Say NO to the School of Business move to Brookfield

We believe that Brookfield campus is not fit for the purpose of locating the School of Business: it will undermine teaching and research, and damage the student experience. The reasons for this are manifold, as voiced on many occasions by numerous members of School staff in various fora. These include:

• Substantial physical and practical ‘distancing’ of ULSB academic and other student-facing staff from the students’, whose primary base will remain the main campus.

• Negligible teaching space and learning facilities for approximately 5,000 campus-based ULSB students despite NSS data showing students prioritise these over new buildings*.

• Worsens students' access to tutors as it discourages them from choosing their stated preference for face-to-face contact**.

• Planned shared offices for most academic staff is not conducive to undertaking quiet research activities, student supervision and confidential meetings.

• Alternative ‘break-out’ accommodation is inadequate and insufficient for ad hoc and confidential meetings.

• Staff and students with mobility restrictions are disproportionately penalized by the distance and journey-time between the main campus and Brookfield.

• Personal safety concerns associated with crossing Victoria Park after dark.

• The lack of a convenient and safe pedestrian crossing of London Road en route from the main campus.

• Considerable risk of unpleasant and uncomfortable weather conditions during the 15 to 20-minute walk from main campus.

We believe that if ULSB relocates to the Brookfield campus there will be a significant negative impact on the School’s NSS score, and its performance in the TEF and REF will be undermined. Regardless of the many valid criticisms of these performance measures and their uses, they remain the primary benchmarks used by prospective students and external stakeholders to evaluate the School and University.

We believe the success of students and staff are bound to one another because “(t)eachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions”, as expressed by Diane Ravitch, Historian and Research Professor of Education. With compromised research and teaching conditions and a poor location, we are not able as a School to succeed together.

Despite the Brookfield move being at an advanced stage of planning, we understand there has not been any consultation with the Leicester University Students Union (LUSU), let alone the three staff trade unions, UCU, Unite, and Unison. In addition, the views of current ULSB students have not been canvassed, which is astonishing given the current first-year cohort will be in their final year at the time of the planned move in 2019/18 - and will be NSS respondents in 2019.

We call on the Provost and ULT to halt the current plans for relocating ULSB to Brookfield and instead work with staff and students to find a suitable alternative that will allow the School to thrive and expand in a location with facilities that enhance the student experience and provides the best possible working conditions for pursuing scholarly activity, as befits a research-intensive university. ________________________________________________________

CITED RESEARCH

* Universities UK (2016) http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2016/student-experience-measuring-expectations-and-outcomes.pdf

** HEPI-HEA (2016) http://www.hepi.ac.uk/2016/06/09/hepi-hea-2016-student-academic-experience-survey/