Image: UCU
President-elect dies after a battle with illness
Academics across the country are mourning the death of Nita Sanghera, president-elect of the University and College Union.
A spokesman for the UCU confirmed she died on 16 January.
“UCU is deeply saddened to learn that Nita Sanghera—UCU’s president-elect—passed away on Thursday after battling illness," they said. “Nita’s work to create opportunities for working class students in the West Midlands was inspirational and it is a tragedy we have lost her.”
At the end of May this year, Sanghera would have become the UCU’s first black female president. Outside the union, she worked as an access to higher education lecturer at Bourneville College in Birmingham. Sanghera was a major presence in the union, having served on the West Midlands Regional Committee, the Black Members’ Standing Committee and the National Education Committee before being elected vice-president for further education in 2018.
In the early hours of 17 January, UCU general secretary Jo Grady wrote that she was “very sad to learn” the news. “Nita was formidable, tenacious, a gifted orator, and impeccably stylish. She inspired others to fight against injustice, & will never be forgotten,” she wrote.