From: Stephen Or Des Desmond <stephen.desmond@solent.ac.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, August 2, 2023 4:16 pm
To: Stephen Or Des Desmond <stephen.desmond@solent.ac.uk>
Subject: Dear Solent UCU Member
Dear Solent UCU Member
I hope you are having a good Summer.
🙂
Just a preliminary update on a range of issues:
General Meetings
I will be writing to you in early September with dates for regular UCU Solent General Meetings over the coming academic year.
Office Hours for Casework and UCU Info.
Once September starts, I will be holding weekly online office hours for UCU members who have casework issues, or who need UCU information.
I will send you details Sept. 1st.
My pledge to you is a 24 hour response time when you need to speak with a UCU Rep. regarding any issue you are having at work.
Visiting your Area
Once September kicks in, I will be contacting each staffing group in each distinct area and arranging to come and visit you as a group where you work and teach. I have already been invited to visit Warsash by UCU members there. It will be an opportunity for me to learn more about your area and meet you in person.
I will create a monthly members’ newsletter which will partly focus on these meetings.
From Head Office and The General Secretary
We expect to have further updated information from Head Office in early Sept. regarding current national patterns of industrial action and negotiations. I will be emailing you early September. The General Secretary is seeking agreement with UCEA (the University & College Employers Group) for a package mitigating any salary deductions experienced by UCU members across the UK during the ongoing MAB.
This is the most recent letter from The General Secretary dated August 1st:
https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/13126/UCEA-talks-break-downJSG
I am on Annual Leave until August 31st, but have been attending Joint Staffing Group at Solent as Chair of UCU, with the Director of P&D, The Regional UCU Official, The Solent Chair of Unison, and The Deputy Vice-Chancellor. This Thursday we are also meeting with the Provost.
There are a range of proposals from the University that we will be bringing to your attention, and putting forward to the Branch membership for your vote.
PRIDE
This year at Solent we are encouraging as many students and staff as possible to participate in the Southampton Pride Parade with the Solent University group. This year the Southampton Pride Parade is the 26th August. I have stepped in for Kayleigh (Chair of the LGBT+ network) while she is away, and this morning P&D asked me to remind everyone about Southampton Pride and the Solent Walking Group. If you are interested in walking with the Solent University group you can sign up through a link on this Solent University Blog Post: https://staff.solent.ac.uk/news/get-involved-with-southampton-pride.
Solent UCU Website:
We have started updating the Solent UCU website:
So, that’s it for now.
Enjoy August!
🙂
In solidarity,
Steve D.
Chair Solent UCU
Health & Safety Rep.
Acting Branch Secretary.
Solent UCU Branch Meeting Summary
On Friday the 29th of March 2019 UCU members at Solent University held a meeting which focused on academic workload planning, career pathways, progression of lecturers, the issue with unit surveys and the issue of annual leave and RSA.
Mark Farwell hosted the meeting laying out the agendas of the day. The first issue highlighted was about Academic Workload Planning (AWP). It was clear that UCU members were not impressed with the University’s structure of AWP. The atmosphere in the meeting was that most lecturers felt that they are doing more than the hours set up in the AWP guidelines. One of the members suggested that they are recording the amount of hours they are currently doing then will present them at the end of the academic year as concrete evidence that most lecturers are doing more than the hours set up in the Academic Workload Planning.
Another highlighted was the staff to student ratio at some of the units across courses at the university. The issue surrounding health and safety should not be overlooked by university’s and the UCU board discussed the issue summing up that it is difficult to have a seminar session with 30+ students who will probably need feedback within the provided two hours of a seminar session.
Another issue raised was the unit surveys that are carried out by the university. Based on the meeting, there was a call for withdrawal for the unit surveys mainly because the board viewed them as a strain for students and the main one which is the question whether unit surveys comply with GDPR guidelines.
To conclude the meeting a motion to withdraw the unit surveys was passed as every member who attended the meeting voted in support to withdraw the unit surveys carried out across all units at the university.
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