What 'everyday' cost-saving measures has your university put in place?

[YopMeMama]

I've NC for this but long-time poster.

As well as the 'big' stuff like removing our personal research budgets, the VS scheme, compulsory redundancy, push for massive income generation etc., my university also has a number of day-to-day cost saving measures which range from cruel to illogical to downright weird.

At my institution:

> We've been told no more tea/coffee supplied by the university. If you want a hot drink, bring your own supplies.

> The thermostats have all been turned down, our portable heaters have been removed, and we've been told no offices are to be more than 18C.

> Our printing is being closely monitored. No more than 200 pages of A4 per academic, per term. External printing (unless for specific things like big posters, recruitment materials etc.) can't be claimed on expenses.

> Lunch can only be ordered for events which last more than four hours regardless of what the event is and who's attending.

I get the point - taken together across the institution, these measures could actually add up to quite a bit of saving. But when I tell non-academic pals these things, they're just baffled.

What's happening where you are?

As a former primary teacher I have never had tea and coffee paid for and have one ever had lunch provided on a couple of training days in 22 years.

Why should university teaching staff have these things provided?

And our photocopying was monitored and limited as well.

Why does it need to be a race to the bottom? Providing tea bags and a kettle is minuscule in cost, and improves morale. It is actually a smart thing to do in management…small tokens of appreciation improves the work output as people are more willing to work harder for a better employer.

Micromanagement and being stingy results in the opposite. Encouraging vocational awe or self-sacrifice doesn’t benefit anyone really.

We've so far avoided most of these things, though never had tea and coffee!

We did though have to accept a much higher number of students with less staff to handle so we are all overworked and crazy

It's the emotional manipulation I hate. You try to say we can't take on any more and get told, well if you don't, people will lose their jobs

Also seeing money wasted on non-essential or obviously stupid things

All the things you've outlined OP but also if we want to go to a meeting elsewhere or a conference we have to complete a form about why we should be allowed to go. This is then reviewed by several people who come to a decision about whether it will be allowed. And this is for any travel at all so even £10 train ticket to the next town for a free conference has to go through all this. It's embarrassing to be asked to participate in a sector discussion or present at a conference and have to say you'll let them know once your £10 ticket is approved.

Some people don't bother and just pay their own fares etc. I refuse though as I know the people above me aren't paying their own way

What’s the answer to this? I can’t see how government funding can increase. It has been quite stark to see so many institutions closing departments and courses. Is the fundamental problem one of over-supply: that the sector is too big for the market? Or is it an absence of infrastructure and organisations which might enable profit generation from pull-through of research?

But when I tell non-academic pals these things, they're just baffled.

Really? Do you not have any friends who are teachers or work for the nhs?

We have had heating go off at midday as long as I can remember, have always had to give coffee/milk money, have always had paper/supplies limits.

@MagentaRavioli I have come to believe that the problem is complete incompetence at the highest levels of universities. Focusing on hugely expensive vanity projects that do nothing for students or staff.

Our SLT admit they don't even know how much money we need to save - how can they plan for something they don't even understand.

Always had to supply own tea and coffee.

They have introduced parking charges for all staff AND visitors! Even if the visitor is coming for uni business we now charge them a fiver to park (short sighted as all the visitor does is add it on to their invoice!)

No pay promotion or progression last year and I'm expecting the same this year.

No food for meetings unless it's the higher ups and then they have lunch all the time!

Most people are "quiet quitting" in the face of ever increasing distance, if not contempt, from management who seem to feel that denigration of staff is acceptable.

Completely agree @threepiecesofsellotape we have noted that some selected promotions have been supported, not to mention the three FT staff brought in for attendance monitoring 🙄

I'm a completely solo parent so have to stick it out for a couple more years as I need to be close to home but I am starting to look around. I was approached recently for a much better position but a significant commute that wouldn't work at this point.

(I examined a PhD at that University and they did provide coffee for all staff!!!)

The home student fee doesn’t cover their full costs, partly because universities are now expected to make up for gaps in a-level teaching, the NHS and ensure students can do a full-time degree around their often significant part-time jobs (which they need because the cost of living has increased substantially, there aren’t any grants and the full maintenance loan hasn’t risen in line with costs).

I’d be interested to see whether students would be attracted to a “no-frills” university. No employability service, no counselling service, no university accommodation, no hugely subsidised gym and “elite sport” programme - but also no admitting as many international students as humanly possible to cover costs, no shiny new buildings, no online teaching.

Tea and coffee is not routinely provided at every uni or in every department. Definitely not on tap.

About the photocopying, one key difference is that HE students are ‘consumers’. Our students are the reason HE institutions exist and we have jobs. They pay extraordinary amounts to study. Especially international students.

There is an immense pressure to keep these ‘customers’ happy and engaged. We photocopy for seminar tasks and workshops. MBA students in particular. Faculty are expected to publish. Hard to do research and write articles without printing out hard copies etc.

