Staff and students at Sussex University must be cheering: the dreaded Vice Chancellor, Michael ‘Penny’ Farthing is going. A candidate for the most aggressive VC in Britain, he is notorious for his suspension of protesting students, to whom the University was forced to apologise and offer compensation, the culling of staff and outsourcing of many service jobs, disbanding Linguistics … the usual academic axeman behaviour.
Of course, VCs are never sacked, they merely “step down”, generally with a hefty golden goodbye. And naturally the University puffs his so called achievements such as increasing student numbers, not so hard to achieve when student caps have been lifted and more school leavers than ever want university places. But when the rest of the university has no faith in its head, the Governors eventually have to relent and “discuss succession”.
We wonder how many more bad staff surveys, timetable debacles and NSS results we need before the Kingston governors get the same message.