News – Page 14 of 32

19Mar

By Michele TheilNo Comments

News

Students Occupy Principal’s Corridor

Students occupied the Principal’s Corridor, a section of Founder’s Building, on Friday March 16 just after 12pm. They have taken up position in the corridor, just outside Principal Paul Layzell’s office and are planning to occupy until their demands are met. Their demands include: A full statement to be delivered by Paul Layzell in support of the UCU strike aims which include a defined benefit scheme and an indepedent evaluation of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS). Paul Layzell to come out and support members of staff and students and apologise for the hard-line approach taken so far. Paul Layzell to publically back any future developments that may arise in relation to preserving the current scheme. Paul Layzell to read and take into account the letter written ...

Over 400 Alumni Sign Open Letter to Paul Layzell

12Mar

By Michele TheilNo Comments

News

Over 400 Alumni Sign Open Letter to Paul Layzell

Over 400 alumni of Royal Holloway have signed an open letter to Principal Layzell addressing the college’s response to UCU strikes as well as Layzell’s previous comments concerning the gender pay gap, which Orbital reported in January. This comes directly after Layzell’s response, both towards staff and students, in the face of strikes has come under fire. The letter was written by alumni Joe Rayment, Jamie Green and Jen Mills. It has since been signed by over 400 graduates, including four former members of the university’s Governing Council. Rayment, a current Labour councillor in Bath, said that he was “extremely disturbed by what has happened here in recent months” and he hopes “that our voices are heard and that Professor Layzell will respond to us and explain exactly how he w...

12Mar

By Jamie WoodsNo Comments

News

Strike Action: Week Three

This article is only available on our website. If you haven't been automatically directed there, you can read it here.

College Accused of Planting Questions for Principal’s Staff Open Meeting to “Drown Out Questions From UCU Members”

9Mar

By Abbie CheesemanNo Comments

News

College Accused of Planting Questions for Principal’s Staff Open Meeting to “Drown Out Questions From UCU Members”

In an email sent to Royal Holloway line managers on Wednesday 7 March, which Orbital Magazine has seen, the College Communications team have asked for line managers to select "two trusted people" to ask a question at the Principal's next Staff Open Meeting on 12 March. The email stated: Dear [Line Manager], The next staff open meeting is on Monday afternoon at 4pm and earlier this week we changed the topic to address the pensions and the wider higher education landscape. We know we are going to receive a lot of questions from UCU representatives which Paul and the senior team will answer. As well as addressing questions about pensions we’d also like to make sure that other areas that staff have questions on are addressed. To do this we’d like to have some people in the audience prime...

5Mar

By Abbie CheesemanNo Comments

News

Strike Action: Week Two

To check out this article, click here.

2Mar

By Abbie CheesemanNo Comments

News

A Queer State of Affairs

Royal Holloway Chaplaincy are hoping they are near the end of their four-year fight to be allowed to conduct same-sex weddings. The process, which the chaplaincy are hoping will have reached a positive end by February 20, has hit complications because of its designation as a university chapel. The Registrar General regard university chapels as ‘shared churches’ because they are used by more than one denomination. Therefore, in order to be granted ‘consent to use’ for same-sex marriage, permission is needed from the Catholic Bishop, the Anglican Synod and then from a denomination that was prepared to conduct same-sex weddings. Father John Dickson, the Roman Catholic Chaplain at Royal Holloway commented: “Given the fact, that neither the Catholics nor Anglicans are permitted to cond...

23Feb

By Michele TheilNo Comments

News

Strike Action: Week One

Strikes over the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) occurred yesterday (Thursday February 22) and today (Friday February 23) at universities all over the country. These two days of strike action ended the first week of a planned four weeks of strike action, called for by the Universities and College Union (UCU) as a result of lecturers and academics losing their defined contribution scheme to their pensions. Thursday’s strike saw a large turnout of lecturers from several departments that contributed to the atmosphere of the entire event. The strike leader, a designated representative of the UCU donning a high-visibility jacket and coordinating the picket line, was quick to discuss the picketing situation with security guards from RHUL. The security guards cited an official law tha...

UCU Warns of an Extension of Strike Action

22Feb

By Michele TheilNo Comments

News

UCU Warns of an Extension of Strike Action

There are plans in motion to escalate the strikes into university exam season in April, May and June. As of February 21, there has been no resolution to the dispute between universities and the University and College Union (UCU) over the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) that would leave lecturers losing an estimated £10,000 to their pension. The General Secretary of the UCU, Sally Hunt, has warned that there is a possibility of strike action being extended if negotiations are not successful in seeking a resolution to the pension dispute. The extension of strike action would lead into exam season, with the potential to disrupt exams for all students, but with a particularly strong impact on final year students. She said that she wouldn’t “rule that off the table at this point ...

Royal Holloway Slammed as “Most Hardline University Employer in UK” Over Strikes

21Feb

By Abbie CheesemanNo Comments

News

Royal Holloway Slammed as “Most Hardline University Employer in UK” Over Strikes

Royal Holloway UCU (University College Union) have claimed that no other university in the UK has made such extensive threats to staff over strike action and have called for academics to not be "intimidated" by the College's "short-sighted approach" to the strikes. Letters that academics have received are encouraging staff to give advance notice of strike action - a move that the UCU claim will undermine the principle of the strikes. Academics are also being told that they must give 5 days notice for action short of a strike (ASOS). The notification forms that have been sent to staff suggest that 'working to contract', 'not undertaking voluntary activities', 'not covering for absent colleagues' and 'not rescheduling lectures or classes cancelled due to strike action' may be counted a...

Everything you need to know about the UCU strikes: why and how you can support your academics.

20Feb

By Emma HalahanNo Comments

News

Everything you need to know about the UCU strikes: why and how you can support your academics.

If you don’t need to be persuaded, scroll down for an email template that you can send to Paul Layzell and other members of Senior Management to come out in support of your striking academics and potentially end the strikes sooner. What, when and why are the strikes taking place? The Universities and College Union (UCU) have called for four weeks of ‘unprecedented’ strike action over a deal made by the governing body for universities, University UK (UUK) that would see the average lecturer lose roughly £10,000 of their pension a year in a restructuring of the University Superannuations Scheme (USS). Pensions which are usually paid in by academics each month and then matched by the university, would be tied 100% to the stock market. This means that universities would void their respon...