Dear Students,

Thank you for your letters, emails and face-to-face conversations over the last few days. I have heard from staff and students from across the University. I have been ‘out and about’ and talking with staff and students as well and I am very concerned about how things have unfolded here at Kent in relation to the dispute over pensions. I want to assure you I am actively seeking to resolve these internally. It is not the way I want things to be and my aim is to get back to positive campus relations between us all, our staff and students. To that end, I have indicated that we will not be deducting any pay for action short of a strike (ASOS) for this period of action. In addition, we have been talking with Kent Union and the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) about our Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) and hourly paid lecturers (HPLs) position to ensure there is no long-term detrimental impact if they choose to take strike action.

I appreciate that this action will impact on your experience here at Kent. My colleagues across the University are working hard to mitigate the impact of any action on you our students and this will continue.

I will personally continue with my support for the need for decent pensions and I know many of you support that position. I will also continue with my public calls for continued and constructive discussions between UCU and UUK to resolve this. I made a public call to UUK in a letter dated 21 February on this which was reported in The Times and have continued to lobby UUK to this effect. I was very pleased when discussions resumed between UUK and UCU facilitated by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS). I will continue to publicly support constructive discussions. We have also been lobbying USS on this issue as well with regard to the assumptions which underlie the valuation and which are driving the deficit. We have invited them to the University to discuss this and had face-to-face conversations to raise our concerns. We have also lobbied them via UUK. We will continue to exert this pressure.

I am in regular discussions with Kent Union and I have a meeting scheduled next week to hear from Student Representatives across the University about their concerns on this issue. Please feel free to get in touch with your course, school or faculty rep about any concerns you would like them to raise when they meet with me. I have had the good fortune to meet many of our students already but hope I will get to meet more of you at one of the open forums I will be running later in the year.

Yours sincerely,

Karen

Professor Karen Cox | Vice-Chancellor and President