De Montfort University job cuts will 'damage reputation'

One academic said DMU was becoming a vocational skills centre instead of a university

A university has been told it will do "immense damage" to its reputation if it goes ahead with proposed job cuts.

De Montfort University (DMU) in Leicester announced earlier this month about 58 jobs were at risk.

One academic said the cuts would "severely diminish the student experience".

DMU said it was committed to providing the highest possible standard of teaching, learning and research.

'Unfair'

A professor, who did not want to be named, said her job was one of those at risk.

She said: "Management are telling us we cost too much but, just a couple of years ago, they promoted us to senior positions - where is the logic there?

"I am doing what I have been promoted to do.

"My contribution to the university in terms of research and in terms of the profile - none of this matters. I cost too much now."

DMU said it was "immensely proud" of how staff and students responded to the pandemic

She also criticised the timing of redundancies.

"Without us, the university would not have got through the pandemic," she said.

"We had to change the way in which we taught overnight, at speed.

"We did that without any complaining because our main concern was to make sure we continued to offer the best possible learning experience to our students."

She said the cuts would have an impact on new students and damage the reputation and economy of Leicester.

"Students are going to be taught by skeleton departments made of overworked, overloaded staff so they're not going to get the same experience," she said.

Another academic at DMU, who also wanted to remain anonymous, said: "They are doing immense reputational damage to the institution by getting rid of their most successful academics.

"I think it will severely diminish the student experience. That will ultimately prove counterproductive in financial terms.

"All they're really doing is winding the institution down and turning it into a vocational skills centre.

"A city that had two universities is going to be left with one-and-a-half because DMU won't be a proper university any more."

'Scrapheap'

More than 2,400 people have signed an online petition to save the jobs.

The DMU branch of the University and Colleges Union (UCU) said: "We don't see that 'high-quality teaching' can be delivered when outstanding teachers, researchers, and professional services staff are being thrown on the scrapheap.

"At a time when our staff-student ratio is one of the worst in the sector, management's response is to compound the problem by losing what might amount to 58 essential roles."

A spokesperson for DMU said: "We are immensely proud of how quickly our staff and students responded to the pandemic.

"Despite this, the unavoidable financial impact of the pandemic has been substantial in higher education institutions and DMU is no exception.

"We need to consult on possible redundancies where we have lower student numbers and high numbers of staff.

"While these measures are the very last we wanted to take, they are being taken to ensure the university remains financially strong into the future, which in turn enables us to keep providing high-quality teaching, learning and research.

"We are committed to delivering all of these to the highest standard possible."