A shadow of what it used to be
Pros
- Campus is gorgeous - Some great day to day colleagues - For academics, salaries are much higher than the average for the local area - Institutional memory (although it is quickly being eroded)
Cons
Keele University used to be different to other academic institutions, with a strong sense of community, staff living on campus, friendly atmosphere, down to earth and approachable management... After over 10 years of being an academic there, it is fair to say this is not the case anymore. Higher management have delusional views of what Keele should be, and have dragged the university and its staff to a point where people are quitting in droves. Management-staff relations are abysmal, with the current management style being defined as dictatorial and strikes becoming the new normal. The advent of OneKeele -a move to remove admin and support staff- has meant that academics spend more time doing menial admin tasks than researching and teaching. What used to be a university that excelled when it came to teaching and learning has become a place where staff are "encouraged" to provide better marks to students. Research is on the way out, as staff have no time for it, yet management expects to compete with Oxbridge. This means that staff is expected to work and be on call 24/7, leaving little room to anything that resembles a work-life balance.
