VC's Voice

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With due apologies to the other parts of the University, this column is devoted to the question of why teaching loads in the Arts Schools are so high compared with other similar universities which have the same level of funding as Sussex.

Part of the answer is that we seem to devote a higher proportion of our income to central University services than other universities. Of the income of the Arts schools, some 44.4% goes to central costs. We should aim to get this down. Pushing central costs down by one percentage point would allow the funding of 6 new teaching faculty posts. But don't imagine that this is a costless option: cutting central costs reduces the resources available to the library, the computing service, the admissions office and the exams office. This term's meeting of the School of English and American Studies deplored next year's cut in the library budget. And quite right too.

Then there are the costs of maintaining support services to Schools and subject groups. These costs take a further 8% of income. I don't have the impression that we are unduly generous in our provision of secretarial services, research funds for faculty, or the other services provided within academic units, so cutting this percentage would be painful too. Reducing the share to 7.5% would provide 3 extra teaching posts.

Next come the administrative costs that are hidden within the calculations of teaching loads. In the coming year, 43 posts' worth of teaching, out of the total teaching faculty of 220, will be allocated to the administrative remissions of Deans, sub-Deans, subject chairs, GRC directors, exam board chairs, admissions tutors, and so on. This is an area where we almost surely are very different from other universities. The complicated interlocking system of Schools, subject groups and GRCs is very expensive to administer, and we must be alert to all possibilities of reducing these very high costs. The changes agreed after last year's discussion of Arts structures will improve the functioning of the system, and may reduce overheads. Some rationalisation of GRCs is still under discussion, but I have no intention of re-opening the wider discussion of Arts structures.

Turning to the way that teaching is delivered, we need to be more active in the use of research students as teaching assistants. This will provide financial support and teaching experience to research students as well as reducing the load on teaching faculty. Last year's reforms of the budgetary and teaching allocation system have not yet led to increased use of teaching assistants, and I want us to do better next year. A subject group of 20 faculty which replaces one faculty post with teaching assistants will reduce the teaching load on the remaining 19 faculty by perhaps 5%.

We should consider changes in how we teach. Just to have fewer seminars and more lectures might degrade the quality of teaching and learning in an unacceptable way, but more creative changes in teaching methods need to be explored.

Our complicated curriculum structure with its proliferation of options and its duplications is the second main way that we are different from other universities. If we are serious about controlling teaching loads we must be willing to look critically at the structure of the curriculum. Reducing the number of courses on offer would immediately reduce the number of courses to be taught by individual members of faculty; and it would also give scope for economies of scale.

There are no easy answers, but Arts faculty have to recognise that most of the opportunities for reducing teaching loads are in their own hands. Teaching loads can only be reduced if other things change. I have this week announced to Senate the appointment of John Dearlove as budget-holder for the Arts Budget Centre. He feels strongly that tackling the issue of teaching loads is our top priority, and that is his mandate in his new role.