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At my former hall of residence in Nottingham they've locked everyone in. Dinners delivered to your doorstep; late, cold and meat dinners for veggies etc. No kitchen facilities. No information from the university at all apparently.

I'd like to say I'm surprised but I'm not. The university of Nottingham is a hyper-commercial factory farm and pastoral care for students is nil even in normal times. The only reason that building (occupancy 50-odd) has an emergency exit is that we pointed out to the management that there wasn't one and refused to pay rent until there was.
 
Why didn't the universities band together and say no, they weren't going to do face-to-face teaching yet, for this year's cohorts, given the fucking obvious dangers? Would the government have actually let all of our universities go bust?
 
Mation said:
Would the government have actually let all of our universities go bust?
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Probably. They're important for foreign student money but the Tories are ideologically opposed to widespread access to higher education. Keep the top ten percent as elite institutions. Prop up the best ten percent of the rest as schools for overseas students and reopen the rest as something similar to a polytechnic but without humanities. Surely that's the Tory dream?
 
maomao said:
Probably. They're important for foreign student money but the Tories are ideologically opposed to widespread access to higher education. Keep the top ten percent as elite institutions. Prop up the best ten percent of the rest as schools for overseas students and reopen the rest as something similar to a polytechnic but without humanities. Surely that's the Tory dream?
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I see what you mean, but don't think they'd have got it together that quickly.
 
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Mation said:
Why didn't the universities band together and say no, they weren't going to do face-to-face teaching yet, for this year's cohorts, given the fucking obvious dangers? Would the government have actually let all of our universities go bust?
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The fact this won't happen is part of the tragedy of marketisation. Individual institutions, and groups thereof, will always look for ways around collective decisions to suit their own interests, so any form of collective action becomes impossible. We saw this in 2011, when the Russell Group (and some others) embraced the Browne report as an opportunity, regardless of how bad it was for the sector as a whole.
 
Roadkill said:
The fact this won't happen is aprt of the tragedy of marketisation. Individual institutions, and groups thereof, will always look for ways around collective decisions to suit their own interests, so any form of collective action becomes impossible. We saw this in 2011, when the Russell Group (and some others) embraced the Browne report as an opportunity, regardless of how bad it was for the sector as a whole.
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I haven't understood why collective action is impossible,
 
Roadkill said:
Since 2011 - and before up to a point - universities have basically been privatised. Whilst they remain technically public institutions, universities now have to behave like private companies, which makes collective action, if not impossible, then very difficult to achieve.
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Sure. But those are rules/conventions they've agreed to abide by.

What would happen in reality, rather than on paper, if all universities said, we can't have students in person right now, so we're not going to?

What would the government do, in covid-19 2020, if all universities, or a bulk of them agreed, rather than in the abstract case of breech of contract (or whatever) by individual universities, to keep on doing remote teaching for now?
 
Mation said:
Why didn't the universities band together and say no, they weren't going to do face-to-face teaching yet, for this year's cohorts, given the fucking obvious dangers? Would the government have actually let all of our universities go bust?
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Because the VCs and their teams are a bunch of morally and intellectually bankrupt fuckwits who fundamentally support the marketisation of the sector and the attack on staff and students.

Which is why people who talk about workers 'working with management" are totally naive at best, bloody fools are worst.
 
redsquirrel said:
Because the VCs and their teams are a bunch of morally and intellectually bankrupt fuckwits who fundamentally support the marketisation of the sector and the attack on staff and students.

Which is why people who talk about workers 'working with management" are totally naive at best, bloody fools are worst.
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There is that, yes :)
 
Mation said:
Sure. But those are rules/conventions they've agreed to abide by.

What would happen in reality, rather than on paper, if all universities said, we can't have students in person right now, so we're not going to?

What would the government do, in covid-19 2020, if all universities, or a bulk of them agreed, rather than in the abstract case of breech of contract (or whatever) by individual universities, to keep on doing remote teaching for now?
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I dream of them doing exactly that, but in a competitive market one is always going to try and steal a march on the others so it wouldn't happen.

Tbf there are some subjects that cannot be moved online at all and need to keep happening - medical things especially - so some of what's been said about cancelling the academic year entirely or doing everything online are unrealistic. But yes, most subjects should be online only and government should have underwritten universities' losses from campus services. That's what has happened elsewhere. But ... Tory Britain.
 
Mation said:
There is that, yes :)
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Sorry after a day of struggling with systems that don't work and dealing with stressed out students, I have to cheer myself up by imagining the VC etc been ground to a fine paste by a roller.

But to make a slightly more useful contribution - well why do so many councillors vote for cuts to services and attacks on staff? No doubt many tell themselves that this is the least worst option, that there is no choice, when I confronted my Dean about them making hundreds of staff redundant I got the reply that "there was no alternative".
It's bollocks of course, there is an alternative, just like there is an alternative to councillors making cuts - but these people have picked their side in the class war.
 
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Mation said:
Sure. But those are rules/conventions they've agreed to abide by.

What would happen in reality, rather than on paper, if all universities said, we can't have students in person right now, so we're not going to?

What would the government do, in covid-19 2020, if all universities, or a bulk of them agreed, rather than in the abstract case of breech of contract (or whatever) by individual universities, to keep on doing remote teaching for now?
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Let the the lesser ones go bust. The Tories world be happy enough for that to happen. their almer maters would be safe.
 
chilango said:
Let the the lesser ones go bust. The Tories world be happy enough for that to happen. their almer maters would be safe.
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Roadkill said:
Surely it's been obvious for a decade that the Tories are out to destroy large parts of HE?
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maomao said:
They'd just flog them off to entirely private operators.
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That's what they'd want to do, for sure.

