Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting The vice chancellor of York (a Russell group university!), Charlie Jeffery:
“There is no other way of saying this. The UK higher education system is in crisis. The way it is funded just doesn’t work anymore. A rough guess is that about half of the sector is responding by cutting jobs and courses”.
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting Couldn’t have put it any better. Not just the redundancy process; just so sick of all it, what it has become. #Neoliberalism #university
“I am sick of higher education leaders, I am sick of neoliberal thinking, I am sick of scarcity mindsets, I am sick of austerity, I am sick of senior management lacking morals, I am sick of education being decimated, I don’t know how we hang on + do important work for students”
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting I think I have actually not really expressed so far how awful the redundancy process is. To everyone who has been through this or is going through this right now: HUGE solidarity. To those who haven't: what has taken me by surprise is an exponential, unbelievable increase in work. All the normal stuff plus endless meetings, strategies, statements, reports, questionnaires, campaigns, counterproposals, for weeks and weeks on end. Frazzled!
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting Finally read Jonathan Miller's #DeathSpiral piece, and I wish all SMTs across the country getting rid of all their PRODUCTIVE lecturers (ie, the people actually making money for universities, through student fees and research income) would read it, too. They genuinely don't understand what they are doing!
Please, understand the British Leyland's 1970s coat allocation death spiral
Pauline von Hellermann
One reason why it’s all falling apart this year are changes in visa regulations for international students - Tory gov trying to curb immigration - who are no longer allowed to bring dependents.
Hey James Cleverley and Michelle Donelan - stop denying and ignoring this MASSIVE crisis that you are causing! You are destroying a vital sector with your stupid short-sighted policies. You will lose anyway- stop wreaking havock now! (I know this is 💯 pointless)
Pauline von Hellermann
“With wearying inevitability, cuts will be borne disproportionately by arts, humanities & social sciences. Some will doubtlessly cheer the trimming of supposedly “low-value” subject areas. They may be less enthusiastic about the knock-on effect their demise would have on more expensive to teach science and technology subjects, or the wider impact of rapid restructuring in a sector that supports more than three quarters of a million jobs and contributes £130bn to the economy.”
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting 🧵 another really excellent piece on the UK higher education crisis, by Hannah Rose Woods in The New Statesman”:
Experts believe it is already “too late” to avert the oncoming funding disaster: “all everyone can do now is brace”.
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2024/04/university-funding-is-in-crisis
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting I had not mentioned so far: Goldsmiths lectures and union are resisting redundancies in many ways, including a Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB). Senior Management have responded with highly punitive 50% salary deductions, for 2 months. So we are losing a month pay!!
This too is unbelievably stressful - in fact, is stressing me out more than anything at the moment (unappreciative teenage children for a start). Especially when you might still end up jobless. #UCU.
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting Reading "Tips for Redundancy" compiled by a UCU colleague elsewhere:
"Keep a Diary
Going through a redundancy process is traumatic but you will find that you become hardened and come to expect the mistreatment to which you are being subjected. Keeping a diary of how you felt at points throughout the whole process is a way of tracking how it is impacting upon your life (both work and personal)."
It's true, writing things down helps! But also: you definitely harden up.
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting 🧵 and now this piece by Jessica Wildfire @aral shared earlier today.
“Universities aren't institutions of knowledge anymore. They're assets. They're revenue streams. If they're not generating money for the top, then they only pose a threat, and they have to be weakened and destroyed.”
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting Good 2021 piece by Asheesh Kapur Siddique linking rightwing university politics - ie, the oppression of #Gaza student protests we are currently seeing - to this 🧵’s overall theme: the marketisation of HE. Tight establishment control (with all its crappy values) is a direct result of marketisation.
About the US but much of it applicable to UK and Australia too.
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/campus-cancel-culture-university-boards
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting we are trying to fight draconian redundancies at Goldsmiths at a time when there is a concerted effort by government, the anti-woke brigade and others to reduce the HE sector as a whole. There are more and more articles like this one, talking about how little bits of optimism amount to a collective “cloud cuckooland”.
There is a real onslaught.
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting We now have a GoFundMe for our Goldsmiths #UCU hardship fund, due to 50% salary reductions for marking boycott. If you are in HE and in your union, perhaps you could ask your branch whether they could contribute? Feel awkward about saying this but: every donation welcome.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-goldsmiths-ucu-fight-mass-redundancies
Pauline von Hellermann
@inquiline thank you, it’s ok. I am honestly by now just glad to leave the place behind me. I don’t have anything else lined up, which, in the current climate, is a little daunting, but still. Just resentful that because of constant crisis and abusive world conditions i have managed virtually no writing over last year and am so behind, but determined to catch up now!
inquiline
@pvonhellermannn I don't even know what to say to this. Appalling!
Pauline von Hellermann
After more back and forth (a great 0.5 was advertised for us 3 to compete for - same duties, half pay - but none of us applied) and more charming communications from our “Transformatipn Programme team” (always anonymous!) I have now accepted “enhanced redundancy”. Onwards and upwards!
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting #Redundancy These days I really can’t find the words to recount what’s going on. Let’s just say a lot of back and forth; chaos, incompetence and cruelty; never ending visionless mediocrity that destroys everything.
One thing to report: i have now had the privilege of an ACAS webinar. More competent than anything coming from SMT, but no faces, no in person questions, and a cheery “See you next time” screen at the end. Corporate dystopia, straight from #BlackMirror
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting #Redundancy Two weeks today and sadly not quite there yet with finding new ways forward - for one, there is just so much to do, get your head around, decisions to make around redundancy process itself. And this past week a physical reaction set in, just sheer exhaustion.
Also want to note once more: it really is unbelievable what is being done to myself and 96 brilliant colleagues. The “how” aa much as the “what”. And to Goldsmiths. It is total vandalism, brutal, traumatic.
