The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alasdair Smith, has urged all academic staff at Sussex to consider the interests of students and play their normal role in assessment. The Association of University Teachers (AUT) nationally is seeking a 23% pay increase over three years and is asking its members to boycott assessment as part of a pay dispute.
In a letter to all academic and academic-related staff on 19 May, the Vice-Chancellor wrote: "My over-riding concern is the interests of our students as we move through this difficult dispute."
Exams are currently going ahead as normal at Sussex, although the position on marking remains unclear. The University is considering how the grading rules for exam boards can best be applied to maintain standards where marks are missing, and Deans are trying to ensure the exam boards themselves can still meet. The University is still planning to run graduation ceremonies in July.
The University also intends to do all it can to support any finalists who are left in difficult situations by the AUT action, e.g. by providing supporting statements and transcripts to employers. Further information and advice is being sent to students from Academic Registry in consultation with the Students' Union.
Where members of the AUT do not take part in the normal assessment processes, the University has said it will withhold 20% of salary on an ongoing basis until the member of staff indicates they are resuming their full duties, including clearing and submitting all outstanding marking as quickly as possible. Pay will be withheld with effect from today (Friday 26 May).
As the Bulletin went to press, further national talks were taking place, facilitated by ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) in relation to the employers' 12.6% offer, which the Vice-Chancellor said was "genuinely at the limit of what can be afforded by the higher education sector as a whole and by individual universities". He said he regretted that the AUT had not put this offer to its members.
Acknowledging the goodwill of all staff, the Vice-Chancellor said that if a national settlement is not reached by the end of June, he is minded to recommend that Council should agree on an interim basis to increase pay for all staff (both academic and support staff) by 3% from 1 August, and a further 1% from 1 February 2007, matching the offer made by university employers nationally.
For the full text of the VC's letter to academic staff, see www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/vcoffice/.