Jo 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 PROTECT TRANS KIDS

Little pine marten. Love her.

And thanks. You looked super cute today btw xx

Medievalist/early modernist for hire!

Well. Getting a job at this stage haha

Maybe? Who can say. Need to focus on me and my career lol

❤️

And like, all doctors do is berate people for being overweight!! Come the fuck on!

Are you a student who struggled with leaving home and going to university? Are you a parent who had empty nest syndrome? Well, the medieval university experience was very similar!

Join us on Tuesday to hear more 👩🏻‍🎓

University facing £25m cuts by end of 2026 as staff offered voluntary severance Northumbria University staff are being offered voluntary severance, with vice chancellor Prof Andy Long warning that UK’s higher education sector is in “one of the most challenging financial periods i...

🧵👇👇👇 Until now, bosses at Northumbria University have said the institution is 'financially robust' - they even put that in a recent job advert for a new Deputy Vice Chancellor. So if these shocking revelations are true - and not just 'project fear' - ... www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-e...

This is such good news for our Union. Mark will be an excellent VP and then president.

Lots of brilliant people also elected to our NEC. For the first time in ages, a sensible UCU is in sight…

Text reads: I am humbled and excited to be elected the next UCU Vice-President for Higher Education. Now is a devastatingly difficult and challenging time for our sectors and so many workers in post-16 education, but as a union we cannot succumb to despair. We have the skills, knowledge and capacity to help chart a way out of this mess and restore higher and further education. That you have put your trust in me to help do that is a huge honour and responsibility. I do not take this lightly. Thank you to the many thousands of members who voted for me and also to those who did not – we need to build better engagement in our union and part of that is voting, no matter who you voted for. I promised in my election materials to work hard to bring our union together and that is what I will do.

Text reads: Thank you to the other HE candidates Sean and Steve, both committed trade unionists. I know they will continue to fight for members and the future of Higher Education and I look forward to doing that alongside them. Congratulations to those elected to the National Executive Committee and commiserations to those who missed out this time. Your willingness to put yourself forward for election is hugely valued and I know you all will continue to contribute in other ways. So what next? Until the end of May, I’ll be tying up some loose ends and taking some time off to visit family and friends back in Australia. I will take up my role after UCU’s annual Congress at the end of May, this year in Harrogate.

Text reads: For the following three years, I will be lead negotiator for pay and conditions and for USS pensions across UK Higher Education, working with our team of elected negotiators and officials. I will also chair UCU’s Higher Education Committee and HE sector conferences, serve on other national committees and represent you in various forums. In 2029-30 I will become UCU’s President after the excellent Suzi Toole, who has also been elected as Vice-President for Further Education and will spend two years leading on further education matters before becoming President. She will take over from Dyfrig Jones, who succeeds early to the Presidential role for a two-year term this May, due to the casual vacancy that arose last year, replacing Maria Chondrogianni. Maria stays on as immediate past president, rounding out the presidential team. I want to again acknowledge David Hunter who stepped down as President-Elect last year for health reasons and continue to wish him and his family all the best.

A picture of two smiling people (Suzi Toole and Mark Pendleton) wearing UCU beanies. Text reads: That’s a lot of work, and a lot of moving parts, but at the heart of it will be my commitment to build a better union, alongside members and branches, and through that transform our sectors. I am ready and I know from the responses to this election that many of you are too. I’m looking forward to getting to work, together with you all.

UCU’s elections concluded this week and I am honoured to have been elected as the next Vice-President for Higher Education, to become President in 2029-30.

Thank you for all the support.

A short statement about the election and what’s to come after I take up the role in May.

Why can't people just stick to time when they talk in meetings?

HRT has been a gamechanger too - luckily not an issue for you!

Yes, and Bristol now too.

But also any foundation schemes, which are also being cut everywhere.

Honestly, am weighing things up with the tonne of other meds I am on... until then, coffee into my eyeballs

"I dread even saying this... but I think that we've ended up in the wrong place on trans, and we've done that by treading very self-consciously and not actually following our hearts, which is that trans people are on the margins, they are vulnerable. "If the Labour Party doesn't look after trans people, what are we about? "They're most likely to get beaten up. They're the ones who are most likely to have prejudice against them. We should not be indulging in anything that marginalises them even more."

Emily Thornberry’s words on Radio 4 in response to the Green win in Gorton and Denton.

This is why wins like this are so important, whatever you may think of the Greens (much like the immigration rebellion brewing).

Join us on Tuesday 10th. February from 17:30 GMT to hear @elenarossi.bsky.social speak about families in the middle ages as their children left for university and international travel.
We will be at the IHR in London. You may meet us there or online.
www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Polly will never forgive you lol

I’m delighted about this too! Matt is just amazing. #UCU

Cock Lane was good then?

Constant rock n roll here

Today: finishing two job apps while attending HEC. Such is life lol

Get back to me in six months on that LOL

Very chuffed about this. Been trying to get Gill to run for ages. She’s absolutely excellent and a total asset to our union.

Well there’s our newsletter blurb! 😜

Sounds antisemitic to me

We have to better engage with our members, taking the activists seriously, given the energy they put into the union, but also by giving the silent majority the opportunity to speak.

@dyfrigjones.bsky.social doing a great job atm of sorting out bad behaviour on HEC after years of chairs being very lax on this.