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting 🧵#Redundancy It’s now been a week - what a week, with two historic elections thrown in too!
A HUGE thank you for all the lovely, supportive messages. They have really helped me, hugely. Knowing that others have gone through this (what a total experience), and that there are other possibilities. It’s early days (and there is so much work in the reduncancy process itself), but as so many of you’ve said: other doors may open.
Maybe i will keep this 🧵to share this transition?
Pauline von Hellermann
Well this is it. i am being made redundant.
Pauline von Hellermann
For the (self-pitying) record: we will hear Monday or Tuesday who will be made redundant. “We” being those of us still in scope; there has been a bewildering reduction of “in scope” groups this past week, after everyone spent days and days on their IAFs (see above).
I am in scope; all reduncancies in my dep are at SL/Reader grade. 5 of us scored (out of “90”) and ranked. Top 2 stay, bottom 2 go, middle gets 0.5. It is psychologically torturous. We are friends! #HungerGames
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting Surreally, I am on my way to a big conference, Anthropology and Education. Doing a panel on regenerative anthropology. But the conference cost an obscene £320, that I only secured at the last second - we don’t have a research budget anymore, but suddenly we did get one now (in June). Meanwhile of course also #redundancy looming. We so desperately need a new everything. #RegenerativeAnthropology, #RegenerativeAcademia, everything.
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting Well, we all submitted our "Individual Assessment Forms" last Wednesday. Now looks like ALL cuts in my department will be made at my level, Senior Lecturer; 3 out 5 of us are supposed to go.
It is absolutely INSANE how all this is unfolding; the kinds of people who are in charge of all this. We are supposed to hear on Friday who it will be.
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting Did this post separately but want to add to 🧵 😊
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting #HungerGames Here is my lovely colleague Michael Rosen at the picket line yesterday, asking:
how will they score “We Are Going On A Bearhunt”?
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting #HungerGames for the last two days i have been getting the loveliest student testimonials and frankly been in a complete state. All that kindness and caring. But i can’t bear that simultaneously these are also instruments of potential harm against my colleagues. I have not even started work on my IAF, partly due to other deadlines, partly because i simply can’t bring myself to.
Pauline von Hellermann
Today our “Individual Assessment Form” (IAFs - formerly known as SMQs - “skills management questionnaires” - no idea why the name change but who cares)
are due in. We all have to attach things like student evaluations and progression data as well as publications, grants, etc. Then we will be scored against each other and some of us selected for redundancy. I am in a pool of 4 (with 3 wonderful colleagues) - we are going down to 2.
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting if anyone wants to know what Stage 2 of the redundancy process is like:
#HungerGames with mitigation forms.
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting I haven't been writing much here as it's just been too stressful. We are now officially in Stage 2; none of the counterproposals, none of our objections during "collective consultation" made any difference; still planning to make over 130 of us redundant. But we are resisting! Students have occupied Deptford Town Hall! #NotADoneDeal #UCU @ucu
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting Anyway, here a nice comment piece by Polly Toynbee
“Tories and their pollsters see as clear as day that the growth in highly educated citizens, above the OECD average, is a social and political revolution not in their favour: the more educated people are, the less likely they are to vote for what John Stuart Mill called “the stupidest party”.”
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting The crisis in HE (higher education) is so tangible it’s making headline news; our dangerous exposure to changes in migration/visa regimes and therefore whims of government ever more apparent.
Who is completely silent on all this (as fas as I know), as on everything else? Starmer, Labour. It would make a massive difference, and would work for them. But no. Everyone beholden to the same - imagined! - anti-woke, anti-immigration, anti-university voter.
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting Just to say again: all this is so stressful- losing 50% of your salary for a marking boycott that maybe won’t make any difference, given the wider hostile environment. It’s not even about the reality of challenges; it’s the fact that all these reports are out there, right now. It gives ammunition to those wanting to fire us, and weakens our case.
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting They tried to go one step further by abolishing the current work visa for international students (allowing int students to stay for 2 years after graduating). Luckily the Migratory Advice Committee firmly pushed back on this last week, and hopefully none of this will come to anything once Tories are out, but it’s impacting
International students decision making - we already have offer holders pulling out of our MAs.
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting this coincides with the UK government’s calamitous attempt to combat “net migration” by reducing the number of international students; they are no longer allowed to bring dependents (neither are care workers. The cruelty!) This is a tweet by our lovely prime minister. We have a government that is actively hostile to HE (one of the economically most important sectors in the country)
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting 🧵#Redundancy But by yesterday afternoon I somehow turned a corner; I am beginning to work out strategies for being an environmental anthropologist in my own right, even without institutional backing. I may have a new book contract; a small consultancy for the RSPB; and some teaching for the wonderful New School of the Anthropocene. No huge earners but all really helping psychologically right now. Here’s to #RegenerativeAnthropology!
#ClimateDiary
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting 🧵#Redundancy then I spent this last week with two very different but equally misery-inducing aspects of extrication:
a) sorting out future of my PhD students (4 current, 2 that were due to start now) - many conflicting emotions, and it’s all just so sad;
b) battling with the intersection of email, Outlook, Google, Teams, Adobe, Microsoft, etc. The horrors of this really showed how helplessly entangled we all are in all these platforms! (Not asking for tech advice).
Pauline von Hellermann
#AcademicVenting 🧵#Redundancy Further twists and turns in the last couple of weeks: AFTER 62 of us accepted enhanced redundancy and 18 took fractional contracts (forced by deadlines), SMT and union struck a deal that the remaining 11 - the ones going for appeal - would be reinstated. Allowing both SMT and UCU to collude on a “no compulsory redundancies” narrative; UCU widely celebrating this as a union victory. A bit galling.
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