Strikes, Salaries and the Students’ Union: Head to Head with VC Shearer West

In an Impact exclusive interview,

Lottie Murray speaks with the

University of Nottingham’s ViceChancellor, Shearer West, touching on topics including UCU strikes, the SU elections and her salary.

After receiving her degree in Art History and pursuing her passion for the discipline as an academic, the ViceChancellor has been given the opportunity to work in many different higher education institutions including the universities of Leicester, Birmingham and Oxford. With most days starting at around 5am and ending at 9pm, Shearer describes her role of “the chief accountable officer” as a “very exciting but very complicated job”.

Of course, the issues she deals with on a daily basis vary hugely but given recent events, the UCU strikes are currently taking up a lot of her time. So, what does she think about the strikes? Most basically, she says, “people in unions have the right to go on strike” and she “completely respects their right to strike”. However, she explained,“the senior leadership team and I have a responsibility as leaders of the university to mitigate any impact on students caused by strikes”.

On the issue of pensions, the Vice-Chancellor explains that “pensions and pay are subject to national negotiation” and so she argues that even if, as an individual Vice-Chancellor, she had the power to fix this issue, it is ultimately out of her hands. Moving forward on this matter, Professor West says that “we are trying to focus on the things we can change more locally such as gender pay gaps, introducing new contracts to address casualisation and reviewing academic workloads”.

In March, the new cohort of SU officers were elected. The elections, however, seriously lacked voter turnout and the results evening was disorganised and marred with controversy. On the Students Union, Professor West commends the organisation’s dedication to trying to improve the student experience and despite her busy schedule, she remembers she had been made aware of recent events. “It would be great if more students got involved with elections” was her response, while also commenting that engagement might be improved by better representation of the student body.

Continuing, the Vice-Chancellor explains that “the SU are effectively an independent body” and herself and the senior leadership team have a good relationship with the SU officers. “We meet them regularly, they have seats to represent student views in many of the University’s committees: they have seats as this representation helps us build a good relationship with them” she adds. Given mounting concern over China’s human rights record, there has been some concern amongst students over one of the partnerships which the University has formed in the country: the Ningbo Campus. On this, the Vice-Chancellor acknowledges that people have their concerns regarding human rights in China and understands those concerns completely. She even points out that “our academic community is engaged in researching, publicising and providing public comment and insight on these issues”.

Despite this, the Vice-Chancellor remarks that having established a partnership for over 20 years, this campus in China has a “very important role in soft power and embassy”. The formation of this partnership is very important because it was “formed when UK universities lacked international students” so it is wonderful that our institution is so culturally diverse. Further, for Professor West, providing education to students living in China can help improve human rights: “we provide a liberal British education and we wouldn’t be benefiting anybody by removing our education in China”.

Another issue of contention often discussed amongst students is the Vice-Chancellor’s salary (£286,000). With pay disparity found amongst university staff and an ongoing debate about pay occurring with the UCU, this is a very divisive issue. Professor West explains that she “feels very privileged” to receive the salary that she does and she “understands completely why some people may feel uncomfortable with it”. She continues by explaining that “if you compare the pay of senior leadership in any university to those with equivalent responsibilities in the private sector, I believe my pay is justified”. The Vice-Chancellor stated that “I am happy to be transparent about my pay and the reasons for it are on our public website”.

Finally, with the climate crisis continuing to get worse, it is clear that all universities have a responsibility to commit to being more sustainable. On this, the Vice-Chancellor says she is very proud of the University’s research into sustainability which, she tells Impact, has led to a cut in the University’s emissions by 36 percent since 2010. Again, Professor West places large emphasis on her dedication to the local community because she says that “we, along with NTU, have committed to supporting our partners in the city with their ambitions for carbon neutrality”.

Some examples of UoN’s environmental initiatives, she notes, include the Trent Basin project which is one of the largest sustainable housing developments in the UK, and a vast range of research into solar and wind energy, as well as electric propulsion for passenger aircraft. Professor West believes that these steps, and UoN’s research records, will contribute to combating challenges to the environment and we will be moving in the right direction for becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

By Lottie Murray

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