A PROTEST took place at Coventry University (CU) at the weekend to oppose a ‘vicious programme of cuts’ which the University and College Union (UCU) says is taking the university in an ‘increasingly dystopian and commercialised’ direction.
Staff and students held an ‘alternative open day’ on Saturday (March 15) to coincide with the official CU event, in protest at what UCU describes as a ‘cost-cutting exercise’ which ‘has left staff morale at rock bottom’.
The event, at The Yard venue, featured speeches from Zarah Sultana MP, UCU General Secretary Jo Grady and President Maxine Looby, Coventry poet laureate John Bernard, university students and staff, and local artists and activists.
The union is calling for CU vice-chancellor John Latham CBE to return the £80,000 bonus he received in 2022-23 and be removed from his position on the board of the Department for Business and Trade – which it says is ‘incompatible with his responsibilities as vice-chancellor’.
UCU also wants Mr Latham to resign from his roles with the Singaporean government, an Australian software company and the NHS England workforce training and education committee.
A UCU spokesperson said: “Latham is overseeing several rounds of redundancies, consultations and restructures which will result in over a hundred job losses.
“Coventry is being driven towards a business-model centred around high staff-turnover, poor pay and insecure contracts. The union instead wants student experience, education, and teaching prioritised above all else.”
UCU Coventry branch president Sharon McGuire said: “We are demanding the vice-chancellor halts his vicious programme of cuts.
“Neither the quality of teaching nor of education is being factored into his increasingly dystopian and commercialised model of higher education.
“This failure to incentivise and keep experienced lecturers can only lead to a brain drain and contribute to the widening gap in the quality of education between post-92 and red brick institutions – disproportionately affecting students from working class backgrounds.”
Ms Grady added: “Latham needs to stop rewarding himself for failure, return his £80k bonus and give up all his plum roles with governments and business so he can focus on working with us to fix this crisis.”
A Coventry University spokesperson said holding a protest ‘deliberately targeting prospective students at the university’s Open Day’ was an ‘extraordinary act of self-harm’.
They added: “We must rebalance our student-staff ratios in line with current student numbers. We are creating new teaching roles, giving staff more time to dedicate to teaching by removing the expectations of research and innovation activities that come with traditional academic lecturer roles. We already employ almost 800 teaching colleagues across the Group in this way.
“The Vice-Chancellor’s roles with other organisations and bodies allow the university to have a meaningful impact further afield than just here in Coventry, benefiting the university group in a multitude of ways.
“The higher education sector is facing numerous challenges out of its control, including Brexit, a seven-year freeze in UK tuition fees, unsustainable pension contributions and the devastating impact of the previous government’s policy U-turn on international students.
“All of this, alongside rising costs, means we are taking action to ensure our long-term sustainability and ability to provide TEF Gold standard teaching.”
