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Showing posts from May, 2017

Academics Stand up in Large Numbers: UCU Report of the Special Meeting of Academic Board: 18 May 2017

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UCU Report of the Special Meeting of Academic Board: 18 May 2017 Please find below a report on Thurs 18 May's momentous Academic Board (AB) Special Meeting. This report has been distributed by email to UCL UCU members. The meeting was called by 22 signatories of a letter in response to a Survey of Board members on the current state of the university and its Management. The Survey had 492 responses and overwhelmingly showed that the academic community felt marginalized and alienated from many decisions that were impacting on their work in negative ways. It was the best attended AB meeting in recent memory, with nearly 400 members of the Board filling out the Quad Pavilion (about half of the attendees were standing and the room has seating for 200). The Provost, in an unprecedented move, had surrounded himself with a panel of Senior Management Team members, and the first few rows of the room were all Senior Management and Senior Management+, which was amply demonstrat

FAQs on Academic Board Special Meeting, Survey and the call for a Governance Committee

Below are some FAQs to help colleagues understand the issues behind the latest controversies taking place at Academic Board: A recent survey to all members of Academic Board (the principal body of UCL responsible for academic governance) broached a number of questions as to how the members of the Board felt about recent changes in the university, about management, about student numbers, morale, and finally about a proposal to call a Special Meeting of the Board to discuss these questions in a focused way. Many of the 492 responses showed dissatisfaction with the management of the university , with over 67% responding to the statement "UCL is well managed" with "disagree" (40.85%) or "strongly disagree" (26.83%). 95% of the respondents said they agreed that a Special Meeting of AB should be called to discuss these matters. As a result, 22 members of AB signed a letter calling for that Special Meeting . In the letter, there is a proposal for a Go