Nottingham University - final year students being told they won't graduate due to marking strike?

[Panicmode1]

Whilst I have every sympathy with the staff at risk of redundancy, in a jobs market as dire as it is, I also feel fairly sorry for the graduates who have now racked up shedloads of debt to get a degree they may not now be awarded. My understanding is that they are being told they won't be able to graduate because exams and dissertations are not going to be marked?

Anyone else have a child in the same boat? We were already considering doing something (potentially legally) to recover some fees after she had zero lectures for one term this year - and now she's being told her dissertation may not be marked and they may not be able to graduate?

My brother used to work at the University of Nottingham. He eventually took voluntary redundancy, just to get out of the toxic environment.

He was saying for ages that the management right from the top, is to blame for what’s been happening. It’s a disgrace and I feel for the staff and students let down by appalling mis management.

Is this uni of Nottingham? Or Nottingham Trent? DC is considering both for this year and the thought of dealing with this kind of shit after 3 years and a shedload of debt is rather off putting.

University of Nottingham....

Ah I assumed so.
What a shitshow for the students there.

You need to tell that to the ‘leadership’ team who have put literally every academic on notice of redundancy. They did the same for the admin and management last year. Some people who were on notice of redundancy last year may go through this again the next stage of this debacle. I’m now retired but have every sympathy as UoN is being absolutely trashed IMO

But the final marking may never take place. I'm in the UCU union and they are being very clear if there is a marking strike then you don't come off strike after you've been unpaid for the strike and then catch up on all the work you missed. It doesn't get done, ever.

I know this was a thing at Edinburgh a few years ago, not sure what the final outcome was.

Maybe the universities will have to make a final degree grade up from the average of other modules. Or they come to an agreement with the staff.

Not good enough. I'm not sure about the undergrad regs at Nottingham but normally Year 1 grades aren't taken into account as it's meant to be a year for students to find their feet with academic study. Some students might be happy with this because maybe they got better grades. But a lot of students improve their grades as they progress. I wouldn't accept a grade if I thought I'd have got a better grade if Year 3 had been fully marked.

Years ago dd got part of the final year tuition fees for her whole cohort refunded as their final year had been such a shit show. Think everyone got £1500 payment. But it was an actual direct payment to them rather than their student loan being refunded which was a shame. Though dd was delighted! She did write a very lengthy report spelling out every single regulation they'd failed to comply with!

I think it's too late. Tiktok is full of videos telling people not to go to Nottingham - from current students. People in the comments are talking about pulling out, etc. Will be interesting to see if they can clamber back from this.

DD's BF is at Notts studying Physics (y2) and the Head Of Dept has resigned in protest at the Redundancies
The BF has been told that his degree may be cancelled or may not be accredited ( not sure what this actually means but hes pretty upset about it)

Research also one of the main funding streams for universities. Not sure why you have put it in quotes. It is also how lecturers stay on top of their fields- because they are helping to move it forward. I worked on a university department of about thirty people who didn’t do any teaching at all! We were definitely kept busy and our funders were paying the university for our full hours!

How do you get to strike from elements of your job rather than just strike completely? Why can’t the university say ‘ok you have been on strike so and we can’t ask you to catch up but we want you to mark instead of doing x task’?

There are very detailed procedures for how they will give them the classification here on the uni website. I haven’t seen the latest email ( my DS is final year but seems to just be waiting to see how it pans out) - what does it actually say about when they will get their degree if not by the ceremony? Will there still be a ‘results’ day as usual but with the derived marks does anyone know?

www.nottingham.ac.uk/qualitymanual/contingency-classification-and-progression-regulations.aspx

Because that is catching up. Marking is done at set times. An assessment is handed in on x date and gets marked in the 10 days immediately after. No point striking then, not getting paid and then doing the work later.

Because what impact would there be? The staff would lose pay. Marks being slightly late isn’t the end of the world (they can’t keep a strike up for weeks on end). The university would be laughing at saving wages and if the staff then marked they’d impact themselves by losing their summer research and prep time. Which they won’t get back and the uni won’t care.

No idea, but I will be adding on my "non refundable hotel" rooms that I've booked for graduation, to my legal claim too 😉

This happened to me at Nottingham 20 years ago. Got the grades by email at some point over the summer.

Did you have a 'graduation' ceremony @laurabee1984? Seems it's not a new issue....at Notts and Edinburgh anyway.

I did graduate with a ceremony but honestly can't remember if it came later or not. I guess most people knew if they'd pass of not based on other grades so it was just a matter of waiting for the classification

The situation at Nottingham is terrible . Management consultants in making people redundant (7 out of 8 nursing professors for insurance and physics has been decimated ) . The uni has wasted 70illion in bad property investments in the last 5 years and now the staff and students are the victims of their incompetence.
its ans absolute disgrace and the VC should be sacked

I think the VC responsible for the horrendous mismanagement has failed upwards onto the University of Leeds, hasn’t she?

To the poster whose DD is considering Trent - I would highly recommend it. I’ve been really impressed at how well organised it is, how well the tech works and the communication in general. Although am sure is all course dependent.

Yes shearer west moved from Nottingham to Leeds a few years ago. Head of finance just fell of the face of the uni a few years ago too, and HR … probably others too I’d expect

That was me - thank you. It’s first on her list. I’ve known a lot of people go to Trent over the years and all have enjoyed their time there. We were very impressed when we did the open days.

When my ds was considering Unis last autumn he said he definitely wouldnt consider Nottingham because of what some students on TikTok were saying about it. No idea what but it's the only Uni he had a really strong negative opinion about.

Last time this happened some students were left without final degrees for months and I know of people losing masters places and job offers, so you may be over-sanguine

Lordy DS just messaged to say there's been a data breach and the student portal etc is all gone, looking online looks like a ransomware attack

Honestly I think Nottingham are toast.

edited - I've just read their statement, they are either very much downplaying it and are saying a small number of servers affected and operations are carrying on as normal. So will probably be fine. It is a danger though, if a big attack got into a university system and wiped stuff such as student grades it would be a disaster.