We have today received this message from a member of the campaign group on campus: ‘Surrey Students Support The UCU Strike’

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To the academic staff that have invested in my personal development and education over the last four years,

I am writing to express my support and solidarity with UCU members that will be striking and partaking in other industrial action on Thursday 22nd February and Friday 23rd February. I will not cross picket lines, and therefore will be deliberately not attending any contact hours during these days.

Myself and many students recognise the importance of this strike action: it represents not just the labour interests of current staff, but also of current students, future staff and all those that wish to pursue a higher education in years to come. We see the severity of this industrial action as entirely justified and proportional as a response to UUK refusing to reopen negotiations about the proposed hardline, brutal pension cuts. There are structural flaws in the HE sector, however when the few who are in power continue to act in short-term, self interest at the cost of the many – there is no chance of dismantling these barriers.

Staff working conditions are student learning conditions, and if we allow the hard work of our academics to become treated as an exchangeable commodity, we then become complicit in the commercialisation of our own education. We become complicit in upholding the current barriers that prevent disadvantaged groups participating in HE, as a result of the increasing marketisation of education. We become complicit in degrading academia. There will be disruption; that is the point. If we do not disrupt UUK now, we stand to see the education become disrupted, warped and shaped in the interests profit, not people.

I believe universities are an environment where we invest in our minds, discover and develop a strong sense of self, so we can collectively research and address the challenges in our society. Perhaps the Bioscience Department exemplifies this most. Why are we here is we don’t care about understanding and improving life on Earth?

The University of Surrey is not and should not be a market place where we trade knowledge, it can and will remain a place with values and integrity. If we forget what it means to be part of an academic community, if we forget to stand in solidarity together, if we forget that our individual experience at Surrey is the result of the hard work of a much larger collective – then we have learnt nothing.

I stand in solidarity with UCU. I stand in solidarity with what Higher Education should be.

Yours Sincerely,

‘Surrey Students Support The UCU Strike’

Surrey Students Support UCU will be sending an open letter to Max Lu on Thursday Feb 22nd