Dr. Stuart Reeves is an Associate Professor in the Mixed Reality Lab and Horizon Research Institute at Nottingham University in the UK. This conversation is in two parts. In Part 1 of our conversation, he reflected on the complexities of universities and the structural/managerial issues that contribute to this. In Part 2 here, Stuart goes on to describe his journey from protesting about pensions on the picket line to becoming an academic member of the university Senate and his experiences of trying to effect change in university governance. As you will understand, he necessarily has to be circumspect about the specific details he shares but nonetheless there is much to be inspired by hearing someone not just see challenges but commit to being part of the change to meet these challenges.

“Just making a noise about stuff can bring it onto the agenda.”

“People will say…they're just activists…but they miss the fact that…there's a lot of people who agree with you, or at least have some kind of similar troubles with how universities work.”

“Sometimes universities do stupid things…partly just because they've just not consulted people.”

“The more people…involved in speaking about regular issues, the better.”

“Through that collective action, there's great power.”

Overview (times approximate)

00:29 My introduction to Stuart

02:55 How Stuart responds personally – he tells the story of his 2018 involvement in the strike about pensions and how it was the trigger for him thinking that he should start to do something more about this

08:37 This led him and some others to run for the university senate and effect change in that way, albeit it being a slow frustrating process of change

11:30 The level of commitment being part of Senate

12:49 The sorts of changes that can be effected via the Senate work, e.g., structural changes in ways the Senate works, centralization/decentralization discussions, having the long view, connecting with others also asking what are universities for, how to make it more democratic

17:49 Reflects on the importance of it being ‘the bunch of us’ doing this work, collegiality, and people responding differently in terms of action

21:54 The costs of getting involved in these ways and the types of time and effort involved and wanting to see universities become less top down

27:37 Advice for anyone who may be thinking about getting involved in university governance

30:02 The lack of collective action by university leadership

31:17 Signing up to DORA has been useful to push back on metrics for publications

32:09 The rankings racket, like QS and Times Higher, and a call for university leadership to get together and push back a bit in the way they have done with journals

33:51 Why he is still in academia

37:17 My final reflections

38:43 End

Download a full transcript of the conversation here.

Related Links

USS pension scheme

San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)

QS World University Rankings

Times Higher World University Rankings

Stuart’s Medium article 2017: Thoughts on the UK’s Teaching Excellence Framework.

 Stuart Reeves, Murray Goulden, and Robert Dingwall. The future as a design problem. Design Issues, 32(3), Summer 2016.

Stuart’s tweet about what they are striking for