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'Pandemia': A reckoning of UK universities' corporate response to COVID-19 and its academic fallout

Richard Watermeyer, Kalpana Shankar, Tom Crick Orcid Logo, Cathryn Knight Orcid Logo, Fiona McGaughey, Joanne Hardman, Venkata Ratnadeep Suri, Roger Chung, Dean Phelan

British Journal of Sociology of Education, Volume: 42, Issue: 5-6, Pages: 651 - 666

Swansea University Authors: Tom Crick Orcid Logo, Cathryn Knight Orcid Logo

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Abstract

Universities in the UK, and in other countries like Australia and the USA, have responded to the operational and financial challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic by prioritising institutional solvency and enforcing changes to the work-practices and profiles of their staff. For academics, an a...

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Published in: British Journal of Sociology of Education
ISSN: 0142-5692 1465-3346
Published: Taylor & Francis 2021
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa56985
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Abstract: Universities in the UK, and in other countries like Australia and the USA, have responded to the operational and financial challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic by prioritising institutional solvency and enforcing changes to the work-practices and profiles of their staff. For academics, an adjustment to institutional life under COVID-19 has been dramatic and resulted in the overwhelming majority making a transition to prolonged remote-working. Many have endured significant work intensification; others have lost — or may soon lose — their jobs. The impact of the pandemic appears transformational and for the most part negative. This article reports the experiences of n=1,099 UK academics specific to the corporate response of institutional leadership to the COVID-19 crisis. We find articulated a story of universities in the grip of 'pandemia' and COVID-19 emboldening processes and protagonists of neoliberal governmentality and market-reform that pay little heed to considerations of human health and wellbeing.
College: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Issue: 5-6
Start Page: 651
End Page: 666