Eastwood: ‘lack of generosity in the sector doesn’t speak well’

I work with many academics who give their whole life to their job. I think it’s unreasonable to suggest that it is only at the higher levels of management that people have this level of commitment to their work.Giving a life to a job is not sufficient justification for the inflated salaries given to senior management in universities particularly given the huge load placed on other staff, and to suggest otherwise I find utterly disrespectful of the academic and professional workforce in the sector.

Eastwood ignores the very real governance and equity issues attached to the determination of VC pay - it is inexcusable to trot out the familiar 'we are worth it and none of the rest of you are' line. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09540253.2021.2023112

A pretty tone-deaf assessment of his own position, if ever there were one. Academic work is for almost all of us a vocation, one where at the best the lines between work and non-work time are blurred. He gives no reason why that fact in itself should mean that people who manage academics should be paid vastly more than than academics themselves, let alone other servants of the public good.

I can only support the excellent comments made above by those quicker off the mark. To me, it is not always the pay of VCs but the pay rises that are the problem since most of us have suffered below inflation increases for many years.

This publication seems to have very little memory. I did an analysis back in 2013 that took into account a load of factors and compared UK VCs, Australian VCs and Presidents of the top 100 US Public Universities. THE and others cited that for years. Here is the conclusion on the pay of UK VCs -- they are generally paid fairly -- Australian VCs are massively overpaid for what they do and who they are. Looking at the UK vice chancellors we see that that if these individuals were paid based on the US model they would be paid approximately A$38,462 to A$114,219 less. However, if they were paid according to the Australian model they would be paid A$92,042 to $102,290 more. If they were paid according to the formula from the G08 institutions this number jumps to between A$238,674 to A$287,760! These estimates suggest that most UK vice chancellors seem to be paid in line with an overall market model and are dramatically underpaid in comparison to G08 vice chancellors.

words fail me, so I offer him my silence, when he should have offered his silence to me.

They must law cultur good

What place does such a self-serving piece have in what is supposed to be an objective and serious publication?

Yes, the last decade at Birmingham has certainly been less risk averse. Building 'campuses' (it's a building) in other countries that will never bring back what they cost, buying city centre buildings without a clue how to use them, disasterous IT projects, huge problems in maintaining a bare minimum service in HR, branching out, for some reason, into conference centres. Not obvious what benefits any of these brought to staff, students or the region. Gave a bunch of senior managers some competency-based interview fodder for the next rung though, I am sure. There's a university just up the road running a bunch of schools too, so don't know what he's on about there either: https://www.uwmat.co.uk/

test

"I haven’t met anybody who cares more about it, and I haven’t met anybody who’s given more of their life to it." Seriously?

I am actually happy that he was given this opportunity to show himself as his arrogant, self-centred and ridiculous self. Couldn't help but compare his arrogance here to Andrew's BBC interview last year. Are we still allowed to use the term 'prat' in this politically correct world of ours?

“we have never fully addressed the funding challenge…the questions of who pays, what do they pay for, and how is that funded”. - and indeed what it is spent on. Agency problems in universities have turned universities into a rent seekers paradise. Just to remind ourselves that it not just the VCs, others too are giving their all, for their livelihood -their mental health, physical health, family life and more.