SE Regional Committee UCU notes the widespread dismay and anger across the sector at the short-sighted and bullying initiative lately undertaken by the University of Surrey senior management. The ‘Operational Review’ being carried out by Surrey senior management not only threatens 100 jobs, it expands and intensifies the type of micro-management which is anathema to both job-satisfaction or to academic excellence. The loss of those posts (75 of them expected to be academic) will not only weaken the fabric of support for students and their disciplines, it will also result in a real increase of teaching and teaching-related work for staff who remain at the University.

In place of fear and fury, Sir Christopher Snowden, the obscenely overpaid VC of Surrey, needs to work in partnership with academic, administrative and student-support staff. The processes of trust and reciprocity which should stand at the heart of relationships between staff and students, and between staff and the University, stand in grave danger of being eroded at the University of Surrey. UCU members in the South-East Region offer our full solidarity to our colleagues in the University of Surrey as they resist the threats to the credibility and integrity of the University of Surrey as a HE institution. We will support you in your campaign to protect Higher Education at the University of Surrey in any way we can.

Mick Dawson – SE Regional Committee Secretary

Patricia McManus – Higher Education Committee (HEC) of NEC