Open Letter calling for the reinstatement of UniInfo

To: the University Executive Board (UEB), University of Brighton
From: Staff and Doctoral Students at the University of Brighton
(This letter can only be signed by staff or doctoral students at the University of Brighton.)

The UniInfo facility enabled staff to communicate with each other across the University. This created a sense of community, and a sense of common educational purpose. Unusual among HE institutions, it was one of the distinctive and welcome features of the University of Brighton. It enabled academic seminars and lectures and conferences to be advertised to the whole University community, and it gave a sense of all that was happening in different parts of a geographically dispersed institution.

While the facility was occasionally misused in not providing information relevant to the University, the incidence of this misuse was small, and such occurrences were easily addressed. Those who did not wish to receive UniInfo messages could block or divert them.

There is, therefore, the loss of a highly valued facility for no apparent advantage. Indeed, the precipitous way the decision was implemented suggests that the chief advantage that was being sought was the abolition of a facility that allowed staff publicly to debate decisions of the UEB, including this one.

The consequence of abolishing UniInfo will be that the only messages that go to all staff will be those top-down messages from the senior management, or information from Estates and Facilities Management, IT services, and Marketing and Communications. The character of the e-mail facility is thus changed from a general information and individual communication mechanism to a managerial and administrative loudspeaker.

We, the undersigned, call on the UEB to restore the UniInfo system in the interests of preserving the sense of an educational community, and in recognition of the judgment of staff.

Signed:
Professor Bob Brecher
Professor Graham Dawson
Professor Marie-Benedicte Dembour
Dr Mark Erickson
Tom Hickey
Martin Loftus
Dr Vicky Margree
Professor Catherine Moriarty
Dr Lucy Noakes
Dr Lara Perry
Professor Raf Salkie