January 21, 2012

What is going on at the London College of Communication?

First there is the article in the Times Higher Education about 16 courses being shut down. The closures include four bachelor's degrees, one master's programme and 11 foundation courses, six of which have "top up" options that allow students to convert them into full honours degrees with an extra year of study.

Then the University and College Union plus others called on Professor Kemp to resign.

Now we hear that academic staff are too scared to talk as some of their best colleagues have lost their jobs by daring to voice their opinion. Bullying and intimidation tactics?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The place is toxic. The management are a curious blend of arrogant, paranoid and incompetent.

It's going down, and they will sell the site for development.

Fear and loathing run amok inside, and no-one is safe.

Anonymous said...

Its true. I'm an academic there.

All decisions, from important things like when & where the degree shows are, to specialist materials that need to be ordered for a particular class, even down to the design of the invite to the staff xmas party, have had to be signed off by the head of college.
She is so paranoid that she doesn't trust anyone to do anything unless she also OKs it. So most things don't get done, and are certainly virtually never done in time for when they are needed

The team around her changes constantly -
She has had something like 10 personal assistants since she came 2 & a half years ago. All the senior team that were there when she started have gone, except for one, who is a 'Yes' man, and even he has been demoted. The word on the street is that he is for the chop too, & that several others are so disillusioned they can't wait to go.

Our aim is not to let it impact on the students - but when you don't have the materials to teach your class because the HOC has not got around to signing off a purchase order you made 3 months before, it's hard - you end up spending your own money just so the class doesn't fall to pieces.

Anonymous said...

The leadership style and organisational culture that has been created at LCC during the last two and half years is one of disempowerment, bullying and distrust. Gillian Radcliffe’s resignation letter reflected the atmosphere perfectly. This is not a personal attack, the HoC has squandered the support and goodwill of so many capable people through her tactics of ostracising individuals, bad mouthing colleagues to other members of staff and threatening staff. The personal destruction of so many people and the exit of very able staff should have an organisation’s alarm bells ringing.

Unknown said...

I did a course here a foundation diploma in art and design which I didnt finish because of my personal circumstances and in my opinion especially for the course I did here it was very bad, I was a victim of bullying by one of the tutors named Andrew craig with a student joining in with him by laughing at me (I believe this bastard should be named and shamed), I come from a very poor background and the comments which came from the tutors mouth directed towards me was very unnecessary and prejudice.

Anonymous said...

I am curious

Is the same person still in charge at LCC ?