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Dr David Hitchcock (Canterbury Christ Church University)

29 January 2021

Election address

I am a Senior Lecturer in early modern history at Canterbury Christ Church University. I am a historian of poverty, and a migrant academic from Canada. I could pay the steep costs of 'leave to remain' for just myself, but I have seen international students and staff driven from the UK by the ruinous expense. I know that fleecing migrant students and staff is only the beginning of the Home Office's pernicious effects on education; by making institutions into internal surveillance and border police they have done incalculable damage to the sector and to student lives. I have also fought managerial reviews and redundancies and pushed against a grinding austerity which is winnowing away arts and humanities programmes at my university. My experiences propelled me into activism in my local branch and nationally on to the migrant members committee. This year I have seen senior management and the government conspire to put staff, students, and our communities at risk, through their insistence on filling student accommodation and through face to face teaching during the coronavirus pandemic. They lied to students and gaslit staff. They have created an enormous crisis in health, both physical and mental, and in trust. I also see a sector being asset-stripped by aggressive redundancies and by pivots to the 'efficiencies' of digital delivery.

If elected by UCU's South region I will represent the issues of members across almost 100 diverse institutions, be available to branches, and confer regularly with the three regional committees. I want the NEC to be transparent, responsive, and effective. My priorities on the NEC would focus on three areas. First, workload; what constitutes 'academic' work and how should it be modelled and apportioned in a responsible manner. I believe this issue lies at the root of many of the challenges we face, particularly the crisis of precarity affecting early career scholars. Second, the hostile environment, and how we can unpick it from our institutions. Third, the union's response to the push to funnel students and resources away from non-STEM subjects or from degrees seen as 'low-quality'. This last development is a dangerous aspect of 'culture war' which is narrowing the educational horizons of thousands of students. Even in the face of management shamelessness and government malice, a strong and smart union can materially improve conditions for students and staff in education, and I can help this effort on the NEC.

I am standing for election as a member of the UCU Commons slate of candidates. For more information about our core principles and platform we all share, please see www.UCUCommons.org. If you vote for me, please consider voting for the other excellent UCU Commons candidates.

Last updated: 28 January 2021