The Leeds UCU teach-out programme for the 2019 UK Higher Education Strike.

Most events take place in the Quaker Meeting House, 188 Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS2 9DX. http://www.leedsquakers.org.uk/meetings/central-leeds.

Rooms are disabled-accessible unless otherwise stated. For events in other venues see the 'notes' column for accessibility information.

For more information about the events or to edit this programme, contact Alaric Hall, alaric@cantab.net. For more information about the strike, see http://www.leedsucu.org.uk/.

Events away from campus

Unit 11 Kirkstall Bridge Retail Park, Kirkstall, Leeds. (Unit 11 is the new community centre of the Kirkstall Valley development trust https://www.kvdt.org.uk/unit-11/.) Bring lunch to share.

City governments across the world are declaring climate emergencies. Central to any vision for achieving zero carbon must be the opinions of local people. In recognition of this at a national level Parliament has announced the formation of a national deliberative process – a national Citizens’ Assembly on climate change in 2019, as have Oxford, Sheffield, Camden and others. The Leeds Climate Commission is organising its own deliberative process, the Leeds Climate Change Citizens’ Jury. The jury will complement the work of Leeds City Council’s Big Leeds Climate Conversation and the civic led group Our Future Leeds. The Citizens’ Jury is an example of a deliberative process, which is smaller in number than a Citizens’ Assembly. Over a number of sessions participants hear from a range of ‘witnesses’. During the jury, participants have an opportunity to question the witnesses, share opinions with each other, to deliberate, challenge each other and ultimately reach a set of recommendations on a given topic.During this teach-out, the morning session will outline citizen juries and citizen's assemblies, and reflect on the experiences and outcomes of the Leeds climate change citizens jury. In the afternoon participants will use a range of participatory methods to critically examine the role of such processes. The session be led by a team of facilitators with extensive experience in Citizens Jury facilitation from the social enterprise Shared Future, supported by Paul Chatterton.

Meet at Quaker Rooms. This is a form of walking tour - There will be a short introduction, then participants will be given a sheet of questions and asked to reassemble at a place in the city centre in an hour's time. There participants will discuss what they encountered on their journey, and their answers to the questions posed. Note that, as such, the travel from the start to the destination will be very different for people with different mobility needs. The end destination will be accessible.

None - but as mentioned, the walk may present challenges for people with different mobility needs. Anyone who is worried their mobility needs will prevent them from participating fully, please talk to organisers.

1200 and 1300 (repeats)

Pre-booking by 26 Nov is essential: email clsef@leeds.ac.uk with your name and choice of time slot. Bring ID to event.

Introduction to Permaculture: A design science for sustainable livelihoods. a.k.a. Revolution disguised as organic gardening.

Guided walk around Leeds. Meet in the Grand Arcade's exit to Vicar Lane, LS1 6PG. We'll finish near the LGI.

How did people become doctors in Leeds? Why were some students expelled?Who were the teachers? Who and how could access medical help? What does architecture have to do with all of these? While wandering around the city we will answer these and many other questions, talk about student pranks, learn the history of some of Leeds’ iconic buildings and step into the lives of medical students, teachers and patients from the early 19th century onwards. There will be “hard facts”, curious anecdotes, urban legends and gruesome stories of disease, blood and broken bones. No prior knowledge is needed and all are welcome! The walk will take approximately 2 hours and will be around 2 miles long with frequent stops. There is a nice pub nearby where we can warm ourselves and chat about Leeds' medical history a little more after the walk.

Part reading group, part mushroom foraging, part holly and ivy gathering expedition. Bring your mushroom ID books, mushroom knives and baskets -- or just yourself! We will provide copies of extracts from two texts, ('Nose Hair: Love it or Leave it? the lovecidal of bodies that filter' by Xin Lui and 'Unruly Edges: Mushrooms as Companion Species: For Donna Haraway' by Anna Tsing) which we will read and discuss while foraging for fungi. As it is quite late in the season for mushrooms, Asa will share with us the best spot for ivy in the park. The walk will last at least two hours and you are welcome to join us for a drink afterwards. Please dress warmly and wear suitable footwear. To register your interest and for any questions contact: elspethrosemitchell@gmail.com

Events around campus

25 November (theme: University activism)

Rebecca proposed 'an open discussion around not doing and rethinking laziness as a form of resistance (e.g. in art and literature such as Bartleby, the Scrivener, etc)'; Meenakshi proposed the similar-but-completely-different sounding 'why we need more activist academics'. Could we discuss them both at once?

