Email to students 11 February 2022

 

Dear students,

 

Recently I let you know that the national University and College Union (UCU) had announced a further round of industrial action to take place in universities across the UK in the form of 10 days of strike action accompanied by continuous action short of a strike. As a reminder of the planned days of action starting next week are:

 

It is difficult to assess which groups of students might be affected and to what degree, as we do not know about the levels of take-up for action and staff are not required to tell us in advance if they plan to take part. Please look out for any messages from your department advising you of changes to your studies, but you should plan to attend all learning activities as usual unless you are informed otherwise.

 

During the periods of strike action, all other University facilities will be available to undergraduate and postgraduate students, both on and off campus, including; the Student Support Hub, Open Door and Disability, Careers and Placements, College wellbeing support, catering outlets, shops, the Library, and the Sports Village. And for our online community you can access the online support services as usual.

 

Once again, I very much regret any disruption you may experience and I understand how worrying and frustrating this must be for you. I appreciate this latest action may come on top of other strikes in previous years, and is happening at a time when you are re-establishing your study routine following the pandemic. We are ensuring we have support in place, and planning to try to minimise the impact on you as much as possible, which may include rescheduling teaching, providing complementary teaching, supporting learning in other ways and making adjustments to assessment.

 

We will continue to update the Industrial Action web pages with news and announcements, together with Q&As and background information about what this action is, why this is happening, and what the University is doing to support your education.

 

Best wishes,
Charlie Jeffery

 

Vice-Chancellor