We at your Students’ Union know that many of you will have been following the news about UWS, including UWS Staff Trade Unions , and the ongoing
Your Student President team are working to ensure that the impact on students is minimal and are gathering your questions as well as holding an ALL STUDENT MEETING on THURSDAY 12th JUNE at 3pm- Check your Student Inbox for the joining link.
What are the main proposals?
Which areas will be most impacted?
What is the Students' Union doing?
FAQs
What are the main proposals?
The principal held an all staff meeting on Wednesday 21st May where it was announced that the savings needed to be made totalled £16.9 million, with this cost saving to be achieved across the short, medium, and long term. As well as reducing the spend in procurement, and reviewing professional services provision, the proposal is to remove 75.2 full time equivalent (FTE)* academic staff positions, as well as not filling a large number of the current vacancies at UWS. This may result in some courses being discontinued.
Which areas will be most impacted?
Currently it looks as though the School of Education and Social Sciences will face the biggest impact from these cuts/potential redundancies as set out in the table below. However, we are unable to say currently what the impact on individual courses or modules will be.
| School |
FTE Job Loss |
| Business and Creative Industries |
19.5 |
| Computing Engineering and Physical Sciences |
18 |
| Education and Social Sciences |
35.7 |
| Health and Life Sciences |
2 |
| UWS Total |
75.2 |
What is the Students' Union doing?
Your Student President has requested a meeting with the university principal, James Miller, as a matter of urgency, to discuss your concerns. We have set out the broad summary of questions we have received below, as well as some clarifications we can offer already on points in our initial e-mail.
Alongside this we are also calling an all-student meeting, led by your Student President on Thursday 12th June at 3pm, to discuss student questions and include you all in creating the demands we should be making to protect students before the details of the cuts are confirmed. Check your student e-mail for the joining link.
FAQs
This is a collection of questions we have gathered from students, and are asking of the universities senior leadership team. We will update this list of questions with answers as and when we can, and with details as they are released.
CONTINUATION AND COMPLETION
- Will courses be discontinued for students already enrolled?
- Will students be able to complete their degrees?
- What options will students have if courses are removed?
- Will the university honour commitments to pre-existing students?
IMPACT ON COURSE DELIVERY
- Are courses likely to have a widening staff-student ratio?
- Will students have fewer choices when it comes to optional modules etc.
- What is being done to support staff who are retained, to ensure they are not overworked and stressed which will have a negative impact on the student experience.
WHO WILL BE IMPACTED
- Are all years of study going to be impacted?
- Are all campuses going to be impacted?
- Which courses will be impacted?
TIMESCALES
- When will cuts happen?
- When will students find out what is happening both broadly and on their specific course?
STUDENT INVOLVEMENT
- How can students get involved in the response?
- How can students support lectures and programmes?
FINANCE QUESTIONS
- How did the £16.9 million deficit arise?
- What other alternatives were considered to making the savings?
- Where and how are savings going to be made beyond academic staff cuts?
- Will students receive tuition fee compensation if teaching hours are reduced?