards are much more likely to create better working environments and better research as a result — and in turn, make employees feel more valued for their intellectual prowess.

The link below presents an article* in the Harvard Business Review which summarises the problems with performance-related pay policies — problems which are overwhelming supported by the relevant research literature:

 

 

http://hbr.org/2012/01/tackling-business-problems/ar/1

 

We encourage all our members to tell the University not to introduce performance-related pay measures into our workplace.  Performance-related pay is already known to be bad for business — and the short-termism encouraged by such measures would be even more disastrous in an academic environment.

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Eric Silverman

Southampton UCU President

*Many thanks to Moray McAulay for the link.