The human cost of the restructure

The 14 academics lost to the Life Sciences department represent the most incredible array of talent, expertise and experience. The staff caught up in the restructuring, deemed unsuitable for the new department, have nevertheless contributed enormously to university life, being involved in teaching, career services and student welfare to name only a few areas. Felix considers what these individuals have brought to the university over many years and what will be missed.

Some of the lecturers were at Imperial before today’s undergraduates were even born. A service of over 30 years to Imperial could save neither Dr John Tippins who joined in 1977, nor Dr Simon Archer who joined in 1978. These grim cuts serve as a reminder that Imperial is not immune to the economic problems felt at other universities and indeed around the country. John Tippins and Simon Archer are also the Directors of Undergraduate Studies (DUGS) of Biochemistry and Biology respectively. Both Senior Tutors are going, Dave Hartley (Biochemistry) being made redundant and John Rossiter (Biology) taking early retirement, as well as both Admissions Tutors, Mahendra Deonarain (Biochemistry) and Bart Feys (Biology). Such roles require years of experience and accumulation of expertise, yet it seems when it came to the cuts, their wealth of experience wasn’t of sufficient value to the Department. Alex Kendall, President of Imperial College Union (ICU), insists these particular redundancies put “the very running of the Undergraduate Biology and Biochemistry degrees at risk”. However, the review panel maintains that these individuals can be replaced with existing staff. However Dr Pietro Spanu who has ‘survived’ the restructure questioned whether the remaining staff had the goodwill or capacity to fill the gaps left by outgoing staff.

The review so far has failed to consider teaching within the department of Life Sciences (the teaching review comes next term), but nevertheless the excluded lecturers include those considered by students to be “the very best”. They are supposedly considered very highly by the university too, for example the long-standing John Tippins received the 2008 College Teaching Award, but again such excellence provided no safeguard.

In fact, across the board the teaching records of the affected lecturers are outstanding. To give another example from a possible many, Professor Jane Saffell, Senior Lecturer in Biochemistry since 2002, has received the Rector’s Award for Excellence in Teaching as well as some of the highest SOLE scores in Biochemistry. She also designed and convenes a very popular final year course, Cellular Neuroscience, which was nominated for a national teaching award. Despite being the most over-subscribed Biochemistry course this year, there is the risk that Cellular Neuroscience will be removed from the options next year due to the loss of Professor Saffell.

It seems clear that having excellent research provided no guarantee of surviving the restructuring process either. The research must also have been deemed suitable for the new department, Integrative Cell Biology, a requirement criticised by lecturers as being “short-sighted”. The department however insists that Integrative Cell Biology is a major area of research for the future but this too is disputed.

However there is no doubt that the neurobiology research undertaken by Jane Saffell is exceptional. Funded by The Wellcome Trust, Alzheimer’s Research Trust and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to name a few, it has resulted in regular publications as well as two patents protecting therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease and nerve regeneration.

Another example is Dr Mahendra Deonarain, a Reader in Antibody Technology (promoted this summer) who also co-founded an Imperial College spin-out Biotechnology company called PhotoBiotics in 2001. This develops and commercialises novel photodynamic therapy drugs and many inventions have been patented. Surely Imperial should be promoting business and entrepreneurship, yet the departure of Dr Deonarain marks the loss of an inspirational figure. There are serious doubts that the final year Biochemistry course, Biotechnology and Business, he designed will not continue after this year. Ian Owens has said that all courses will be under review when the Teaching Review begins in January.

The treatment of the staff has created a lot of resentment. One staff member told Felix: “you can imagine how betrayed and angry staff feel about this, not only the ones who are directly affected.” Another commented that they felt “chewed up and spat out by [the] Life Sciences [Department]”. A member of the Biology department said the atmosphere in the SAF building was “simply horrendous”.

The informing of staff of their situation by email has certainly contributed to these feelings. Ian Owens explained that staff were informed both by post and email, the latter to ensure all were informed simultaneously.

Alex Kendall has also highlighted the “lack of real choice” the academics now face. They can either take a significant voluntary redundancy package, or appeal. If their appeal is unsuccessful they will only be given a small statutory redundancy.

So how will the Life Sciences department deal with losing so many highly-skilled teaching staff? Ian Owens commented that “losing good teachers is always difficult to cope with”, but “the department will survive as it has done before”, referring to the cuts made in 2004. He even hopes to improve teaching and provide “more stimulating, more relevant and better courses”.