Today (Friday 14 May), the Vice-Chancellor Adam Tickell updated all staff in his regular View from the VC email. You can read the full View from the VC below.

We finally received confirmation from the Government this week that all university students will be allowed to return to campuses from next week, as the UK enters the penultimate stage in its emergence from lockdown.

This news is, of course, welcome, even though it has come too late for the majority of our students to really benefit. Nevertheless, it is an important milestone and one that we all hope we are passing for the final time. Whichever way you look at it, students and young people in general have had an incredibly tough time in the past 15 months. While we were never going to be able to provide the same Sussex experience, we have tried to live our values in how we support our students.

Just this week, we have let all students living on campus know that they can terminate their accommodation agreement early, if they wish. We didn’t feel it was right to compel them, financially, to return to campus when the majority of teaching this academic year is over. We have also offered a 10 per cent rent discount across the board, in acknowledgement that their experience has been a far cry from the year most undergraduates have.

Of course, students in the private sector can’t be supported by us in this way, so we are making sure our Hardship Fund continues to be available to those most in need. It has been our aim throughout the pandemic to do the right thing by our students and our interventions have been recognised and praised by the sector and the Government.

Similarly, the UK’s recovery from Covid will not be advanced enough to allow us to hold our graduation ceremonies this year. While we will hopefully be able to do many things this July that we could not last summer, holding a series of large-scale events and inviting people from around the world is not one of them. What’s more, our venue, the Brighton Centre, is currently being used as a vaccination centre and we are strongly committed to supporting the NHS in this important work.

For these reasons, and a few others, we could not in good conscience go ahead this summer. We are, however, already planning a massive graduation celebration for the summer of 2022. This will be an opportunity for all those students whose graduations have been disrupted by Covid to come together on campus for a one-of-a-kind Graduation Festival. We have lots of ideas and will share plans as they develop.

This week, I and nine other vice-chancellors wrote to the Government to urge them to relax rules over how billions of pounds of apprenticeship funding can be spent. I share the view of my peers that the Government has a fantastic opportunity to allow this money to be used to help young people, including recent graduates, who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. These are the people who could play a significant role in driving forward the UK economy out of the difficult times we have been through if the opportunities can be made available.

We also remain committed to finding ways to recognise and reward you, our staff, for the significant contributions you make to the University. Of course, a big part of this is through your pay and we fully support the collective bargaining process that is taking place at a national level to agree the pay award for the sector in 2021-22. The final offer put forward this week by UCEA represents a fair and sustainable way of rewarding our staff.

In all these activities, we strive for equity and fairness and we are continuing to take steps forward. This week, our institutional bronze award for Athena SWAN was renewed until 2026, recognising our commitment to gender equality and inclusivity at Sussex. The former School of History, Art History and Philosophy was also given a bronze award, joining a number of other units across the University with individual awards. Many congratulations to everybody involved, especially the EDI team; I know how much work has gone into this.

Finally, while the Government’s focus on freedom of speech grabbed the headlines, there were a number of more important issues included in the Queen’s speech this week. In true Sussex style, our academics were quick off the mark to share their expert views on what was welcome and what was missing or misjudged. You can read a round-up of our rapid response and what our academics think should be done to create a better world.

With best wishes,

Adam