Today (12th December 2023), the campus unions at GCU have published a first response to the Principal’s all staff communication on Dec 1st regarding Student Recruitment and Associated Investments.

Welcoming the Principal’s offer to discuss any and all of the issues raised in the document, the campus unions have suggested an early New Year ‘All-Staff’ meeting, with the Principal and representatives of all campus unions on the platform, chaired by chair of University Court, Rob Woodward.

A copy of the brochure (downloadable below) was was sent to the Principal yesterday with the chair of Court copied in, as was Jan Hulme, secretary to the Court, and also Fiona Campbell who is normally the main management contact with the campus trade unions.

The brochure outlines many of the issues which prevent our shared vision for a University for the Common Good, becoming a reality and taking our university forward securely into the future with well paid staff, who experience acceptable working conditions. Amongst the issues raised in the brochure are:

Staff ‘costs’ and student fees

These seem to be the main factors raised by Senior Management in their communication – yet we believe we have a workload crisis now – one that has been long in the making.

GCU New York.

Although the Principal states ‘As you know, I have wanted to take a different approach to New York, and we will soon exit that campus’ and the campus unions welcome this, there has been more than £25m sunk into this unsuccessful venture with only the staff and Trade Union reps on Court consistently voting against. Your unions believe that GCU cannot find itself in such a situation again, so a review needs to consider decision making and accountability. We also add that ‘some may wish to have a period of reflection on their own decisions and/or silence’.

Our Student Population.

Although the management imply that problems seem to arise from ‘changes to our student population’, your unions point out that at the bottom of any issues caused by changes in student demographics, there has been long term mismanagement by the university management group, which has failed to be tackled robustly by Court.

Rates of sickness at GCU.

Psychological reasons are now our number 1 sickness absence reason, at 39% compared to a sector average of 26 percent. Our percentage of long term sickness absence is just over 72 percent, compared with a sector average of 54 percent. GCU cannot keep using band-aids to treat a serious illness.

Our staffing crisis:

Our university has the 4th worst student staff ratio in the UK. We are in a staffing crisis and your unions believe we need crisis measures now.

Figures that we think give the wrong impression.

Management state ‘our total academic staff numbers have increased by 4.5 percent since January, against a growth in student numbers of 1.9 percent’. We would say firstly that you can’t compare percentages of two totally different numbers and expect it to make any sense – we wouldn’t accept this in a first year undergraduate essay. There’s also the statement from management that ‘the growth of the student population on our Glasgow Campus this year has been 100 students’ and also that ‘the total number of GCU employees is now higher than any point in the past 10 years’. This is really a totally inadequate presentation of issues that essentially implies staff have never had it so good. We have the 4th worst student staff ratio in the UK. We have rates of sickness that reflect real issues for staff. We know the Higher Education sector does face difficult issues and as staff we are not scared of discussions about possible futures – but presenting figures that suggest ‘crisis, what crisis?’ is not a responsible way of facing up to the challenges of the present and the future.

What wasn’t in the statement

Missing from the statement from the Principal was any mention of research. We say how can research increase or indeed even happen when staff workloads are at a crisis point. There are also clear equality issues in our model of research – we don’t accept that it must be undertaken as and when we can squeeze it in on our evenings and weekends as we ignore our families.

Missing from the statement was any particular consideration of our staff at GCU London campus. We cannot expect staff there to just absorb more and more international students without substantial and detailed investment in staff and their working conditions.

Missing from the statement were the words ‘Professional and Support Staff’. But without Professional and Support Staff……. there is no university.

Our message to management therefore is we need to talk and we look forward to a collegiate discussion on these issues between all staff, the Principal, and your Trade Union representatives early in the New Year.