UCU, the Universities Strike and Me: Why I Am on Strike Today

If you read the papers, you may be aware that university lecturers are on strike today, at least some of them. I am one.

Why? Is it about the money. Well yes some, but being honest I am striking over pay only because nothing else was balloted and nothing else is on the table. So, yes. It is about the money.

It is about the money because in the last data I have seen, my VC makes more than the prime minister and more than the VC at our better sister University in the same city. No he isn’t worth it. At least I don’t think so. I’d think he was worth it if he sent half his salary to David Cameron. He’d still be well paid. I don’t even like the guy (David Cameron that is) but he has a very important and very difficult job and I respect him for the work he does, whatever disagreements I have with him and his policies. Just so you know, I don’t like Gordon Brown, or Blair, or Major, or Thatcher either. I can’t imagine enjoying sitting down to dinner with any of them. But they were all worth the money they were paid.

But if the money is only a minor issue, what are the others. There is only time for some of them.

In the university sector, only slightly over 45% are academic staff. This is sector wide. This value is an average and some universities will be below average. Some are perhaps very much below average. The Boards of Governors of UK universities include some very high powered corporate executives and former executives. I am stunned that this number is not discussed more. It makes me think they are asleep at the wheel and that perhaps they are not asking the right questions. Perhaps they are not that well informed, but I can’t imagine that any who owned their own business would tolerate a figure like that at least without some hard questions.

One estimate I have seen in the press is that at the new rate of fees, each hour of instruction costs a student £45. Beginning next week I will be giving a series of 10 lectures to approximately 200 students. This calculates to £90,000, just that set of lectures. I don’t make that much, not even close. Once Friday is over, I will have delivered 10 lectures to approximately 100 students ( another £45,000). I don’t mind that most of it doesn’t go to me, what I mind is...

... when I began university teaching, I was assigned an office and some lab space. That was a long time ago in the West Indies. There, I would lecture to a group of students and for roughly every two weeks of lecture, I would see every student in small tutorials (about 15 students but often fewer). The typical student there paid BD$200. 

... when I moved to the UK in 2005 (about the time the ~£3k top up fees were introduced), I was assigned to a shared office with one other person. I was assigned a small lab and would see each student in small tutorials (about 15 students) about once every 8 lectures. There was an open door policy for students which meant they could see me as long as I was in my office. Much of the time I spent with students involved showing them how to do computations of varying complexity using spreadsheets and I could do these conveniently at my desk. It mostly worked, but my office mate sometimes had to leave because he couldn’t stand to listen to me explain dilution computations AGAIN. 

... now, I work in a shared office with 5 people. Last year the instructional tutorials became something better called a “workshop” and there were two hours of these for 10 hours of lecture and were delivered to groups which were sometimes over 100. A new non-academic “pastoral” tutorial system was introduced. The open door policy no longer exists. I had the heart-breaking experience this year of having to tell students I couldn’t help them, not because I couldn’t at that instant in time, not because my other colleagues were in the office at the time, but because I knew if I broke discipline, within a few weeks the shared office would be more unusable than it already is for work requiring concentration. I felt terrible about this, but part of my job is to be an actor at times so as to not spread negativity. I truly miss the open door policy. I truly miss having an office allowing me to converse easily and non-disruptively with my students. In the years between 2005 and the present, I have had 5 different offices and I will soon move (partly) to the 5^th lab (this is for research not teaching). 

... my experience is that effort delivered to students is inversely proportional to the amount of money those students have been paying. At the same time grades have been inflated.

Some of my colleagues work in offices of 8 or more. There are environments where open plan offices work, apparently, but the evidence is this is not true of knowledge workers. The consequences for me in my 5 person shared office is that I work from home more than I did. Joke if you will about “working” from home, wink, wink, but it is not a joke. I hate it. I despise it. Every minute of my working at home is a sign of failure in my view. I hate it because, I actually like working with students. I hate it because I think it is important for me to be at the University as part of a community. I hate it because for me it represents a failure of vision. I hate it because, my students can’t find me. I hate it because, it makes my work invade my home life more than it already has.

