The administration of the University of Nottingham is planning on reducing its full-time faculty by 600 beginning next January, using layoffs (redundancies) if need be. In response, the local university and college union began a “marking and assessment boycott” on Wednesday and are striking today. They may undertake a longer strike beginning in June. According to the Nottingham Post: Nottingham’s branches of the UCU, Unison and Unite [unions]—all of which represent staff at the university—have passed a motion of no confidence in the vice chancellor and the entire executive board. The unions have previously criticised the university’s leadership for alleged financial mismanagement, with the UCU branding the Castle Meadow campus—which cost more than £80 million but was abandoned before it was finished—a vanity project. The administration’s current plan calls for faculty cuts across the university, aiming for a student-faculty ratio of between 1:18 and 1:22. I am told that this would imply a roughly 30% reduction in Nottingham’s philosophy faculty. One Nottingham faculty member said that concerned academics can help by spreading the word and by donating to the local strike fund (as the marking boycott entails a 100% salary deduction), which “helps strikers who will suffer significant hardship from loss of pay due to striking.” You can click here to donate.

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