1,128

of 2,000 signatures

Open letter

Dear Professor Stephen Toope, University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor;

As alumni of the University of Cambridge, we are usually proud to tell people where we studied. We know it is a university with a long and illustrious history, and superlative research and teaching standards. Many of us contribute, or aspire to contribute, to University and College finances. We are hugely grateful to the inspirational staff, from supervisors to porters to graduate teaching assistants, who taught us to such a high standard, and who devote so much time, energy, and thought every day to the education and wellbeing of Cambridge students. Staff are the lynchpin of the University, and without their labour, the University would be nothing. The university experiences of students are directly related to the wellbeing of their staff.

Recently, however, we have been less proud of the role Cambridge has been playing nationally – and its treatment of staff. We understand that the University of Cambridge and its Colleges have had a major influence in the decision-making around staff pensions. We are concerned about the development of proposals for the management of USS which would dramatically reduce the security of staff, especially younger and early career staff, in their retirement. This comes in the context of the continued marketisation of higher education in the UK, growing demands on staff without additional remuneration or recognition, and increased competition between universities. We are ashamed of Cambridge’s decisive part in this.

Having contributed to the current situtation, the University of Cambridge also has a responsibility, as well as the influence, to help resolve it. We thank you for your recent statement in favour of negotiation and compromise, and exhort you to push for a solution which protects the staff of the whole USS membership and not only Cambridge staff.

We, the undersigned alumni of the University of Cambridge, affirm our solidarity with and support for staff in the ongoing UCU industrial action. We call on you, in your highly influential postion as Vice Chancellor of the University, to stand up for staff, and promote a future for the UK’s higher education sector that values collaboration over competition, and education over profits.

Sincerely

The undersigned alumni of the University of Cambridge:

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