PR lecturer resigns in protest over lack of staff

We are students on the MA Public Relations Course. Having read your article we can confirm that in fact many students have not been assigned personal tutors or dissertation tutors. Our only teaching comes from our very dedicated course director Sarah Roberts- Bowman. Our course is not "fully resourced by public relations specialists" Last monday we attended a lecture only to find out our lecturer was present on a voluntary basis as he had been made redundant the day before, half way through our term. We are disaticfied by the management in place, or rather, lack of and would like to see a change.

I am currently a third year student on the BA Public Relations course and am shocked by the way students are being treated by the management! There was no communication from the management apart from a letter which we forced which provides no apologies or explanations. The course will seriously suffer with the loss of Paul Simpson who has put so much effort and dedication into the course in the past two and a half years. I am concerned about the quality of my dissertation supervision as my supervisor has been assigned 25 students. I do not think this is an acceptable way for a university to treat its fee paying students!

This is part of Poppleton, isn't it?....

I am also a BA public relations student at LCC and have felt personally neglected by the management of my course. My PR lecturers of which we have one left (leeds have 14) are overworked and their pleas for teaching assistants have been turned down. This has resulted in the loss of our superb course director Paul Simpson who has redesigned the BA PR course affiliating LCC with Weber Shandwick and max Clifford who came in as a speaker. Any final year is vital to a student and this year has been completely disrupted by lack of staff and facilities and has created an enormous amount of stress . Students graduating in this financial environment are already scared and worried about their degree and don't deserve or need this worry.

Is it me, or is there something just faintly ironic about the public relations disaster surrounding the management of this course?

Such a shame to loose Paul, someone who put so much effort it. Shame on you LCC.

It's not just these courses, this university's in meltdown. Dozens on dozens of staff sacked for no believable reasons. vote of no confidence in management passed by the trade unions. A ballot for strike action coming. eye watering sums of student fees and government money wasted to pay needless redundancies not into students courses. Lowest student satisfaction scores in the country year after year. managers pulled out of their offices to be slated by students only to stutter and stumble their way through tissues of pathetic excuses. Failing bosses without any convincing cvs for their jobs drawn in cartoons on the internet as butchers and the terminator, a dictator and a lizard. governors visible only by being invisible, yep it’s poppleton but not made up. It’s happening now, its all on the internet. reputations rolling in the london dirt. Cry, you need to

This situation is disgusting. I have studied for the last three years at LCC on the BA (Hons) Marketing and Advertising course, I am now studying for an MA within the school of creative advertising (now faculty of media). How a university can treat its students in such a way is totally beyond me. Many students have been conned into enrolling, I have in writing from Sandra Kemp that the course would not be affected alongside many other students on other courses, which is an utter lie. I know for a fact this change has been planned for many months before the summer, and we were simply not told. Surely this is a trading standards issue. False advertising... Does University of the Arts really want to give itself this name among the industry? How can a women with such a long C.V have so little heart and compassion for education. She gives no answers to any students, leaving us with nothing to go on whilst we watch the university around us crumble. The poor teachers are left doing what sandra alone should be doing, so not only are they losing their jobs, but they are dealing with the stress and worries of hundreds of students with no support of any kind from management. This is not the way this country should be treating its future workers, many of whom now feel compelled to go into politics! and at a time when many believe the creative industries are our only way out of recession. Why should we help them!! The British education system now appears a joke to many visiting students and academics...congratualtions LCC...

It's a great testament to the teaching of the incomparable Paul Simpson that the most effective protest against the LCC/UAL situation comes from students whilst the Unions involved stand idly by and watch.

Thank goodness for the democratic space offered by THE where those of us who care can speak out - not so veiled threat from senior management yesterday about doing just that. I assume our email addresses are safe Ann?

