Broadcast: News items

Today (14 October) the Vice Chancellor, Adam Tickell, wrote to all staff. You can read the email in full below:

Dear colleague,

Yesterday our Provost, Rachel Mills chaired the meeting of Senate. The main item on the agenda was the Governance Effectiveness Review, which was an independent evaluation of the effectiveness of Council, Senate and the inter-relationship between the two bodies. The final report makes a number of recommendations and suggestions. Some of these recommendations have already been approved by Council and Senate for immediate implementation. The remaining recommendations with be considered by Council and Senate working groups to identify how they can be taken forward to the benefit of Sussex.

Good governance is essential for a successful university and so, while this may seem like a dry topic, strengthening, clarifying and simplifying our governance benefits us all. It allows us to act faster and more effectively and makes more efficient use of our resources. In the spirit of openness, we are publishing the report in full and this will be shared with you in the coming days.

This has been a really difficult week for many people at Sussex and we need to work together to find a way through this in a way that is as dignified and respectful as possible. When we published our Strategic Framework, and following extensive consultation, we committed the University to five important values: kindness, integrity, inclusion, collaboration and courage. Over the next weeks and months, it will be important to reflect on these and to think about how our interaction with people we disagree with stacks up against them. I hope that everyone will agree that rebuilding depends upon three basic principles

• The University is a place which values and promotes academic and intellectual freedom,
• Everybody has the right to work, learn and go about their business, free from bullying or harassment of any kind, and
• Everybody deserves to be treated fairly and that the University needs to continue to progress our work on equality, diversity and inclusion.

These are your absolute rights as a member of our University community and as a human being and whilst they may appear to be in conflict with each other, they are essential and interdependent.

Most major societal progress has been made through the free exchange of ideas – and the challenge of those ideas. Universities have been and must remain exemplars in this, setting the standard for the rest of society. Likewise, inclusive communities can only remain so by disagreeing respectfully.

I know that some have felt excluded from statements we have made in the past week, particularly those from the trans and non-binary community, but when we defend these fundamental rights, we do so on behalf of all of you, individually and collectively.

After a week in which our shared values have been tested and questioned, now is the time for us to come together, talk and seek a way forward. David Ruebain, our new Pro-Vice Chancellor for Culture, Equality and Inclusion will be leading this work but we all have a crucial role to play. Please consider very carefully how your actions and words are contributing to a situation and try to find constructive ways to stand for your beliefs.

David Ruebain has recently shared his views with staff and students and we have published an extremely thoughtful opinion piece from his interim predecessor Professor Kevin Hylton titled Inclusion, Freedom of Expression and the Spirit of Sussex. Both contain wise counsel, accumulated over decades of experience of working towards a more equal and just society. We are lucky to have them.

With best wishes,

Adam