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An important question
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">. Here& #39;s one (not the only) reason why they ignored sound public health advice: university senior managers & governing bodies are supposed to promote the interests of their university as a going concern, w/in the limits of the law, but... 1/ https://twitter.com/gailfdavies/status/1320269489020243968">https://twitter.com/gailfdavi...
...the promotion of the medium-to-long-term interests of this institution comes into conflict with (a) the interests of the members of the surrounding community & beyond. Spread of infection beyond the university is a "negative externality". 2/ https://twitter.com/MikeOtsuka/status/1316246341752950788">https://twitter.com/MikeOtsuk...
The goverment should have insisted that unis provide sufficient testing & greatly reduce numbers in halls of residence, while also providing the financial support to make this possible. 3/
The govt didn& #39;t do so. Instead, they issued lax guidance that fell short of sound public health advice. Universities were protected from liability if they followed this guidance rather than sound public health advice & would suffer a financial penalty if they didn& #39;t. 4/
So they largely followed the guidance. Perhaps they exceeded here or there. But by & large they fell far short of providing the testing or reducing numbers of students in hall & on campus that were called for on public health grounds. 5/
...the promotion of the medium-to-long-term interests of the university also comes into conflict with (b) the interests of the current cohort of students.https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten"> 6/ https://twitter.com/MikeOtsuka/status/1310155237467074561">https://twitter.com/MikeOtsuk...
The current cohort of students are largely means to the end of the institution& #39;s objectives of promoting research & educating students in the longer term. 7/
The most important thing is to extract sufficient fees from students so that the university is able to get through the next couple years w/o too much financial damage. 8/
So long as the current cohort isn& #39;t so hard-done that they& #39;re able to demand a refund, or their misery puts off applications in future years, it is in the longer term interests of the university to sacrifice the interests of the current student cohort. 9/
...the promotion of the medium-to-long-term interests of the university also comes into conflict with (c) the interests of the current members of their teaching staff. 10/
We already have abundant evidence ofhttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👆" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach oben" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach oben">in the treatment of large numbers of precariously employed teaching staff. It& #39;s clear that instructors on low-paid, short term contracts are treated as mere means to the longer term interests of the institution. 11/
Now the teaching staff on permanent contracts are learning that they& #39;re also, ultimately, mere means to the longer term interests of the institution. Just as it makes financial sense for the university to keep people on fixed-term contracts... 12/
...it also makes financial sense for them to force those on permanent contracts to teach in person, even though they realise that a number of them will become ill as a consequencehttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">. Some will become seriously ill. Some will probably die. 13/ https://twitter.com/MikeOtsuka/status/1314849385612800000">https://twitter.com/MikeOtsuk...
Forseeable serious illness or death of permanent members of their teaching staffhttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">is at least implicitly regarded as an acceptable cost of keeping the institution afloat in the longer term. 14/ https://twitter.com/MikeOtsuka/status/1266699865167466497">https://twitter.com/MikeOtsuk...
Each current student & member of staff is ultimately expendable, as a means of keeping the institution afloat in the longer term. That& #39;s why we need the protection of unions. 15/15
