the times | Monday April 4 2022 15
News
Students at Sheffield University are
angry after they were offered a free
pilates class as compensation for
disruption to their studies during
strikes by staff.
They called the offer “insulting” and
said they had gone weeks with little
contact from lecturers and have had no
feedback on work completed.
Lessons and tutorials were cancelled
in February because of University and
College Union (UCU) strikes over
pensions, pay and conditions. Another
five days of action was announced on
March 4, affecting 68 universities,
50,000 staff and disrupting the educa-
tion of more than a million students.
The strikes are expected to continue
this month. UCU blames universities
for the action, saying they have forced
through pension cuts that will reduce
typical staff members’ retirement
incomes by 35 per cent.
On March 22 Sheffield’s psychology
department sent an email to students
about a pilates session that had been
organised for them in recognition of
the stress they were experiencing.
Places were limited and students had to
Stressed about strikes? Try
pilates instead, students told
bring their own mat, the faculty said. A
second-year psychology student said
that she supported the strikes, but
found the pilates offer “insulting”, espe-
cially given the lack of face-to-face
teaching and feedback they had been
given throughout their degree.
“It was insensitive of them to think
that it would correct all the
wrongdoings, that an hour’s free pilates
class would compensate for the
thousands of pounds that we’ve lost
from not being supported and being left
in the dark,” she said.
The university said that the idea for
the pilates class had come up during a
staff and student committee meeting in
the psychology department, when it
had been suggested that students may
benefit from additional activities that
provide opportunities to meet others in
the department.”
Students said they felt they had “zero
relationship” with teaching staff and
contact was limited to four lectures a
week and a fortnightly tutorial.
A Universities UK spokesman said:
“Since 2019, an average member of staff
earning £55,000 per annum taking
strike action has forgone over £4,800 in
pay deductions, to no avail.”Blanca Schofield
On the stump Gary Orange, a former tree surgeon from near Exeter, has carved
out a new career since a tree fell on his car and fractured his skull 15 years ago
MARK PASSMORE/APEXA leading Cambridge college accepted
cash from a “very high risk” Chinese
university for research into China’s
prime tool of foreign influence, an in-
quiry has found.
Jesus College accepted funding from
Tsinghua University, Beijing, for “back-
ground research” on foreign business
involvement in China’s Belt and Road
Initiative in 2019, a freedom of informa-
tion request by The Times reveals.
The disclosure may revive concerns
that these associations with British uni-
versities are a form of “reputation
washing” for China. The Belt and Road
Cambridge college took ‘high risk’ China cash
Initiative aims to project China’s influ-
ence through large-scale investments
in other countries’ infrastructure.
The Australian Strategic Policy Insti-
tute, a think tank based in Canberra,
rates Tsinghua University, the alma
mater of President Xi, as very high risk
for security purposes owing to its close
links to Chinese military forces.
Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch have accused China of
crimes against humanity as its forces
hold Muslim minority Uighurs in con-
centration camps in Xinjiang.
It is unlikely that the work conducted
as part of the £20,000 research was mil-
itarily sensitive but questions are raisedas to why the college would want to be
associated with such a university.
The college has a history of question-
able funding arrangements with China.
An initiative renamed the Global Issues
Dialogue Centre was set up in 2018
after £200,000 was received from an
agency that is part of China’s State
Council, the government’s chief admin-
istrative authority.
It received a further £155,000 from
Huawei in 2019 to cover a two-year
research co-operation programme,
producing a “white paper” on global
communications reforms.
In July 2020 the government banned
the Chinese tech giant from buildingthe 5G network amid concerns over its
links to the Chinese Communist Party.
Peter Nolan, a member of the Jesus
College China Centre, warned col-
leagues in November 2020 against
holding debates on China’s human
rights abuses. He said that it would be
“difficult to contain the sentiment” and
that a contentious outcome “would not
be helpful to mutual understanding”.
He has said that the centre has since
held discussions on “human rights, the
Uighurs and Hong Kong”.
Robert Clark, research fellow at the
Civitas think tank, said: “That Jesus
College allows itself to be sponsored by
a major Chinese state institution de-spite what is going on in Xinjiang, for
example, is highly questionable.”
Alicia Kearns, the Tory MP and co-
chairwoman of the China research
group, said: “We need a mandatory reg-
ister of foreign partnerships, funding
and gifts in kind so we understand who
is trying to influence our universities.”
A college official said: “Details of this
funding and other work with China are
published on our website. The objective
was to understand the involvement of
western companies in China’s Belt and
Road Initiative. After exploratory
work, researchers were not able to
obtain sufficient data to publish any
robust conclusions.”George Greenwood