When do you think universities will open?

[googlepoodle]

I would think they would be definitely be working to a September deadlines for the new academic year.
But do we think any sooner? I am professional services staff and currently working from home.

Yes, so far my university, like many others has already lost income:

Not charging for the third term of accommodation.
Conference/events income eradicated.

Plus:
Big, as yet unanswerable questions about how many International students will come and about how many of the September intake will opt to defer.

Then the question of what provision to offer and what precautions will be needed ...

What will/can the government do to help? Can they cap student intake for Russell Group institutions (no signs yet that they will do this)?

Not all students fall into that low risk category. Plenty have pre-existing conditions or already have difficulties with mental health.

How do you offer distance learning for lab based courses?

There are just so many variables here.

I've been told that 28 institutions are in a really precarious financial state.

I am not sure I agree that te public sector has to pay the 20% balance over furlough, it is just because they are fleecing tax payers as ever many of whom have been forced to take 20% pay cuts or more the state could not care less how much it spends.

I work in PS too although income generation role. If loads defer what is the potential knock effect for A level pupils next year with much less places available. Also did anyone see the Times article two weeks ago about income v expenditure. Every UK uni was mentioned. Uni of Reading is about £40m in the red while UCL is £118 in the black. Although I heard from someone higher up at UCL that this figure is mostly research funding hence restricted. Not endowment. I also wonder if a Sept date for undergrads could be pushed back to Lent term start? With holidays and reading weeks they could go for two longer terms (lent and summer).

Do you have a link?

For my subject, a traditional social science, it would be possible to teach online and face to face simultaneously- the lectures are lecture captured, and we could run some seminars face to face and some Zoom each week (please not terrible Teams). Discussion groups might get more active. The idea of a summer school is great too.

The irony of all this is that only half my students attend lectures consistently, some dip in and out and some are never seen. By the end of term, attendance is really very low. This may be because lectures are online now anyway. My lectures are rated highly- by those that attend! So, we are turning ourselves inside out for a much smaller number who actually want a large amount of face to face tuition- so many students say that's what they want, their parents want it too, and they then don't turn up. A lot of students are happy with online lectures (and I can see a few never watch them) and the odd seminar, it appears.

@user1494050295 do you have a link - I couldn’t find that info by searching.

Just had two pieces of information round:

Our honours project students are being told they must proceed as if they cannot do any lab work or F2F work - for some this won't be an issue and for others it will be devastating. The up side is that they are being told now, while they are just planning their experimental work. Some can do modelling, some can analyse existing data.

And an invitation to a Teams meeting about online teaching with examples from those that do it a lot. None of them are in a lab based subject (there is a Maths representative so I can't say no STEM).

Can I ask how do you monitor whether someone has looked at a PPT or a Panopto, etc? I can't see a facility in Blackboard which allows me to do that?

lisasimpson "Do students want a degree from Durham, or do they want to have gone to Durham?" Exactly this. My son is due to start a Masters at Oxford this year. He is not paying tuition fees of £21,000 + for online teaching. He deferred last year to secure funding and is currently wfh. A degree from Oxford only has value to him if it includes the opportunities to network, to be involved in all the social and new opportunities being physically present affords. If they go online he will apply later to another course and stay in employment

Quite nicslackey - will he be looking at online alternatives? I guess he could wait a while to decide

Have any academics ('student-facing staff' as we're now called) heard anything informal (or formal) about pay cuts? A London university is apparently telling high-earning staff that they may need to take a pay cut.

Oooh! Which one is that? Of course I am not in the 'high earning' bracket but that is a significant development.

What counts as 'high earning' in this context?

I’ve heard that one southern English uni has told academic staff they will have paycuts.

Sussex?

Cardiff VC taking a 20% pay cut and suggesting other board members take 10%. No mention of cuts for regular academic staff so maybe "senior staff" means "senior management"...

www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-52479007

So many people are now on 80% salaries it’s only logical that some unis will do this too. With our economy already down by 35% and not forecast to return to last year levels for quite a while it’s something many of us will have to manage.

Those people on 80% salaries are furloughed which is different from being asked to work as normal but for 80% of the pay.

Those people on 80% salaries are furloughed which is different from being asked to work as normal but for 80% of the pay

I know I should not complain, but I'm not 'working as normal', my load has increased and rumour has it it will only get worse.

Many people in businesses are being asked to take pay cuts but work more.

However, I certainly agree that increasing working hours further is terrifying for academics who already work very long hours -- remember the famous 100 hours per week tweet by Mary Beard last year.

Yes, my lawyer daughter was asked to take a 10% (or 20% cannot remember which) pay cut (in house lawyer) but refused as she was already in the notice period she gave before covid 19 so no incentive to accept it and only just over the level at which they were asking people to agree. Lots of people in the private sector in practice have a choice of something like 20% lose their jobs or everyone has lower pay and that kind of thing as we had in 2008 and the 90s recession and other times.

Soetimes employers use a slump as a pretext however as they could be very busy. It is one big issue I have with furlough money. I don't think you have to prove your business has been affected one iota by covid 19 to get the free furlough money - you could just decided everyone hates Jim and we want to sack him anyway so let us stick him on furlough and Janice who is always off sick or skiving. Or it could be a company which before covid was nearly bust anyway and now they get money to keep going from basically us - tax payers many of whom are not getting any state compensation and no furlough money.

It is difficult to impose across the board salary cuts for regular academic staff because their salaries are paid from different funding streams, including some, such as research grants, that ringfence funding to be used for specific named academic staff.

But UKRI research grants only provide 80% of the funding. I think universities could find a legal way to cut salaries 20% due to this -- though I am certainly not aware of any university planning to do this. The only discussions I am aware of are for very highly paid staff.

BTW there is anyhow no reason that cuts would be made across the board. Furloughing has already distinguished between different funding sources, with staff funded by industry/charities put on furlough, while those paid through public funding are not meant to be furloughed.

Not all research grants come from UKRI though. In my own department, about half our grants are paid at FEC. It would prove to be enormously divisive.

Yes, it would be divisive - but the situation already is, given that those funded through industry are being treated differently, as the industrial sponsors cannot afford to keep paying.

But again, I cannot imagine that any universities are thinking of pay cuts for researchers, the vast majority of which are paid on lower pay scales (