Staff and students at the University of Sussex have taken to social media to express their dissatisfaction of management’s response to the combined impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the industrial action. Concerns have been raised regarding the university’s move to online teaching, the decision to charge students full tuition fees for this term (including the inflated rates of tuition for international students), the financial burden for students paying rent, and the decision to terminate the contracts of casual and temporary agency staff “where possible”. Katie Tobin reports.
Current final year students will have lost up to 9 weeks teaching throughout the course of their degree as a result of industrial action. Historically, the University of Sussex has offered ex gratia payments of up to £130 to students who have been severely impacted by the strikes.
However, these payments fail to account for the inflated tuition fees for international students. Current Students’ Union Postgraduate Officer Benjamin Matthew’s says “Masters students are obviously mostly here for a year, and international students pay up to 4x the home student rate. 48% of Masters’ students are international, 28.9% of students overall are postgrad, so it’s a huge number of students paying up to 4x for a year that resulted in huge loss of teaching and learning compared to what they were basically sold.
“There really needs to be greater consideration for students who travelled thousands of miles to study at Sussex, who now have had the investment they have made in their future, money Sussex is planning on keeping, to have resulted in such a poor academic experience.
“Commodification of education is wrong, but so is not being given what you’ve paid for. As far as BAME students are concerned, the Sussex awarding gap is at 14.3%, so BAME students are already disadvantaged.
“In an open letter to university management I called for BAME students to have their overall end grade increased by 14.3% so that the institutional racism and colonialist approaches to teaching are properly compensated for.”
Alongside the universities of Edinburgh, Southampton, and Exeter, the University of Sussex has adopted a “no detriment” policy for grading assessments. The decision follows the publication of an open letter by Sussex students Thomas Polyblank and Jude Whiley-Morton. The letter was signed by over 1,300 students and garnered support from Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas. In an email addressing all students, Vice-Chancellor Adam Tickell explains that “your Semester 2 passed marks will not be lower than the average mark you achieved in Semester 1”.
Replying to Tickell’s initial response open letter rejecting the move of teaching online, Thomas and Jude noted that “key aspects of university life beyond seminars and lectures are now unavailable, such as the library and the learning environment afforded by a campus itself”. In a recent email from the Pro Vice-Chancellor Kelly Coates, the university has stated that it shall not be reimbursing students’ tuition fees. She claims that university is “doing all we can to ensure the education and learning you’re receiving remains at a high-standard. We are also working hard to ensure you are able to achieve the learning outcomes of your course.”
With many students still paying full rent for properties they have vacated since the commencement of lockdown, a letter written from 110 MPs to the universities minister, called for a flexible approach to assessment, refunds of rents on unoccupied accommodation. It also demanded the temporary suspension of the rule preventing students claiming universal credit. They argue that students should have the option to resit the year without further fees and with additional financial support.
Financial precarity is also a concern for staff too. In an email sent to department heads, Vice-Chancellor Adam Tickell has called for casual and temporary agency staff to be terminated “as soon as possible”. The email contained a budget guideline set out by the finance director of the university. The guidelines requested that “tasks should be reassigned to other members of your team or non-critical tasks may need to be temporarily suspended”. This includes doctoral tutors,
One member of staff Tweeted: “After all the work we’ve been doing to support students, way above and beyond our contracts, our VC now wants our contracts terminated early? In the middle of a pandemic?”
In response, the Sussex University and College Union urging management to respond to the COVID-19 crisis with the “principles of compassion, courage and justice”. They call for humane Executive action, following the likes of KCL, St Andrew’s, and Birkbeck, which have “cancelled strike deductions to match the goodwill shown by UCU members, many of whom are on short-term contracts with no guarantee of paid employment ahead of them, and who are nevertheless working long hours to respond to the challenging circumstances with which they are confronted”. KCL has also “provided a range of assurances and options for paid leave for those members of staff who have crises of care in their own families and local communities”.
Ultimately, the impact of the industrial action and the coronavirus pandemic will have an exceptional effect on both University of Sussex students and staff. However, as demonstrated by the swift decisions made by management at other Higher Education institutions, there are ways to support staff and students during this incredibly difficult time. The effects of pandemic have been unprecedented, but this is why it is crucial for management to effectively communicate what the options are, even if management themselves are uncertain of what the best path to follow may be.