@ lecturer - I do believe email addresses are kept private. Am sure we would all be keen to see what the senior management actually said. Maybe communicate it via the student's blog - Google LCC Oppose and it comes up (set up an anonymous email like I have to send it)

What I don't understand is that if many these courses are worth keeping then why are the students consistently year on year highly critical of virtually every aspect of their course including teaching and assessment. These results are not exclusively 'management' issues. What will bring a University into meltdown is a financial shortfall and poor academic standards.......restructuring is going on across the HE sector at the moment to address the difficult financial climate, it is ineveitable that courses for the chop will be those that institutions perceive to be the weakest - that judgement is often based on student satisfaction.

Financial shortfall comment - I wonder how much money has been splashed on the outside of the building? Who cares about fancy signs when the inside of the building is in ruins, toilets unusable health hazards - stop trying to pretend you are in control and spend the money on what the students need. You may need to listen to the students and staff. This is called consultation.

The Press Complaints Commisson's code of practice says that all confidential sources of information must be kept confidential.

I am studying at this university too and I think the whole university is heading into the ground fast, it is constantly the lowest performing for student satisfaction and since enrolling there, i can see why. I wouldnt recommend it to anyone and would strongly urge all prospetive students to go elsewhere!

I'm really sorry, but although I have been an academic in the UK for many years, I have never actually heard of LCC.

The University of the Arts is a national disgrace. Almost 2 years ago I wrote a piece which was published in Art Monthly about the appalling state of this failing University. Judging by recent events, it's time for a serious rethink of Art & Design HE in London. UA should be broken up.

Graham Crowley - a cursory bit of research reveals that you didn't write "...a piece" in Art Monthlyin April 2008; in fact, it appears to have been what we might otherwise call "...a letter".

This unrest is beginning to spread amongst staff and students throughout the UAL due to poor management...check out the students 'sit in' at Byam Shaw that is affiliated with Central St Martins. http://byamshawpeoplesuniversity.blogspot.com/ Too much money is being spent on admin and over paid higher management rather than real education.

This unrest is beginning to spread amongst staff and students throughout the UAL due to poor management...check out the students 'sit in' at Byam Shaw that is affiliated with Central St Martins. http://byamshawpeoplesuniversity.blogspot.com/ Too much money is being spent on admin and over paid higher management rather than real education.

It becomes increasingly clear that UAL/LCC management needs to get off its high horse and start planning and rethinking the future of the University and Colleges together with its competent academic staff who actually have education at heart, aswell as take student experience into consideration. Universities can not be run like corporations - the must be run like academic communities!

I am an international student at BA Public Relation. I am very upset that I have not get out anything for my £10,400 a year fee which my parent in Vietnam has had to work very hard for. Today, 11 Nov 09, The managemnet at LCC called the police to push out all opposer occupied in the Main Lecture Theatre and threaten to ban any student that want to raise 'further problem'. What should we do now? Does the managemnet of UAL only treat us as their money making machine?

Its not just at LCC that the management are axing jobs, its across the entire university. Year on year our teaching hours are cut, leaving us less time to cope with ever larger groups of students. It has become practically impossible to deliver the quality of education any serious academic deems necessary. University of the Arts is nothing but a business, turning art education into a commodity and leaving real education with integrity at the bottom of the pile. Is it any wonder UAL has such low student satisfaction? Its time this scandal was exposed nationally, perhaps the Guardian should update its article of last year....??

andy 10 November, 2009 I'm really sorry, but although I have been an academic in the UK for many years, I have never actually heard of LCC. No problem Andy, no-one has ever heard of you either.

