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University Allegedly Fires Employees

Emails

HOUGHTON University allegedly terminated two residencehall directors for placing pronouns in their email signatures. Shua Wilmot and Raegan Zelaya claim university administration told them to remove the pronouns “he/him” and “she/her” respectively from their email signatures, due to pronouns being in violation of new school policy. The refusal to remove the pronouns resulted in both employees’ firings prior to the culmination of semester.

This new policy is perceived as an attempt by Houghton to become increasingly religious-conservative, aligning them with better-established Christian colleges such as Hillsdale College, Michigan and Liberty University, Virginia. This is an apparent attempt to target Republican-leaning students, some supporting anti-LGBTQ+ policies.

Houghton University has addressed the allegations, with a spokesperson declaring that the University “has never terminated an employment relationship based solely on the use of pronouns in staff email signatures.” Zelaya and Wilmot rebuke this, with an online petition signed by 600 demanding their reinstatement.

UK students seek compensation for COVID disruption

FOLLOWING disruption from COVID-19 and strikes, the Office for the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIAHE), the body to which students unsatisfied with their teaching can complain to, received a record number of complaints in 2022. More than £1 million in compensation has been awarded.

Students who deem that the cost of their university degree does not reflect the quality of the teaching received, during the pandemic and 20182022 lecturer strikes, are now also joining group legal cases via StudentGroupClaim.co.uk to seek compensation of up to £5,000; this figure could be higher for international students.

The first case to reach the courts is against University College London, who held that they would prefer students went through their internal complaints system and the OIAHE; students’ lawyers have argued that students are entitled to exercise their article six right to a fair trial like any other consumer. This is a precedent-setting moment as if this claim is successful, similar ones will be brought against other universities.

Falling student numbers threaten South Korean universities

THE latest projections from the Korean Council for University Education predicts a 39.1 per cent decrease in the number of students entering universities from 460,000 in 2020 to 280,000 by 2040. This has been followed by an increased urgency to restructure South Korea’s university sector, with experts examining ways to shut off institu tions that are not viable, par ticularly by paying private organisations to encourage them to close their loss-making institutions.

According to statistics released earlier this year, 58 of the 187 regular four-year degree universities had more than one per cent of their stu dent quota left unfilled owing to a failure to recruit enough students. This has led to the existence of many “zombie universities” which are heavily dependent on government funding for staying open. These universities cannot be easily closed and mergers are only possible in urban areas where institutions are close to each other, further complicating the problem.

Exeter University pledges support for female entrepreneurs

THE University of Exeter has signed the Investing in Women Code, pledging to support female entrepreneurs and business leaders, through providing access to tools, resources and funding. The University has become the 200th organisation and first UK organisation to sign this pledge, and will also be obligated to regularly monitor and report on their progress towards these goals.

The Investing in Women Code was created by the Department for Business and Trade and the British Business Bank in 2019, following research from the Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship that found that more than £200 billion of new economic value would be added to the British economy if women founded and scaled new businesses at the same rate as men.