Having said that, it must be horrendous trying to teach primary, those students also need worksheets and engaging tasks. But unfortunately they are not customers so govt, local and national, squeeze them, you, schools.

The answer is not rivalry between levels, but working together to fight against eroding conditions and the commodification of education that only sees profits glow upwards.

This describes exactly what I’m feeling that I need to do. Starting today.

It’s not how I want to teach, but I have finally realised that I cannot teach the way that I would like to and the way that I think is the most beneficial, most engaging for the student and maintain the workload that intensifies year in, year out.

Last week my institution reformulated how our workloads are calculated and unsurprisingly my workload, apparently, now has more capacity than it did the week before due to this reformulation.

This week I was asked/told to take on more workload given that I had more capacity. This has prompted me to think carefully about all the additional, free as in not included in the workload calculation, work that I do to try to make my teaching and the content as interesting as possible for the students. Additionally, I generally spend a lot of time carefully reading essays and crafting my feedback to be as useful as possible. This is very time-consuming and the time it takes is longer than the standard calculation for marking. This will have to stop.

it is untenable to keep on doing this.

I think your nine academic friends are baffled that those things - tea, lunches, hot offices , printers - hasn't been banned a decade ago

All these measures seem perfectly sensible and normal in most workplaces

I'm a secondary teacher and one big change since I started 20 years ago is zero travelling for training. Having said that the exam boards do training online on teams or similar now which I actually prefer. We get free tea and coffee when we have to stay for a parents' evening but that's about it!

Agreed.

In no way am I defending the shit show that is HE Senior Leadership. However bringing one’s own beverages and paying for working meals is one thing, in line with at least some other elements of the public sector - albeit SL should apply the same standards to itself.

Cancelling research funds, promotion rounds, pay rises and, I agree, heating, is something else entirely. This is approaching a hostile environment.

Your ‘no frills university’ idea is most intriguing. I think only a few would go for it. Most students and parents do not accept the need to make choices. Yet.

FT staff for attendance monitoring is a good example of dumb spending that I referred to. We have 2 FT people whose only job sees to be to encourage staff to bring one particular software tool into their teaching, nothing that will radically improve things or make our jobs easier, so just more pressure to learn new tools when we don't even have time for basics.

We have wellbeing officers who basically just give students links to websites.

Meanwhile I can't get a new textbook for my module that is already the new standard text on the subject.

All these measures bar the 18 c thing have been in place in the CS for years.

I would embrace the 18 c to be honest! Our offices used to be heated to sauna like intensity in winter with junior staff theatrically shivering- wearing sleeveless tops.

I would tell the. To wear layers and tuck their vests into their knickers.

My friend works in education and they released guidance on additional income revenues available to staff to supplement income eg private tuition….onlyfans was on there with rules on not to show your face..so feet pics was okay 😕

My initial reaction to reading you post was "where do you work"???

I've been retired 8 years after working in UK universities for 30 plus years. I've literally never had almost all of the stuff your talking about.

Tea / Coffee provided by University....never even heard of it happening.

200 pages of printing per term per academic??? Never had such a generous allowance. Even for teaching, let alone personal use. "Send the students a pdf and let them print it if they want" was the norm for years. I had a 100 page printing allowance as a PhD student in the late 70s / early 80s - never had anything so generous since.

Printing posters etc .... had to be paid for out of a research grant. Never, ever heard of external printing jobs just being paid for out of expenses.

Lunch????? If you ran an event that involved catering it had to come out of a budget you had gained. Reaseach group meeting, out of a grant that you'd gained. Student event, out of budget allocated to that course. Cinference / seminar, out of funding that youve raised. I have literally never heard of lunch being just provided.

We still get lunch paid during all day training. Sounds like that’s a luxury these days! Actually we got free ice creams when the uni won an award, that was the best perk I’ve had (ha).

Definitely changes to make promotion harder, no assistant lecturer support, restrictions on conference attendance (without external grants), open access gone to green, ‘away’ days are just on campus etc. Professional services look to be getting cuts, teaching load was always heavy where I am so less fat to trim here, no redundancies…. (yet)! Massive expansion of AI chatbots, am sure this won’t reduce student emails. Never had tea and coffee tbh.

In fact ... we had to pay internal "rent" for space occupied by PhD students etc. Even collaborating with another department in the same university was impossible unless you could provide a daily "bench fee" to the hist department.

Well, our university used to have ecards (free) for people retiring, having a baby and the PA organised a whip-round for a gift card, but now it seems that doesn’t happen anymore. The latest wheeze I saw was to ask the faculty if they had international contacts to provide a free online talk for the students so they could get exposure to international scholarship. And of course, there is no money for external speakers from the UK around anyhow.

It is just at a nadir.