University’s Council backs Vice-Chancellor despite vote of no confidence from students
Written by Toby Cray
The University’s Council has said that it “fully supports the Executive Board” and Vice-Chancellor despite students passing an overwhelming vote of no confidence.
The statement was included at the bottom of an email sent to students on 16 April entitled the ‘COVID-19 Student Update’, which comes nearly a month after the vote was held.
Reed James, a key figure in the vote of no confidence campaign, said:
“All it shows is how little the university actually thinks of student’s that it takes this long to respond and that response, essentially promises no change from the status quo.”
The vote held on 22 March saw 1,010 students express no confidence in the Vice-Chancellor and the Executive Board.
In the statement from the Council, they drew attention to the number of votes cast stating: “A total of 1,117 votes were cast, comprising 6.7% of the student population.”
Reed stated: “The focus on the percentage of student’s is an obvious attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the referendum which is of course hypocritical because the university has acted on student feedback survey’s with less of a response.”
The UoL Rent Strike group responded to this statement on twitter: “Basically the university just said, “yeah lol” out of those 1,117, over 90% of students voted in having no confidence. Listen to that @uniofleicester”
Dr Alex Patel, the Learning Development Adviser at Leicester, tweeted: “That’s over a thousand students are unhappy with the Exec Board – that really can’t be dismissed”
The email continued: “[The Executive Board] have worked with the whole university community to ensure that our students’ educational and social experiences have continued throughout the pandemic.
“We will continue to engage with the Students’ Union and our student body during this challenging time.”
Toby Cray is a second-year journalism student at the University of Leicester. You can find him on Twitter here
