Mark Pendleton (University of Sheffield)

Mark Pendleton (University of Sheffield) 

Election address 

This election I had planned to build on years of service to the union by running for a lay officer role. Instead, like many of you, I'm working with colleagues in my department to fight for our jobs. We taught several hundred international PGT students each year for the last five years in my department, but a single year drop in recruitment has seen us threatened with "significant" cuts and gutting of specialist teaching.   

Our union has not developed an effective response to this crisis across HE. This is a failure of elected leadership, primarily the UCU Left dominated Higher Education Committee, which has stumbled from calamitous ballot to calamitous action, despite members ever more loudly asking for change.   

That many members have now disengaged is a serious problem. I begged the UCU Left dominated HEC to work to address this, only for my proposals to be voted down, along with other proposals to consult you. Who would oppose understanding what members experience on the ground and responding to what you are seeing and fighting?   

If members continue to disengage, the union will drift further.   

Please support those who have tried, despite being often in minority, to turn the UCU ship around. My fellow UCU Commons members have argued for a focus on uneven student distribution across HE for years and have been the only reps to propose a campaign strategy paper. That discussion has been deprioritised by the HEC majority on three occasions. Who would oppose an urgent conversation about a strategy to save jobs?  

Look too for reps from branches where trusted, independent leadership have seen local wins or staved off compulsory redundancies.  

While on our National Executive, I have regularly worked across political differences to foster the widest possible support. We are better able to win as a union when we are pulling in the same direction, as we showed with USS and across many local disputes. But that requires good faith from elected reps, which is not always forthcoming.   

At Sheffield, where I am (for now) a Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies, I have also been branch secretary, treasurer and equalities officer, helped fight off 'fire and rehire' tactics during the pandemic and negotiated local policy in key areas, including migrant staff visa fee reimbursements.   

I don't know if I personally have a future in higher education, but for the sake of our profession and sector I urge you to support UCU Commons candidates and independents in this election (see: https://ucucommons.org/nec25) as the best people to take our membership forward together and rebuild a union that can save post-16 education. I support Dyfrig Jones for Vice-President and Andrew Feeney for Honorary Treasurer.