Universities must address the feeling among younger staff that managers at the top of institutions ¡°have pulled the ladder up behind them¡±, according to a leading academic.

As staff at 60 UK universities?take industrial action over pay, pensions and conditions, universities need to end the ¡°us versus them¡± battle between junior staff and management, according to Sarah Churchwell, chair of public understanding of the humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Speaking in the ¡°Big Debate¡± at Times Higher Education¡¯²õ É«ºÐÖ±²¥ Live, Professor Churchwell said the fact that the strikes began about pensions but expanded into a wider debate about the direction of travel at universities showed that ¡°the answers are myriad and complicated¡±.

¡°I am very sympathetic with [early career researchers] on precarious contracts and people feeling that the casualisation of academia has created all kinds of systemic and life problems for them,¡± she said. ¡°They feel the management of the university is unsympathetic to them, that they¡¯ve pulled up the ladder, taken all the benefits and enjoyed a cushy life straight from a degree into a secure position.

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¡°As someone who went into a secure post after my PhD and hasn¡¯t experienced insecure labour, I think it¡¯²õ incumbent?on me to listen to what they are saying very carefully. So, when they express that feeling of divisiveness¡­we all have to do a lot better.¡±

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said he believed that unions and striking staff may have to make a trade-off between their pension demands and their hopes of addressing precarious contracts, as universities would be in a better financial position, and therefore able to get more staff on to proper contracts, if they didn¡¯t have to pay more into pensions.

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¡°If there is a trade-off, I would put ending junior staff on precarious contracts as the priority. That¡¯²õ more important,¡± he said.

Mary Curnock Cook, the former Ucas chief executive who also spoke on the panel, agreed that precarious contracts were not good for higher education. ¡°It damages universities,¡± she said. ¡°Not just through the public¡¯²õ perception, which the strikes have brought attention to, but through teaching¡­we could do a lot better [teaching] with staff on stable contracts.¡±

The panellists also said that universities had to do?more to support younger staff when it came to harassment: both through supporting staff to help students who report it and when using social media themselves.

Professor Churchwell said that early career staff were regularly told to ¡°get out there¡± on social media, particularly Twitter, to boost their research and career. However, the abuse that can follow when a wider audience is reached can have a serious effect on mental health, particularly among vulnerable young women, she said.

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¡°We have to have better support systems within universities, particularly for women and minorities, who often get the worse abuse,¡± she said. ¡°And they need to know that they can opt out if they don¡¯t want to engage in this way.¡±

She also spoke about harassment that happens on campus, particularly involving student victims. ¡°I get angrier and angrier when a young woman has been seriously failed and the university puts out a statement simply stating ¡®student safety is paramount to us¡¯ but doing nothing more,¡± she said. ¡°We are failing victims of sexual violence.¡±

Ms Curnock Cook agreed, particularly as academics were the first line of pastoral care and yet got no training on how to deal with it. ¡°There is a litany of people who are not qualified doing interviews in these cases. We have to do better,¡± she said.

Ms Curnock Cook added that the evidence shows there was ¡°violence and harassment going on university campuses¡± and yet universities were often perversely concerned with their reputation, ¡°but actually they would look far better if they properly dealt with these things and listened [to those] reporting harassment¡±.

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anna.mckie@timeshighereducation.com

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