INSIDE:LET’S PLAY/ CASUAL SEX/JAMAICA/ THE BOOK THIEF/ Cloud control/ BENEATH THE VEIL
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The independent student newspaper of the University of Sheffield. Est. 1946.
Issue 68 Friday March 7 2014 @ForgePress /ForgePress
Arts uncover:
The forgotten stories of Sheffield 1914, Fuse, p. 8-9
Sport meet:
Sheffield’s ski sensation, p. 26
Comment explain: The reluctance of male student feminists, p. 8
Who will be your next SU President?
Find out more on pages 2-3
SU student staff can now use women’s minibus p.4
Students slam university bosses
4 Academics have threatened a marking boycott from April 28 Tasmin Wade Students have slammed University management for refusing to respond to pay negotiations with academic staff, who have now threatened to boycott marking students’ work. Academic staff have been forced to consider the ‘ultimate sanction’ and threatened to boycott marking all work from April 28, including dissertations and final assessments, if university management continue to ignore the strikes that have been taking place since October 2013. The boycott would mean that students’ final grades and graduations could be seriously disrupted if university management remain unwilling to renegotiate pay deals. Third year Politics and Sociology student Sam LaneEvans said: “The thought of our graduation being at risk after we have put in so much work is very stressful. I don’t know what this would mean for anyone applying for
a job or even postgraduate courses. “The University management have caused this more than the lecturers by failing to respond to what is a highly important issue. I hope they resolve this and agree to the pay negotiations as soon as possible so that students are not negatively affected.” This warning comes after vice chancellors in UK universities received an average 5.1 per cent pay rise, while Keith Burnett pocketed a 39 per cent pay rise to £374,000. Vice chancellors are now paid an average of £235,000 a year. University staff were offered a 1 per cent pay rise by University management, which falls below interest rates and has in real terms meant a 13 per cent pay cut in the last five years, while many staff have been striking for the living wage. The proposed marking boycott would mean academic staff represented by the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) would stop marking students’ work at a time
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before most final deadlines. It is unclear how or when final year students would be able to graduate with unmarked final assessments if the boycott, which would be the first since 2006, is sanctioned. Many students would also be left without knowing their final grades, and whether they have passed or failed modules, for an unforeseeable amount of time. Andrew Dodman, director of human resources at the University of Sheffield, said: “It is of course disappointing that UCU continue to threaten industrial action in relation to the 2013 pay negotiations, particularly where their action is targeted directly at the student experience. “We have seen a notable decline in the number of trade union members participating in industrial action as this dispute has continued. During the last UCU action only 2 per cent of our workforce took strike action.” Continued on p. 7