Why are we doing this?
- Members have serious concerns about the objectives, timing, scope and workload implications of the Comprehensive Curriculum Review (CCR).
- Members were not meaningfully consulted about the CCR or the ‘Connected Curriculum’ and our criticisms were not taken on board.
- We are being asked to design and deliver a new curriculum, particularly the ‘Connected Curriculum’, that will be used to make more of us redundant by cutting courses and putting more teaching online.
- Goldsmiths depends on the goodwill of its staff to work beyond contracted hours. That goodwill has long since run out.
- We cannot pretend that there is ‘business as usual’ and therefore we pledge not to participate in voluntary committee work. College-wide committees will lose legitimacy if staff withdraw.
- This strategy complements – and is not designed to replace – the industrial action already initiated by GUCU, including strike action, ASOS and greylisting.
- SMT are trying to greenwash their disastrous, brutal and unjustified restructure and cuts using initiatives like the CCR. This is pivotal to their determination to reshape Goldsmiths as an institution with fewer staff, diminished intellectual autonomy for subject areas, weaker Departments, and a centralisation of power away from staff on the ground towards an expanding senior management team. Disrupting the CCR hits at the heart of their ‘recovery’ plan.
What does non-compliance with the CCR involve?
- Not joining working groups to implement the CCR.
- Not providing the key data sets needed for CCR documents.
- Not consulting with other ‘stakeholders’ to produce CCR documents, including students, external partners and other members of staff.
- Not attending CCR support workshops.
- Not helping to produce the Self-Evaluation Document (SED) required for each programme.
- Not completing the programme and module specifications, programme narratives and other supporting documents that are required for revalidation.
- Not taking on any additional work that is directly related to the CCR, including the ‘Connected Curriculum’.
How will it work?
- Maximum unity and participation are the best guarantees that withdrawal from committees and non-compliance with CCR will have an impact.
- Where these roles have not been workloaded, it is worth noting that we already deliver ‘our core functions’ well beyond the 35 hours we are contracted to work. We cannot be expected to add to that workload, and our core contractual work involves – depending on your role – teaching, preparation, marking, administrative duties, pastoral care and supporting student learning.
- From Tuesday 22 February, non-compliance with the CCR will formally become part of our branch’s approach to action short of a strike (ASOS), which means members can cite ASOS as the reason for their non-compliance, whether their role in the processes has been workloaded or not. SMT intends to deduct 20% of pay for this and other aspects of our ASOS, which is something that we oppose and will continue to challenge as a branch.
- Non-compliance will help to stop the CCR being validated internally and externally.