* All students and alumni of the University of Chester are welcome to sign this letter *

As students and postgraduate research students at the University of Chester, we write to register our opposition to the university's decision to prospectively make 86 near-term staff redundancies across a range of academic departments [1]

In our capacity as students, we recognise that the time and effort that lecturers have put into supervising, teaching and supporting UoC students throughout the pandemic is phenomenal. Many have gone above and beyond whilst adapting to online teaching paradigms, and making dozens of academic staff members redundant is no way to repay their efforts, especially during such a challenging ongoing global situation. Many lecturers at the university have devoted their working lives to providing quality teaching provision at Chester, and deserve to be treated better for their services.

We contend that as a long-standing Higher Education institution, UoC should be aware of the vital role which workers’ unions such as the University and Colleges Union (UCU) have played in securing workers rights for centuries, and must therefore be willing to respect the views of union members. In this instance, an unprecedented number of UCU members have voted unanimously to oppose the proposed compulsory redundancies, and the university must address their concerns [2]

As students at Chester, we value the fact that recent NUS surveys at the University have consistently reflected lecturers' excellent levels of support, subject knowledge and engagement with students. We can see no sense in targeting the professionals who provide this high level of teaching provision. We suggest that making redundancies in student-facing roles generates an unstable learning atmosphere for current students at UoC, which will likely be reflected in student retention statistics, and may potentially affect intake levels in future years.

We currently have a wide and wonderful range of teaching provision at Chester, yet such a volume of redundancies cannot fail to have a corrosive impact on course content and delivery. Above all, the main aim of a university should be to teach and inspire, and to support the many staff members who work tirelessly to realise this goal.

[1] https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/19204108.university-chester-announces-86-job-losses/
[2] https://twitter.com/chesterucu/status/1377215795042906120

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