ADAM TICKELL - RETHINK or RESIGN

Students and Staff of The University of Sussex, Please sign this petition.

Dear Adam, Rethink or Resign!,

Watching the unfolding response to the Covid-19 Pandemic here at Sussex, is a masterclass in closed doors decision making. Where are the ‘Sussex Values’ right now?

Students have been left to fend for themselves, relying on peer support, their under-resourced and under-funded Students’ Union, and support networks outside of the University.

With a Housing Department that took days to even formulate an incoherent response, which was distributed with ‘comments disabled’, to a GP clinic whose telephone system kept crashing.

Students are not being listened to, and decisions are being made behind closed doors that will affect them in the months ahead.

Adam Tickell you either need to rethink the abhorrent policy of dismissing wholesale the most vulnerable staff on campus, or resign.

At a time when we have Awarding Gaps, exorbitant on-campus rents, NSS results going through the floor, an epidemic of student mental health issues, to name but a few issues at Sussex, to now be forced to see OUR university sink to these lows, is utterly unacceptable.

We demand immediate action on the following points...

• The immediate retraction of wholesale job losses at The University of Sussex, to include Doctoral Tutors.
• An immediate retraction of the freeze on PGR recruitment.
• A public apology by Adam Tickell to all staff and students, made on University social media, for the abysmal handling by University Management of the ongoing crisis.
  This apology to be made within 24 hours of receiving this communication.
• The University to use the ‘Sussex Values’ as guiding principles at this extraordinary time.
• 50% Student representation in all University meetings that deal with university budgets, for the next 24 months.
  Students deserve to be included in and have voting rights on conversations and decisions relating to the budgets of our University.
• 50% Student representation in all University meetings that deal with university employment policy for the next 24 months.
  Students deserve to be included in and have voting rights on conversations and decisions relating to the employment policy of our University.
• 50% Student Representation in all meetings at which broad university policy is decided regarding Teaching, Learning and Assessment for the next 24 months.
  We deserve to be included in the conversation, considering we pay for the Universities very existence.

Over the coming weeks a significant  increase in the number of staff dedicated to student support services within but not exclusive to the SLC & SSU. These staff members can either be newly recruited or deployed from other departments, to be trained to answer by telephone or online, the pressing questions that students have.

For University senior management to bear a significant degree of the financial losses incurred at this time, by an immediate reduction (25%) of pay to University Executive.

If one or more of these conditions is not publicly acknowledged and agreed upon by 12 o’clock, Monday 30th March 2020, then it is clear that Sussex is a university made for and made by everyone else other than the Students and most vulnerable staff members it employs.If this is the case then collectively we call for you, Adam Tickell, Vice Chancellor of The University of Sussex, to immediately RESIGN, as it is a clear indication that you are not prepared to listen to students and stand by the Sussex Values you talk about so frequently.

Signed by:

Benjamin Matthews (Postgraduate Education Officer, The University of Sussex Students’ Union, USSU)

Ijlal Khalid (Society and Citizenship Officer, The University of Sussex Students’ Union, USSU)

Callum Chapman (Students with Disabilities Officer, The University of Sussex Students’ Union, USSU)

Atusa Jasmin (Current candidate for the role of Diversity, Access and Participation Officer, in USSU election)

On behalf of the Students and staff of The University of Sussex.