I'm a slow thinker. I've been wondering why it's so irritating to receive regular 'Dear colleagues' messages from university management thanking staff for all the efforts to keep things going over the last few months. I think I've worked it out... 1/8

Any possibility of 'blended' delivery in Autumn always depended, first & foremost, on the capacities of academic & other staff members. That's why planning should have been, but for most part wasn't, aimed at ensuring resilience of teaching & learning, not 'flexibility'. 2/8

Now, always remember, that UK HEIs wilfully, knowingly, deliberately invited students to take up residence in Autumn in environments which were, quite predictably, from a health perspective, not safe. 3/8

Blame the government, for sure. But remember where responsibility lies. (Remember that especially when university management lectures you on 'moral imperatives'). 4/8

Now, logically, one might suppose that that action might well undermine the already fragile grounds required to assure academic and other staff that HEIs claims about Covid-safe campus spaces were trustworthy. 5/8

Then, compound that with moralistic scolding, reminders of what 'the government says', & claims to know best 'what students want' via shoddily designed & laughably analysed 'surveys' (doesn't instil confidence in institutional capacity to grasp significance of complex data). 6/8

And you might notice that staff continue to be treated with disdain, individually and collectively, by senior university management systems. Treated as fools. Lack of trust by staff in those systems is not even recognised as a relevant issue in the current crisis. 7/8

All of which helps me, at least, to recognise what it is that is irritating about all those thankyou messages. For the sake of restoring trust, amongst a number of different constituencies, it might be time for universities to stop saying 'Thanks', and start saying 'Sorry'. 8/8