But in my (probably naively optimistic :) ) view, there's an opportunity here; or was.
 
Mation said:
That's what they'd want to do, for sure.

But in my (probably naively optimistic :) ) view, there's an opportunity here; or was.
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I'd love to think there was/is, but I can't see it happening. The university sector hasn't ever been very good at acting collectively, and certainly not since the 90s because the interests of the post-92 institutions often differ sharply even from the red bricks, never mind the likes of Oxbridge. Marketisation since the late 90s, and especially after 2011, has made that worse because it's put universities in direct competition with one another. It's also brought in managements that are used to running universities like businesses and to whom the idea of collective action is largely anathema. I really can't see most VCs being up for a game of chicken with any government, and perhaps especially this one. Meanwhile, UCU has talked a lot of very good sense but isn't strong enough to force a coordinated move across the sector*, whilst NUS barely ever sticks its head above the political parapet.

*e2a - that's not to say UCU hasn't done a huge amount of good at local level, in terms of pushing for better precautions on campus, and fighting attempts by management to use the crisis to undermine staff pay and conditions.
 
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I'm not surprised that VCs have gone along with government's desire to keep them open and face to face. We've had the entirely dishonest line that 'risk assessments have been done' across the sector, ignoring the obvious and central issue that students live in halls and accommodation and will be pinging the virus to each other. Same time, I'm surprised there hasn't been more background noise and musing about going back to online. Even within their overall cowardice you'd think their collective craven nervous system would leak a few thoughts along those lines. Maybe they've just become so disciplined they actually believe they really do have covid safe campuses and that has become their reality. Once that idea was input into their managerial Dalek brains it became their new normal.
 
chilango said:
  1. St Andrews
  2. Edinburgh Napier
  3. Glasgow
  4. Stirling
  5. Oxford Brookes
  6. Bath
  7. Manchester Metropolitan
  8. Liverpool
  9. Swansea
  10. Aberdeen
  11. Robert Gordon
  12. Abertay
  13. Exeter
  14. Queen Margaret
  15. Kent
  16. Uni of West England (Bristol)
  17. Leeds
  18. Warwick
  19. De Montfort (Leicester)
  20. Hull
  21. Newcastle
  22. Durham
  23. Salford
  24. Northumbria
  25. Essex
  26. Heriot Watt
  27. Edinburgh
  28. Glasgow Caledonian
  29. Coventry
  30. Portsmouth
  31. Staffordshire
  32. York St John
  33. Uni of South Wales
  34. Aberystwyth
  35. Uni of Leicester
  36. Plymouth
  37. Queens, Belfast
  38. Sheffield
  39. Sheffield Hallam
  40. Birmingham City University
  41. University of Chester
  42. University of Reading
  43. Sussex
  44. University of Gloucestershire
  45. Dundee (confirmed after all?)
  46. Brunel
  47. Royal Holloway
  48. Aston
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and today Winchester Two students test positive for Covid-19 at Winchester University

There must be a lot more than 2 untested cases. Best avoid the student pubs this weekend.
 
muscovyduck said:
Anyone hearing much people in student accomodation who aren't proper in the thick of it with corona yet? Through my grapevine sounds like a few kids are already moving back home, but it's difficult to tell if it's the same everywhere else
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Took the daughter up for her first year at Newcastle University (NB not Northumbria) at the weekend. Lots of people moving in but the Uni seemed to have it sussed in terms of giving everyone specific appointments to move their stuff in, parents to stay in their cars etc. She is in a flat in halls with 5 other people.

So we'll see what happens. I think after a summer of being mainly cooped up with her parents and not doing much, she is pretty philosophical of being cooped up with a few people her own age and cracking on with her course (albeit mainly through online learning). She has her head screwed on OK and so far the novely of cooking her own meals and being being somewhere new is alright.

Main issue so far has been a fatal drugs overdose in one of the neighbouring halls. :(
 
Fozzie Bear said:
Took the daughter up for her first year at Newcastle University (NB not Northumbria) at the weekend. Lots of people moving in but the Uni seemed to have it sussed in terms of giving everyone specific appointments to move their stuff in, parents to stay in their cars etc. She is in a flat in halls with 5 other people.

So we'll see what happens. I think after a summer of being mainly cooped up with her parents and not doing much, she is pretty philosophical of being cooped up with a few people her own age and cracking on with her course (albeit mainly through online learning). She has her head screwed on OK and so far the novely of cooking her own meals and being being somewhere new is alright.

Main issue so far has been a fatal drugs overdose in one of the neighbouring halls. :(
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Mine too- Newcastle as well, but a week before. And yes it all seemed very organised but in a relaxed and friendly way. Lots of people in her flat in halls and in other flats in the same hall now have tested positive with or without symptoms, including her. The deaths of those kids make it a whole lot grimmer.
 
chilango said:
Here you go...

.
.
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That's slightly unfair. We've been quite hard on only "essential" (read: lab work) things occurring on campus and the rest is remote. The buildings are capped at 20% of their normal capacity, hand sanitiser and directional arrows everywhere. I'm not even supposed to be in the office for non-essential work until April 2021.

That said, I'm sure we'll have some covid, if we don't already. But some places are trying harder than others. I think we've only escaped thus far because we have very little in the way of student residence on-campus.
 
agricola said:
As much as this government deserve a whole load of abuse for this looming disaster, I really think some should be left over for all those who spent decades going around telling everyone that tuition fees, loans and idiot levels of debt were such a fantastic idea.

Thirty years ago the government could have cancelled this academic year and the vast majority of the universities would have survived (with a mild amount of financial support). Now they are so far down the plughole that any interruption in the free money they are getting will probably wipe the whole sector out (with probably less than ten exceptions) and take a good chunk of the property market with it.
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one can but dream
 
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