Marking & Assessment Boycott

[aridapricot]

So how do you think this will pan out this time? Are you taking part? How do you think things will go in your university/department?
My uni is docking 30% pay. Also in my department (where the spirit tends to be "yes we'll do whatever UCU asks us to do but we'll also go out of our way to cause any inconvenience to students") people are already talking about mitigations... 🙄I am not a UCU member and won't be taking part but I also fear that at some point I will be asked to cover colleague's marking or (even worse) redistribute it (given that I'm HoD).

The only achievement I can see is that the membership have had the wool well and truly pulled from their eyes. I will not be volunteering for "greater good" citizenship type tasks in future if they are not properly workloaded. Tell it to the hand.

I found this article which spells out the UCU demands for calling off the MAB

• no further MAB deductions
• repayment of MAB deductions
• no requirement to do work not done due to the MAB
• an increased pay offer.

It’s as if UCU didn’t want there to be any progress towards settlement, just perpetual industrial action.

Sorry again to everyone who MABbed in good faith.

Whooops. Attaching the article would help.

https://medium.com/@DyfrigJones/stop-trying-to-make-sellout-happen-f0a16d92a2d7

Absolutely deranged.

Grady et al are meeting today to discuss calling an emergency HEC meeting. Not clear whether it would be possible to get a new ballot done in time.

Jo Grady on Twitter: "Today I have requested that we call an emergency HEC Myself, the President, and VP meet tomorrow to determine the date and timescales that ensures branches and members can input UCEA have demonstrated unparalleled intransigence. We must come together and determine next steps." / X

Just realised that Jo Grady is dyslexic, as per her twitter bio. I am very sorry about commenting negatively on the errors in her thesis abstract, though I do wonder why she didn’t get someone else to proofread it. Mea culpa.

As for the emergency meeting, wasn’t the UCEA offer entirely foreseeable?

Honestly how many people can afford to continue, apart from the money, relationships have been irreparably damaged. So nice to hear people talk of the professional support staff on here as it can feel a very lonely place. The UCEA are intransigent and the UCU frankly have backed themselves into a corner .

Complete aside but have this weekend had three young people in my house all at RG universities all who at Easter were pretty supportive of the action. One has graduated but only heard on the actual day of his graduation and doesn’t have complete marks but enough, one is second year and has had one out of six results ( interestingly taught by a visiting lecturer from the US) and one has just lost his third year overseas placement as it was results dependent , they are understandably devastated ( parents are apoplectic) . All though are just defeated and dejected ; said they wouldn’t advise anyone to go to uni in this country, cheaper to go to Holland apparently . All were sympathetic to their individual lecturers but just felt let down by the whole debacle, these are very positive resilient young people and it was shocking actually.

Interesting, pootleq5. This is the first time UCU action has actually made a tangible difference to students. Strikes only mean disruption and missed content - of course that’s bad but some students also appreciated that it made their exams easier as lecturers made sure material that wasn’t taught wasn’t tested. Last year’s MAB was entirely absorbed by professional services staff - marks were late but did come in.

I only have anecdotal evidence, and wish there was a way to reliably test student sentiment this year. There were quite a few students who supported the MAB in the media (but those could be outliers) - wonder what they are thinking now. We might see some impact in next year’s NSS. (This year’s NSS should also be interesting, due to the new freedom of speech question.)

From a purely selfish perspective, university lecturers need young, middle-class people to choose to go to university in this country, this is our main ‘customer base’, and our salaries are paid by fees. It’s probably unlikely that those young people go to the Netherlands or the US en masse but ten fewer students on a degree course that is already suffering from low recruitment could actually put that course at risk of being shut down.

Interesting exucu , the individual who made that comment has an older sibling at Leiden . Academically they have apparently found it more intense than the sibling at a London university , and despite not being in the EU it’s costing about the same .

These are not the type of young people who like easier exams, they are worried about missing content and one missed 5 solid weeks of teaching in February and also some the previous year, they are in a very unionised department. One had hoped for a career in academia but she has decided to apply to do a postgrad in Australia ( family connection) , despite being offered courses here because she is worried that the course will be affected by MAB/strikes. The one who has missed the overseas placement is looking to privately transfer to an overseas university.

I am so angry at the people in HE management and the government , higher education is one of our most successful exports . We have so many outstanding researchers and teachers and like everything else it has been sold down the river.

Leiden is probably one of if not the best university in the Netherlands, at least for hums and soc sci - definitely a great option for adventurous UK students. Other countries in the EU increasingly offer courses in English, for a fraction of the price of UK courses. While UK HE is becoming a basket case, the competition isn’t sleeping.

It’s actually really heartening to hear that students are angry about missing out on content.

I’m also angry at the government (really, this is the work of successive governments, going back all the way to Blair) and employers but I think UCU has to take some of the blame, too.