I have colleagues scheduled for 8 hours days without break. I have colleagues who are allocated 2 hours to supervise final year dissertations.

This is just the beginning, but it gives a flavour. Over the course of this year I will teach somewhere between 350 and 400 students. With this size group, almost all statistical probabilities will be visited on one or another of those students. Me and my colleagues need to be there for them. Some of these colleagues will be on short-term or zero-hours contracts. If the year beginning now is like the one just ended, in addition to my teaching and research duties, I will also help students with financial problems, with depression, with mental illness, who have been robbed, who have been raped, who have been defrauded, who have had serious illness, who collapse, who are suicidal. I will write recommendations, I will advise police departments, and support former students to find jobs, to get through tough times, sometimes help them get accommodation. I will receive about 11000 emails and send about 4000. 

So, yes it is about the money, because the environment is not on the table. UCU is one of the few organisations speaking up. The Students Union is also doing good work.

 

Good Students Should Pay More?

The Vice Chancellor of Oxford is a reasonably paid man (base pay in 2011/12 was £371,000 (excluding pension which gave him £53,000 more)). Prof Hamilton is a salt of the earth chap, just like the rest of us despite making about 70% above the average for UK VCs. 

He has this world class idea to go with his world class university. The idea is that students should pay more. 

Foreign students pay a fair whack already, but the students in his sights are home students. These students pay in the neighbourhood of £9000 now. He wants to add £7000 to reach £16,000 (see here). He argues this is needed to pay the true cost of education, at his university. What a great idea!

Clearly this is a world class idea, from a world class vice-chancellor, at a world class university.

Or not.

Oxford is a great university. It is a great university because of its great scholars. It is a great university because of the great students that go there, not because of how much it charges them. It is a self-reinforcing system of attraction between scholars and students. It is not great because of its vice chancellor. The best a VC at Oxford can do is not mess things up.

If it is such a great idea, what might be justifications for £16K fees?

1. Because Oxford needs the money? They don’t. Oxford is doing just fine in the scheme of things. It is one of the richest universities in the UK and if it needs more money, it needs to learn how to budget better. In any case, it would take a little over 140,000 students paying an additional £7000 to add another £1,000,000,000 to the nearly £4 billion it already has.
   
2. Because it would teach better with more money? Unlikely. They already get £6465 in fees from overseas students, but do they teach them 70% better? Do they have 70% better learning outcomes? Do they get 70% more academic time than home students? I suspect they mostly get what home students get, sit in the same lectures with home students, work in the same labs, sit the same exams, learn from the same books, and put their trousers on one leg at a time like the home students. 
3.  Because they want to charge what their competitors in the US (e.g.: Harvard and MIT) do? Unlikely. Net income from students in both places is not what advertised price would have you think. For example, MIT net cost to students after all sources of aid are considered is lower than what a UK student would have paid under the OLD fee regime (~£3000). 
4.  Perhaps, it is just that smarter students (yes, Oxford students are smarter than many others) cost more to educate. Sorry, this doesn’t cut it either. Very good students are easier to educate not harder. They tend to consume less time and, when sitting in the same room getting the same material as students who are not as good, learn more. I know, I have worked with both. Someone teaching at Oxford doesn’t know anything other than very good students because the university doesn’t accept any. They don’t take chances on the kid with 300 UKAS points, at least not that I can tell. Some of these can be made into excellent scholars but it takes some extra work. I have seen it happen. I don’t think Oxford does that very often. 
5.  Because they can? Yes, but not yet.

The last one pretty much nails it. They want to do it because if they set the price that high enough students will pay it. This is the age-old tendency to put money and elitism first. It is the same mentality that made them turn students away with low bank accounts  to the tune of £12,900/yr living expenses. Don’t tell me this is all about talent. It is about 70% more money. Does more money get you more? Ask Prof Hamilton, I am sure he can say what Oxford gets that is worth the extra £110,000 he received above what the VC of Cambridge got (2011/12 data).