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11:07am on Friday, 29th November, 2024:
Anecdote
Essex University was in the BBC news yesterday in a report about its financial situation: "University to cut 200 jobs amid £29m shortfall". 200 jobs are going to go.
The situation would be far worse were it not for the School of Computer Science and the Business School, who together are supporting the rest of the university. This is somewhat ironic, because around 10-15 years ago there was talk of closing Computer Science down: it was losing money and most of the university is humanities-based. This was despite the fact that it had been Computer Science that had staved off financial disaster 10-15 years earlier when the number of humanities applicants dropped drastically.
Ultimately, the university's financial woes are down to over-expansion during recent boom years. The aim was to get to 20,000 students, which it almost did, but applications dropped and we're now at just under 18,000. Most of these are undergraduates, who don't bring in anywhere near as much in fees as postgraduates. We have empty accommodation units for which we're still having to pay back the loans we took out to build them. COVID-19 is partly to blame for interfering with our cash flows, but its effects have mostly passed through the system now.
Brexit isn't really to blame. Yes, we're getting fewer applicants from the EU nowadays, but they were no more profitable than home students (which is to say, the margins were slim). Rather, it's the drop in international postgraduates that has hit us hard. This was precipitated by the decision by the Conservative government not to grant visas to the families of students coming to study at postgraduate level. The then-government's idea was to reduce the headline figures for immigration, which it did (but not by much); this was regardless of the fact that most of these people were going to return to their home countries afterwards, and those that weren't were by definition highly-educated and therefore would become assets to the UK. Because people with spouses and children no longer came to the UK, neither did those of their friends and colleagues who didn't have spouses and children. As a result, there's been a collapse in postgraduate numbers that has affected the whole sector. It's not just Essex that finds itself having to live off its reserves (which in Essex's case, word-of-mouth is reporting are relatively high).
Still, thee university does have to balance the books.
On Monday, we games lecturers had a meeting with the Head of School about the future of the Games degrees. The School is cutting under-performing modules and degree schemes in order to free up lecturers' time to teach other modules and degree schemes. It wouldn't need to do this if we were able to recruit more staff, but a recruitment freeze was imposed earlier this year when the possibility that there might be a shortfall was looking to become more of a probability. We were already short of staff in Computer Science because of a feedback loop: insufficient numbers of staff meant more workload, which caused lecturers to leave, which raised the workload for those who didn't, which caused more of them to leave, and so on. This was in part due to the long lag between advertising a post and having an actual lecturer in front of students. A recruitment freeze makes the situation even worse, because we don't get any new staff to replace the ones who leave. Computer Science may get some special dispensation for this, on the grounds that it's the goose laying the golden eggs that the university needs, but even if it does then the problem of a high workload will remain (because it was there before the drop in postgraduate applications bit). Therefore, some heavy pruning of modules is needed so that people don't have to teach as many of them, so reducing their workload and stemming the tide.
This makes a great deal of sense, and it also addresses another lingering issue. We used to have a problem with modules that were basically sinecures so that professors with a high research income could meet their teaching obligations without doing a great deal of said teaching; those days are now largely gone, but there remain a few hold-outs. A departmental-wide effort to remove the deadwood will be the final nail in that coffin.
Of course, the fact that this makes sense doesn't mean it won't be painful for some. One of the degree schemes that doesn't do well is the Games MSc, which this year has two modules that are only taught to only 3 students. OK, so last year it was 12 students, which was profitable, and the numbers do fluctuate quite a lot, but 3 is dismal. The word on the grapevine is that people from the Indian subcontinent in particular are heading for Queen Mary University London for their Games MScs, rather than to Essex. QMUL's games offering is indeed excellent, and is the very reason Essex's isn't: it's core is comprised of former Essex researchers who were poached by QMUL pre-pandemic.
The Games MSc is therefore being put on hiatus ("suspended" is the official term). It won't be recruiting next year. The Games BSc is safe for now, because two of its programming modules are very popular among non-games students, both in terms of how many students take them and how well they do in the student assessments of modules. The two design modules (which I teach) are also popular — or at least they were until this year, when non-games students were forbidden from taking them. I start teaching next term, so won't know until then what the damage is, but I expect it will alarming. I believe only 10-15 students are on the games degree in the third year, which will rather put a dampener on the class discussions.
During our meeting with the Head of School, the future of the BSc Games was also discussed. I pointed out that I was due to retire in 2026, so next academic year will be my last. Whether it's the last for the Games degree is another matter: the School is keen for it to recruit more students, and sees a lot of the problems it's having being to do with advertising (the university has limits on what we can put on its web pages, and games don't exactly fit the corporate line).One of the other lecturers is very dynamic and if given the support will be able to turn things round. Besides, when Computer Science itseelf wasn't recruiting (in the decade following the bust that came after the dot-com boom), it was the then-new Games degree that was keeping the department afloat. We were to Computer Science what Computer Science currently is to the university. If Computer Science thought the university was wrong to contemplate canning it (which it was), perhaps it would be prudent for Computer Science not to can Games in case that might be wrong by the same token.
I was asked at the meeting whether I was sure I'd be retiring in 2026. I said yes, and maybe before then if the Vice Chancellor were to bring out a voluntary redundancy scheme (which is what many of our peer universities, such as East Anglia, have already done).
Well, if you've read the BBC article, you'll see that there is indeed a voluntary severance scheme on offer. In an email to staff yesterday, the acting VC said that she'd consult with unions regarding what kind of package to offer, and hopes to have something agreed within four weeks. I'll have a look at what it is, and if it seems fair and I qualify for it, I'll take it.
I'm probably in the way for revising the way we teach games anyway.
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