Anyone want a depressing bedtime story?

https://ucucommons.org/2023/08/03/hec-and-the-summer-ballot/

If it is really true that the ballot hasn't been timed in the right way so as to let the boycott ran uninterrupted, then that's incompetent beyond belief.
The only way in which this makes sense is, if the UCU wants to create complete chaos, with the universities pressuring UCU members to do the marking in a short window of time, and students non-MABbing and professional staff being caught in the middle, heightened stress for everyone... but this would come at the cost of burning out MAB-bing members so I doubt it's intentional.

I’ve seen some interesting responses to that Commons post, saying that it’s more plausible that the GS and others didn’t think that they wouldn’t get something from UCEA over the summer so the need to obtain a continuous mandate didn’t cross their mind.

Another take - probably the closest to the way I feel right now:
UCU Update - 4 August 2023 - by Sylvia de Mars - SdM on UCU (substack.com)

Thank you for sharing, Schnitzel. It’s an acknowledgement of the MAB’s failure from an insider’s point of view. Confirms my view that MABbers might be well advised to consider doing the outstanding marking now (or at least mark and park) to avoid being forced to do it at the beginning of term. For UCU, it would be the responsible thing to call the MAB off now, will be interesting to see if they do it.

Thanks for sharing @SchnitzelVonCrummsTum

I am sorry @SchnitzelVonCrummsTum . It seems the different factions in UCU cannot get to an agreement, and it boggles the mind that in the process they don't consider that they are making the membership lose a lot of money.

If marking has been reallocated and additional payments made to replacement markers, I would guess unis aren't going to return withheld funds if MABbers do their missed marking now? I raised this question the other day and TPTB basically said, "dunno".

Has anyone listened to the News Agent podcast episode on the UCU strike & MAB? It made me want to send them an irritated email, to say that:

It takes us 8 years minimum to train for our jobs, including at least 3-5 years on temporary contracts, and in STEM, post-docs as well. Generally, the pattern is 1st Class Honours at BA level, Distinction at MA level, funded PhD studentship, 3 -4 years.

A starting out lecturer earns about the same as a 2nd year trainee doctor, but a Lecturer post is generally only after the 8 years training and probably 5 years on part-time & temporary contracts. To get a permanent full-time job in the humanities, applicants generally have further qualifications in teaching, have international, peer-reviewed publications, and a track record of some sort of research funding, or a project that's suitable for external funding.

When I started teaching in the 1980s, I taught 8 small group classes per week of an hour each, and my class sizes were 9 -12 undergrads. If I did a full load (not bought out by my research grant) I would teach 10 hours a week and seminars would be around 25 students. This is at a RG /research-intensive university.

We are now expected to be the port of call for students' lack of preparation for university, for their mental health issues, plus we are expected to pull in research funding - in the humanities that was not the expectation.

Long holidays were mentioned? Really? my workload is such that I've managed 2 lots of Thursday to Tuesday breaks in July and then September. I'm working this weekend to get some referred/deferred marking out of the way. In the past, I have booked out August as annual leave so I can have a reason not to do meetings, admin, and multiple PhD supervisions, but the current marking schedule doesn't allow that.

Grrrrr

Is it the "How students are getting screwed" episode? I haven't listened yet - maybe I should avoid it! I'm feeling a little low of sympathy towards students at the moment...

I haven’t heard but, to be fair, a lot of the students are being screwed over atm.

I actually did listen and I found it irritating. Principally because the students who spoke all said, "no one has had any marks back, the university don't do anything and don't tell us anything."

As PSS, I've been on the front line of dealing with absolutely everyone's complaints. We've produced bespoke letters for employers, liaised with admissions teams in other institutions for students' Masters offers, tried to rearrange marking, tried to hold exam boards which got derailed, currently dealing with x10000000 appeals... All the way through, we have done our best to be transparent and informative, insofar as we are allowed. I've worked overtime probably every single day since early May, have had to handle on average 3-4 students making suicide threats a week. I don't think anyone has acknowledged at any point that we're doing our best, so to hear that we "do nothing and don't communicate" is a bit of a bitter pill to swallow.

Incidentally, prior to that, we were handling ca. 50% of students making extension and deferral requests across all modules - which also increases our workload and that of academics. And also delays students' graduation and progression. But I haven't heard anyone mention that, strangely enough.

That sounds absolutely shit and I absolutely don’t blame you for being at the end of your tether. PSS staff have been massively unacknowledged by pretty much all sides in terms of what they’ve had to put up with. I am very sorry.

That sounds horrendous and I am sorry @Kirova . It is not dissimilar to what I see among my own professional services staff.

I'm sorry, I'm just being unreasonable - and derailing your thread! I am sympathetic both to academics' unreasonable workload and pay/pension/unstable contract issues, and to students and their frustrations. It has all just been a bit incessant over the last few months and because I'm in a reasonably 'responsible' position in a faculty which is one of the most affected (if not THE worst affected) in the institution, I feel a bit of pressure with decision-making and it can be hard to distance yourself - even when you're only PSS!

Added to which, I'm pregnant and grumpy and had an unplanned week off last week (due to being in hospital with a kidney infection). I'm due back tomorrow and I'm absolutely dreading it, not least because I know I'll be going back to a huuuuuge backlog. "Woe is me!" etc. 😉