slow career death by multimedia is the very modern phenomenon these students have shown they’re rather good at inflicting on this university’s failing executives. Day after day through ever more juicy .doc, .jpg, .mov and .wav sized bulletins the whole world’s seen in a sort of 24/7 new media real time just what an overpaid and sorry crew of nincompoops steer the ship of fools that HMS LCC has become. But as of now how do the winds blow and the tides turn for this badly listing vessel? Let’s take its captain - holed beneath the waterline with a hull that’s flooding fast, everyone agrees it’s just about when she’s scuttled, not if. But with the number of gold doubloons it’d take to sink her so deep she’ll never bob up again, when the dirty deed’s finally done will there be enough loot in the treasure chest to press gang anyone else into salvaging the wreck that’s left? But even then, who’d take it on – not many. How about some promotions from below decks? The two number twos to act up on the bridge? Shiver me timbers long john silver not likely, here’s dumb and dumber, not even cabin boys on this ship of fools. Next comes the admiral of the fleet, what of him? Same applies, it’s when not if. but the students cartoons do him one favour, if he can just hang on to the next universitiesUK shindig there’s a fighting chance a few real vice chancellors might not confuse this laughing stock with the barman or the cloakroom ticket attendant again. Nah, this grey suited numpty’s gonna walk the gangplank, its Davy Jones Locker for this ex-corporate lightweight. Amid all this swell where’s the first sea lord of this little navy that’s gone so off course to be found? Never normally shy of a chance for wordy self promotion, guess what me hearties, this self important duffer’s been out to lunch lately. But there’s one hope yet for his exit left, a good audition for ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’ and he might just scuttle off to a pirates island far far away mumbling “who am I? who am I? once upon a time I was a newsreader you know”. So who’ll start the mutiny on this ship of fools idiot trio? top of the pile there’s the lords of the admiralty, ok so a governatorial bag of landlubbers for sure – a hotchpotch of the old and the bold, the bright and the dim, the innocent and the just lucky, the sharp and the blunt – this lot’ll never be in anyones first team for a tug of war up on the decks. but they do have one thing in common, a teflon coating. One or two of them are even household names outside their own households, they’ll not want customers deserting, their share prices sliding and white feathers sent to their clubs just for the sake of huffing and puffing a bit of wind into these ragged sails. It won’t be long before this lot start to “make their excuses and leave” as a News of the World reporter might say, but in the meantime listen out for the sound of sharpening cutlasses and the opening of treasure chests. The captains of the other ships in the fleet, are they the wild cards in this very unshuffled pack? Nearly but not all of them do an ok job, some of the time, but you’ll never see this bunch of timid nodding yes men pulling up many trees in the intellectual forest. as this troupe won’t be troubling headhunters for the russell group (or anyone else) any time soon, they’ll have worked out they need to be part of the UAL fleet until it’s time to go to dry dock. Nah, they won’t be sending out any lifeboats to HMS LCC. But the slightly brighter ones among these flickering lights might just have worked out it’s better to knife in the back than be knifed in the back. so who knows after all the deafening shouts of undying loyalty we’ll start to hear very soon, when darkness falls two or three of them will be signalling to the lords of the admiralty they’ll paddle up when the admiral’s safely knocked on the back of the head and man overboarded with bricks securely tied around ankles. So what next for this ship of fools? It’s gonna be messy.

I enjoyed that episode of Captain Pugwash

It’s gonna be messy... It's already messy, and getting messier by the day. God knows how deeply felt the repercussions of this charade will be for years to come, and how great the impact will be on recruitment and support for those courses which do make it through the wringer. The 'rationale' for restructuring, which switches daily between 'mission fit' and 'business case' depending on which answer best suits the question, or at least offers enough spin for the manager being questioned to make good their escape, has been so poorly thought through, and so poorly communicated, that many staff, students and other associates are left in a position of natural opposition to injustice, or at best confusion and worry about their future. The argument for change, rightly or wrongly, is one thing. The way that the argument is presented, and the handling of any potential transition, is another. It's this that has been dealt with in an appallingly shoddy manner, and for which senior managers at UAL are culpable.

The atmosphere at LCC is appalling. Whilst Sandra Kemp and her cohorts occupy luxurious offices the rest of the college have to endure filthy conditions and bouncers on every corner who are there to intimidate. I cannot believe this is happening, now, in a UK university where peaceful protest result in the High Court. It will come back to bite them but I suspect the long term plan for LCC is to close it all together.