DESPAIR has descended on Liverpool Hope University, where a projected cull of 39 members of the tutorial staff — about one tenth of the whole — has included 4 of the six who taught theology and non secular studies (TRS).
All TRS staff received a letter in May saying that their jobs were in danger, one in every of their number told the Church Times. Three have since taken voluntary redundancy, and one has been redeployed to show the Catholic Certificate in Religious Studies (CCRS).
Dr Roberto Catello, a former lecturer at Hope, who can be the secretary of the Liverpool Hope branch of the UCU (University and College Union), said that almost all of the six were too devastated to talk to the media, even anonymously.
One had previously emailed him: “Being treated this fashion has left me feeling humiliated before my peers. I feel devalued in my role and status.” Another had written: “The whole experience has been incredibly difficult, lacking in clarity, coherence and compassion. To have worked so hard through the years to develop theology. . . It seems like it’s all for nothing.”
The university’s axe has hit humanities and social sciences disproportionately, Dr Catello says. “With AI and all of that, there’s a trend towards more science- and maths-based subjects. Employability is one other big factor, and so plenty of the standard disciplines, including theology, are increasingly viewed with suspicion.”
Liverpool Hope is one in every of the Cathedrals Group of 14 universities, whose website advertises their “common history . . . as Church founded institutions” and says that the university believes that a higher-education experience is “price so far more than what people earn after graduating”.
Liverpool Hope’s website says that it’s “the one ecumenical university foundation in Europe”, and that its “distinctive philosophy is to ‘educate within the round’ — mind, body and spirit — in the hunt for Truth, Beauty and Goodness.”
This 12 months, within the Complete University Guide (thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk), Liverpool Hope’s TRS team was ranked fifth within the country for student satisfaction. One of the team has noted that the university has expressed pride in that rating in social-media posts and internal emails: “How can Hope say they’re happy with TRS’s achievements after which cut staff drastically in our area? Isn’t that a contradiction?”
“Theology has been at the guts of Hope for many years,” one other member of the team said. “It is now clear that the mission and values of the University are quickly transgressed when money overrides all else.”
Dr Catello says that the university’s senior management have “overpassed the indisputable fact that this can be a Christian educational charity, not a business enterprise”. Its mission is encapsulated in its “public profit requirement”, which states that its objects “include the furtherance of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, of Christian education, of ecumenical ideals, and of understanding between Christian Churches within the promotion of the Gospel”.
Members of the TRS team serve not only as academics but additionally as ministers, priests, and pastors embedded in town’s religious life, Dr Catello says. They “literally embody the university’s ecumenical ethos”, and “are essentially the explanation the university meets its public profit requirement”.
THE staff cuts have been occasioned by a deficit of £2.2 million (on a turnover of just over £60 million) which the university is running this 12 months. Dr Catello argues that this shortfall is supportable, on condition that the university has £17 million within the bank.
Student numbers have fallen by about ten per cent over the past few years. Although the university relies almost entirely on domestic students, Dr Catello explains, the indisputable fact that the Government is making it ever harder to recruit international students has prompted town’s two larger universities to lower their entry requirements for domestic students, competing directly with Liverpool Hope for people from poorer backgrounds and more marginalised areas.
Dr Catello and his colleagues consider that there may be little understanding of the unique part played by TRS. For example, the university earns about half 1,000,000 kilos a 12 months from students coming from Christian partner universities overseas. “The moment these institutions begin to notice that Liverpool Hope shouldn’t be as religious because it claims to be, they could now not wish to send students here,” he says.
“We cannot deny that there aren’t as many students who want to review theology or religious studies as previously,” one in every of the team admitted. “This is something that universities everywhere in the country are experiencing.
“However, it is just recently that we have now been allowed to develop our own programmes. One of the disadvantages of theology being so central to Liverpool Hope was that, previously, there have been certain expectations from senior management that there are specific things we do — and so they weren’t necessarily the form of things we thought would draw plenty of students.”
Last 12 months, the team introduced a postgraduate certificate in Catholic pastoral leadership. The team member continues: “As long as there are men within the northern dioceses [of the Roman Catholic Church in England] who wish to turn into deacons, we’re guaranteed students for this.”
Furthermore, the university’s latest Bachelor’s degree in Religion, Theology and Spirituality is proving attractive, they are saying. “We noticed in a recent open day that there have been more people keen on this than in philosophy and ethics, which usually attracts way more applicants than TRS. We know that fewer and fewer people wish to belong to any of the key traditional religions, but individuals are clearly on the lookout for something greater than what they’ll experience in our materialistic society.
“We are willing to develop latest programmes that may attract more students than traditional TRS. We aren’t saying that we could ever be a really profitable subject — but at the identical time the university keeps saying that it’s not about money, it’s also about ensuring that the university supports the local people. Well, for us, churches are a part of the local people.”
Morale at Liverpool Hope is “at the bottom point it has ever been”, Dr Catello says. One professor wrote in a Facebook post last week: “First day back in work today after being on leave. A tragic day: plenty of people I respect have taken voluntary redundancy. Gone, before they were pushed.”
A university spokesperson said that the proposals had not been made calmly. “Our institution shouldn’t be proof against the challenges facing the higher-education sector across the UK and these proposals have been recommend to make sure financial and academic stability, while enabling us to proceed to deliver excellent educational outcomes into the longer term.”
Asked for its response, the Cathedrals Group declined to be drawn. “We don’t comment on the selections that individual member universities make in respect after all programmes which, you’ll appreciate, are currently being made in difficult circumstances by way of funding and recruitment,” a spokesperson said.
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