The combined union committee comprising of UCU, EIS, Unison and Unite, have asked their members to vote for Douglas Chalmers for the vacant academic staff position on Court, in the elections this Thursday 13th June.
This follows the news that Davena Rankin was elected unopposed as Support Staff representative.
Thursday’s voting comes at a time when the Scottish government are expected to implement the findings of the commission into HE governance chaired by Professor Ferdinand Von Prondzynski which reported earlier in the year. This was extremely critical of the current functioning of existing university Court structures and called for widespread reform.
Following this, the existing chairs of Court set up their own commission to draw up a code of conduct – a process which however excluded direct involvement of staff and student voice on their commission, in direct contradiction of the suggestions of Education minister Mike Russell. These court-led meetings were generally perceived to be shambolic – with no minutes taken and a widespread perception existing that this was essentially an undemocratic manoeuvre taken by the existing power structures within university courts, to defend their privileged nature.
Douglas is for radical change in the way the Courts operate.
Said Douglas Chalmers: “I am fully behind the implementation of the suggested reforms to Court functioning and governance. I have a proven track record of arguing for Courts to be more open to the voice of all staff and indeed the whole university community. I believe the chairs should be elected, the gender balance should be improved, the minutes published, and the presumption should be openness rather than the reverse. I hope all academic colleagues will support me in pushing for our university to follow in the direction of radical change and to become a beacon of good practice”.
A short interview with Douglas on some of the relevant issues can be found here.
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