garden room

26 November (theme: stuff)

meeting room

This is a chance to meet up with other UCU members in management roles. The aim would be to create an informal network of union colleagues that you can count on to discuss decisions at management level. Not just during strike but throughout the year.

garden room

How does poetry make sense of the Sixth Extinction? This session will prioritise collaborative discussions about selected poems that work through anthropogenic extinctions

garden room

Following the devastating Grenfell Tower and Bolton Cube fires, is student housing safe and what can we do to ensure it is?

meeting room

27 November (theme: climate crisis)

The scientific basis for the climate emergency, and the social, economic and political insights which might enable a low carbon transformation

Series of 10 minute talks by scientists on the physical and socio-economic sides of climate.

meeting room

How do glaciologists monitor glacier evolution?  A virtual fieldtrip to the Arctic!

garden room

meeting room

garden room

28 November (theme: race and migration)

Migrant Detention These Walls Must Fall (North West) -a talk by migrant support grassroot group-We hope to organise this in collaboration with student societies, for example Leeds STAR, and use it to help kick-start activism against immigration detention by students and staff

meeting room

Short workshop aimed at how we can decolonise the university and what Jewishness can bring to the discussion. No knowledge of Judaism or academic decolonisation required.

garden room

garden room

Richard Cleminson, Deirdre Conlon, Glenda Garelli, Louise Waite

Short conference style presentations: 'migration, crises, and European borders', 'UK/US immigration detention economies', 'the case of modern slavery in the neoliberal economy: migrant 'illegality' and exploitative work'; "Black Lisbon": Anarchism, Anti-colonialism and the Portuguese-speaking world (1920-1940); followed by open discussion.  

meeting room

Cancelled due to illness (to be rescheduled after the strikes)

Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, the Party and Public Belief. “Ever since his shock election to the Labour leadership in 2015, Jeremy Corbyn has been dogged by allegations of “antisemitism.” Both the media and hostile MPs claim he has failed to confront Jew-hate in party ranks — one Tory minister even said Corbyn would be “the first antisemitic Western leader since 1945.” Often bound up with debates on Israel and anti-imperialism, this has become one of the main lines of attack against Corbyn, both within and outside the party. Yet for all the headlines about “mounting antisemitism” in Labour, we are rarely given any sense of its scale. Data released by the party in February 2019 showed that it had received 1,106 specific complaints of antisemitism since April 2018, of which just 673 regarded actual Labour members. The party membership stands at over half a million: the allegations, even if they were true, concern around 0.1 percent of the total” – Greg Philo: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/10/labour-party-antisemitism-claims-jeremy-corbyn. “'At last! Here is a book that rigorously examines the facts behind the allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party. The reality is more shocking, and more surprising, than the headlines in the press would have you believe. Here is the evidence - read it.” – Ken Loach

A groundbreaking study on the reality behind the headlines on antisemitism and the British Labour Party.There has been an extraordinary media output on the issue of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party and antisemitism. Accusations about the Labour Party have made headlines on a daily basis. In the three years after Corbyn became leader there were over five thousand news stories and articles in the national press alone.Bad News for Labour examines the impact of this coverage on public beliefs about the Party. It replaces media hype with the rigorous analysis of evidence. The authors draw on carefully compiled research to reveal surprising findings in this guide to the reality behind the headlines.https://www.plutobooks.com/9781786805720/bad-news-for-labour/

meeting room

29 November (theme: save the species from itself)

YOUTH CLIMATE STRIKE SOLIDARITY

2 December (theme: health, and disability equality in education)

upstairs room

upstairs room

Opportunity for conversation between academics and students about academics' role in relation to student mental health problems. This is a discussion & sharing of ideas facilitated by a non-specialist

3 December (theme: casualisation)

meeting room

Helen Thornham, Chris Birchall, Joanne Armitage

This is a practical data hack workshop where we will scrape, analyse and visualise the data and discourses of the strike. ideally would run as 2 or 3 50 minute slots - or as an additional event.No experience necessary! Just bring a laptop and your extension cable to make sure the battery doesn’t run out! We will teach some basics to scraping and coding, data visualisations and analysis and critically interrogate how the strike actions and pension dispute have been presented. Perhaps we could look at the language used across national media, the statistics used to defend positions, or the longer data histories of the pension dispute. We could look at university policy documents, VC letters across universities, or union publicity for example.

garden room

meeting room

garden room

meeting room

4 December?

Manisha Anantharaman, 'Critical Sustainability'. Community organizing, solidarity and radical hope, in relation to her research. She researches sustainability and development.

Links to this page

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