UNIVERSITY OF LINCOLN: URGENT, please read if you or your DC applied/attend

[LincolnConcern]

Over last week, enormous redundancy plans have been announced internally at the University of Lincoln, with an aim to cull 220 staff. This has been disproportionately spread across subjects, so some courses are due to be stripped to the barest of bones and will be massively impacted when it comes to module choices, quality of teaching, and general environment.

I implore you to contact the university and check how your/their course might be affected, because these actions have been timed so that the changes will take place quietly over the summer, away from unsuspecting students who may turn up in September to find that their course has been decimated.

Understandably, this has also resulted in strike action being planned, which will disrupt teaching even further.

“This is all a shame, but,” you might reasonably assume, “perhaps these courses are being selected due to their poor performance”. They are not. On the contrary, staff report that one of the hardest hit departments will be history, which is currently ranked the highest in the entire university for overall GPA and outputs, and achieved a triple gold award for its excellence in teaching in the latest TEF.

Please just check - sorry if this affects you. 😥

I don’t think you should be doing this. The university will have planned the restructuring tire according to likely student numbers based on interest in their provision. They will have done a significant amount of work to ensure that students are not adversely affected. It’s wrong to scare people presumably in the hope that people will kick off and the university might change its plans. Numerous universities up and down the country are restructuring due to increasing financial pressure.

Right e o

I read similar about Surrey Uni https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj566vd9608o.amp

Exactly and circa 25 other universities

Way more than 25 unfortunately - more than half the entire sector: https://qmucu.org/qmul-transformation/uk-he-shrinking/#:~:text=The%20University%20of%20Central%20Lancashire,opened%20a%20Voluntary%20Severance%20Scheme.

Not all universities are being equally impacted, and prospective students have a right to know what they are getting into.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4n1qdr0vzno
"The Lincoln branch of the University and College Union (UCU) disagreed and said management was to blame.
Acting local UCU chair, Dr Rob Dean, said university leaders had to accept they "made mistakes".
"Are all universities facing a £30m deficit? No they aren't." he said."

I have seen similar posts disseminated on social media in recent days.

The cutbacks described above are certainly concerning and I am certain that many students considering History at Lincoln are reading these reports with alarm. I would expect this to have a serious impact on application numbers and acceptace rates for the course.

The University of Lincoln, and particularly its History department, will find it hard to recover from these reports. We will certainly see many university courses close in the coming years - even departments that are currently doing well could find themselves suddenly in serious trouble in a very short timeframe. Student applications are quite fickle even at the best of times and the tide can change very quickly. I think we can expect to see a lot of unexpected closures in the coming years.

This is sad- I know politics is also affected - my DS1 has his degree in politics form Lincoln and a master's.

Lincoln is increasingly popular and spoken highly of by current students and by those who visit on Open Days. It's such a shame. But it is also true that many many unis are begin affected in this way . Students could be applying to 5 universities that aim to slash their course.

That is a concering read op. We are near Lincoln and have been talking to ds2 about courses. I think they have worked hard over the years to raise the profile and seemed to be doing really well.

Half the HE sector are doing similar. The sector is financially unsustainable and many courses are losing money on every UK student they recruit. This is not just an issue for Lincoln.

This isn't just an issue for Lincoln.
I work at a university that announced similar redundancy plans recently so it feels unfair that you are singling out Lincoln specifically.

I guess she's singling out Lincoln because that's the situation she's most aware of and the one that's affecting her personally.

You can create a thread about your university if you wish.

I am sorry this is happening and hope that it will end well for both you and OP, and others involved. It must be really stressful for the staff.

Well, I think she SHOULD be doing this, because otherwise the university is effectively selling a pig in a poke.

And as for "They will have done a significant amount of work to ensure that students are not adversely affected" - will they have done that? You cannot know that, and I very much doubt it.

I guess she's singling out Lincoln because that's the situation she's most aware of and the one that's affecting her personally.

Yet when it's been pointed out to them that it's an issue impacting a significant number of universities they've doubled down on it being a Lincoln problem.
It not.
It's a sector problem and only focusing on one university is not highlighting that there are a number of universities in exactly the same situation.
Any student applying to any university in the uk should be checking with their chosen institutions what the impact will be.
My university is losing an eighth of its staff ..... the impact will be huge.

Bet you anything no administrators are being cut.

Similar issue at Uni of Kent. DD will be going into her 3rd year and at the moment she has not been able to choose her modules because there are so few staff left for next year that most modules have disappeared! She's been told that she may have to do some wild card modules ie completely different subjects!
The Uni students have been pointlessly protesting for a couple of months now but it's a fait accompli. So disappointing.

Singling out Lincoln is pretty unfair tbh - though I totally understand OP's frustrations and angst. But sad to say if Lincoln's applications take a dive because of this sort of publicity, that exacerbates the problem.

Which is why I wouldn't ever single out one university but am keen on publicising the UCU branch list (which my institution is named on) so show that it's endemic now, and likely to get worse across the entire sector.

One or two are on the brink of collapse in the very short term.

To the poster saying 'you shouldn't be doing this' - why? These young people are paying £9k a year and many of them are not getting a good service. I hope they start to vote with their feet.

Not true at my university.
Professional services have been hit hard.

OP is totally within their rights to post about it. It is important and relevant news and is deserving of publicity on the Higher Ed board.

Nowhere did the OP state that no other universities are impacted.

Telling a poster not to post about something that is important to them, on mumsnet, which was set up for this purpose, is utterly ridiculous.

Huddersfield uni has just had a similar event. 200 mostly senior (ie more expensive) staff told by email that they're now redundant, and the lower level staff expected to step up to do their work with of course no extra pay. Which seems illegal - if their position was actually redundant, the cheaper staff wouldn't need to do their jobs, eh? They're getting rid of professors and senior lecturers, claiming those roles don’t exist and replacing them with lower pay grade lecturers.

The Huddersfield chancellor is an engineering grad. No jobs gone in the engineering depts.

Very similar in Sheffield Hallam. Trying to get Lecturer level people to take on loads of admin/management tasks to replace people made "redundant". New low-level grad students taken on for basic lecture stuff.

Both universities simultaneously spending literally tens of millions on new buildings.

Nobody has said they can't post.
Some of us are simply pointing out that it's a little unfair to single out one university.

It’s self defeating too. Why highlight this particular university when the obvious consequence of that is that students don’t choose it or consider it though clearing which then increases the financial pressure on that university and increases the number of redundancies required. And so the cycle continues..

the sector is in a mess. I think most of us think a good few universities will cease to exist in the near future. It’s probably what is required for the sector but it will have painful consequences.

The OP has every right to speak out. These posts are raising important concerns and it is important information for prospective students.

If the OP is concerned about losing her job, then these posts are misguided. Dissuading prospective students from studying History at Lincoln will increase the number of job cuts, not decrease.

Maybe the OP feels that she has nothing to lose. In which case, she seems intent on taking the rest of her department with her.

Of course she can speak out (and I assume she lectures at Lincoln). We are a free society with freedom of speech.