{"id":1386,"date":"2025-01-26T16:40:36","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T16:40:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=1386"},"modified":"2025-01-26T16:52:40","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T16:52:40","slug":"the-most-badass-vice-chancellor-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=1386","title":{"rendered":"The Most Badass Vice Chancellor in the UK?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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We know, we know \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last decade has been like watching a gang of rogues and grifters take over the UK universities and treat them like conquered vassal states to be used as spoils of war for any purpose that serves their personal whims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can we pick the most badass VC? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly, we can rule out the half-bright simpletons like Professor Karen Cox of University of Kent<\/a> or Professor Iain Gillespie of Dundee University<\/a>. They knew just enough to get their institutions into very serious financial trouble. Their prompt departures as the grim deficits became public suggest they knew all too well what was happening. They have left others to fix their messes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can\u2019t call someone badass just because they forgot where they put their brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, the toughest, craziest, most hardcore badass VC must be \u2026 Professor Colin Bailey of Queen Mary, University of London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the marking boycott in 2023 over pay and working conditions, participants at Queen Mary faced big wage deductions. Exam grading makes up only a minor portion of an academic\u2019s responsibilities. Staff continued with other teaching and mentoring duties. They only stopped working for a few hours, yet all of their pay was taken for each day of the boycott. This hard-line response was widely criticised in the press<\/a> with stories of the hardship faced by those affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Can you name the big British employer that punished staff for boycotting a small fraction of their work by taking all of their pay for each day of their boycott? So that even while employees did their other tasks, putting in weeks of work, their pay packets were pilfered, month after month, from high summer until almost the start of advent. Some had to take extra jobs, others drew on hardship funds or stuck essential bills on credit cards. Amid a cost of living crisis and with Christmas looming, the Great Wage Robbery carried on. (<\/em>Aditya Chakrabortty, The Guardian<\/em><\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Queen Mary now face an Employment Tribunal led by UCU branch chair Zara Dinnen to determine the legality of their actions. Whatever the Tribunal decides, Queen Mary was the only UK university to act in this way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Prof Bailey\u2019s eyes, the apparatus of Stasi-land has been set up in Queen Mary. Snitch forms<\/a> were introduced to enable students to report lecturers. Then, at a cost of \u00a3400,000, spy cams, sensors and surveillance equipment<\/a> were installed in six of its buildings ostensibly to record staff usage of space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThere was a sudden flurry of e-mails and conversations: the head of the department didn\u2019t know anything about it, the school manager didn\u2019t know. It came from the top, and it was very matter of fact<\/em>\u201d (reported in Nature<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

These are actions that create an inhospitable workplace and betray a contempt for staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As financial pressures on universities intensified in 2024, Queen Mary responded by closing its Westfield Nursery<\/a>. The nursery provided childcare for staff and students. The decision to close it was made with little consultation. 19 nursery employees were made jobless and 78 children lost their nursery places. Younger academics often face a choice between progressing their career or starting a family. This affects male family planning choices, but is most harmful to women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like almost every UK university, Queen Mary is getting rid of its staff. Nearly 60 academics<\/a> left via a Voluntary Severance Scheme in early 2024. The victims were made clear right at the start: \u201cApplications are being particularly encouraged from the Schools of English and Drama and the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film<\/em>\u201d. The resulting loss of staff was used to push the merger of the School of English & Drama with the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film into a shrunken department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, there is still money for some things. Prof Bailey gets a salary of \u00a3361108<\/a> (for 2023-2024) <\/a>and free use of a \u00a32 million property in central London. \u201cThe university covers all cost of utilities, council tax, maintenance, and pension contributions for the vice-chancellor’s accommodation<\/em>\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And recently The Times<\/a> showed a beaming Prof Bailey entertaining Baroness Smith of Malvern and Wu Yan (the Chinese vice-minister of education) at a lavish event at Queen Mary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, academic work largely relies on the goodwill of staff who are already stretched thin. We work on weekends and in the evenings driven by our commitment to our colleagues and our students, and by our desire to do research and teaching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Universities that are actively hostile to their employees will struggle to operate effectively day-to-day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no reward in being the ultimate tough-as-nails, untamed, unyielding badass Vice Chancellor<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the main reasons why the Government has declined to help the Universities out of their financial woes is excessive Vice Chancellor pay and perks, which has fed a narrative of waste and mismanagement. The 21 Group will be examining the records of a few more of our lavishly rewarded Vice Chancellors over the coming weeks.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We know, we know \u2026 The last decade has been like watching a gang of rogues and grifters take over the UK universities and treat them like conquered vassal states to be used as spoils of war for any purpose that serves their personal whims. How can we pick the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1386"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1392,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1386\/revisions\/1392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}