Ivory Tower: a new year and a return of our fly-on-the-wall documentary
Narrator: Royal Dalton University, formerly the North by North West Midlands Institute and Technical College, is one of Britain’s busiest higher education providers. The staff and students are back for another term, but all is not well in the world of universities, with soaring costs, government indifference and looming strikes. Vice-chancellor Sir Malcolm Baxter has a lot to think about.
Sir Malcolm: I guess we’ve all been looking at our pensions. It’s the strike thing of course. Now, no one round here is a member of the Universities Superannuation Scheme. Well, no one except me, the deputy vice-chancellor who came from Sheffield, and the director of finance, who knows a good thing when he sees one. Everyone else at Royal Dalton is part of the North by North West Midlands Mutual Local Government, Teachers, Environmental Health Inspectors and Road Sweepers Scheme that we inherited when we became a university. That’s everyone except those employed in our wholly owned subsidiaries, like our budget campus Dalton Lite, our services company Clean Dalton, and some other peripheral things that we spun out, like the library.
Those valued employees have their own pension arrangements. I don’t mean we provide another pension scheme with reduced employer contributions and smaller employee benefits, we wouldn’t do that. I mean they actually have to go and make their own pension arrangements. I believe the head librarian has two properties nearby that she rents out to students. I think the head of media studies at Dalton Lite keeps cash in a shoebox under the bed. Well, you might as well, have you seen the state of the economy out there?
Energy at Royal Dalton has gone through the roof – quite literally in the case of some of the halls of residence. We really should look into some insulation for those buildings. I got an email the other day in the senior management suggestions box, which said the only insulation going on round here during the energy price shock was my salary. I’m not sure what they meant.
But we’ve launched a sustainability drive in the university, Save Dalton. It mostly involves the head of estates going from classroom to classroom switching off the lights. There’s been some kick back from the staff, so I’ve told him he has to wait until people have left the room, but he says he’s just passionate about sustainability. He says that if we switched off all the lights in our rooms for just one day then we would save enough energy to power a city the size of Moscow. I’m not sure that’s the best comparison.
I’m as worried about the cost of living as the next man. It costs an absolute fortune to fill up the university Daimler with diesel, so no more five-minute drives to the town hall for meetings with councillors. Instead, I’m told we are going to buy an electric vehicle. It’s something called a Skoota. It’s not a brand I’m familiar with but I’m sure it will get me from A to B. I said to the senior management team the other day, “Do I look like Elon Musk?” They didn’t say anything—maybe they didn’t get the reference. Of course, sustainability is no laughing matter, and neither is university leadership. It’s a lonely job. Did I say, my pension pot was full?
Narrator: Elsewhere at Royal Dalton, the staff are revolting. There has just been a meeting of the University and College Union branch, in which all four attendees have backed industrial action. Union rep Brenda Harding is up for the fight.
Brenda: It’s time these fat cat university managers heard us roar. I know we have been on strike for the best part of five years now, without much progress to be honest, but this is our moment. We will bring this university to a standstill. I admit that union membership is not that big, or engaged, at Royal Dalton but there are eight entrance points to the campus, so if one of us stands at each gate handing out leaflets, then we can cause a real headache for the management.
I’m pretty sure that one person and their dog constitutes an official picket line, especially if they are wearing a hi-vis jacket and a pink beanie—not sure what the staff member will be wearing. Our members are fully behind the strategy of 18 days of action. Well, mostly behind it. Professor Galbraith in geography says he has a field trip in Italy at that time and he can’t get out of it now. While the staff in cultural studies—who are usually up for any kind of strike action—say they’ll be in sympathy by going to work as normal and sympathising with those of us on the picket line.
But I’ve been overwhelmed by the response of our younger members. When I told a meeting of the graduate teaching assistants that they would be losing 18 days’ pay in February and March as part of our glorious push, some of them actually cried with joy. I know we are asking a lot of our members. I did question the strategy myself.
I mean, why will we be working on a Friday and a Monday but not on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday? On Friday I like to go for a swim, and on Mondays… well, it’s a Monday isn’t it. Someone said to me the other day, “Why are you fighting four fights? It’s hard enough to win one. Can’t you just pick one, for God’s sake?” So, I said, “Vice-chancellor, that’s a good point. Have you factored into the workload model that I have to fight four fights instead of just one?” That shut him up.
Narrator: Royal Dalton’s students are also feeling the pinch at this time. Student Union president Fathima Iqbal has set up a food bank for the university. It comes at a time when the student representative body has a lot on its plate.
Fathima: It’s not something you ever believed could happen—a food bank in a university. You have no idea of the impact it’s had. First, there were the economics lecturers who came along and said they didn’t have anything to donate but would be happy to give a talk on the circular economy while students picked up their food parcels.
Then there were the senior managers who came down and said that this was embarrassing. But fair play to Sir Malcolm – he said all the own-brand pasta and budget tins showed the university in a bad light, so he went and did a big shop in Waitrose and now we’ve got some quality produce.
Then there were the free speech warriors who complained about us working out of the Colin West building. Apparently, some people were calling it the West Bank. I’m not sure who should have been offended more. But our students really appreciate the resource and it’s a big hit on social media.
Whenever Sir Malcolm does a run to Waitrose, a post goes up on Instagram and the queues start to form. I think there’s even a WhatsApp group where you can make requests. We pass them on to the VC’s office and he does his best, occasionally substituting items. But I’m not sure if any of us know the best way to cook quail’s eggs.
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