The UCU branch committee emailed the University of Leeds vice chancellor on Tuesday 29 September 2020 in response to the message from the university “Arrangements in the new academic year – a message from the Vice-Chancellor” (opens in new tab) received Friday 25 September 2020. Dear Vice-Chancellor, On behalf of Leeds UCU, I’d like to welcome your statement to staff.  We are absolutely in agreement with you that the most important priority is to protect the health and safety of the entire University community. And we are very glad that you are encouraging more use of online teaching during the COVID period. The university approach until now has been that schools must provide some face to face teaching, including those schools who had planned for fully online, and it’s good to see concerns about safety now overriding the hybrid model.  However, we would encourage you to go a step further, and insist that the only activities that should take place on campus are those which are impossible to do any other way (eg some practical sessions).  Tutorials, seminars and other small group teaching, supervisions, careers appointments and so on can be done very effectively online (and indeed have been done online since … continue reading

Message to members on behalf of the branch committee, Friday 25 September 2020 Following our email to the deputy vice chancellor on 18th September, and the dismissive response that we initially received, we note that communication has now come from the vice-chancellor stating that thinking around face to face teaching at University of Leeds is ‘evolving’ and that: “Where it is safe, practicable, and pedagogically advantageous or necessary, teaching should be delivered face-to-face, rather than online. However, in instances where those criteria cannot be met, we would recommend that you move your teaching online.”  Our position is that all teaching should be online unless it is absolutely necessary to do it face to face, and we are pleased to see the university moving towards that position. The health and safety of staff and students ought to be at the heart of planning. There are still some uncertainties about the statement: in particular, the statement that small classes are expected to remain face to face is vague and needs further clarification. And we are increasingly worried about the public health implications of large numbers of people on campus and in residence at the university. We understand that a significant number of students … continue reading

UCU’s position, both nationally and locally, is that all teaching in the coming term should be online (except for very limited cases where this is not feasible), and that all other university work that can be done online should continue online. Keeping the numbers on campus to an absolute minimum is the best way to avoid spreading the virus around the university community and beyond. Our General Meeting on 15th September overwhelmingly agreed on this, see link below to the wording of the motions passed on this issue. We know many of you are worried and stressed about being required to return to campus, and we are hearing many concerns from departmental reps and individual members where school plans for wholly online teaching are being altered, at the behest of senior management, to include some face to face teaching and other events. Since some students will be unable to attend campus to attend these newly-proposed face to face activities, they are by definition non-essential.  Requiring staff to come onto campus is particularly worrying now, given increases in the COVID-19 infection rate both nationally and locally. And we are concerned that requirements to work on campus will fall disproportionally on casualised staff, … continue reading