I am writing to offer a further opportunity for students and staff to feed into the Review I am leading on the experiences of Jewish students and staff on all three campuses at the University of Essex.
First, I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to write or to meet. All comments have been helpful, and will help to shape the Review. I would now like to offer an independent route for any further testimony or comments.
The University has appointed an independent external group to act as recipients of testimony and to advise on the Review content and recommendations. These are:
- Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger dbe, House of Lords, London
- Simon Johnson, Chief Executive, Jewish Leadership Council, London
- Mark Gardner, Deputy Chief Executive, Community Support Trust, London
- Rt Hon Baroness Jan Royall, Principal, Somerville College Oxford
Assurances
I would like to offer the following assurances:
- The core aim of the Review is to ensure that students and staff are able to thrive at the University of Essex and have a positive experience during their time here;
- The University will not tolerate antisemitic behaviour in any form and will act whenever it becomes aware of such behaviour;
- Communications to the external independent group will be treated as confidential and anonymous and there will be no reference to specific communications in any report without the consent of the communicator(s);
- Communications to the independent group will not be made public;
- The University will take matters further where university policies appear to have been breached, whilst respecting the confidentially of the process.
There is thus one additional route for passing testimony, experiences and recommendations:
- By email to this account: independent-group@essex.ac.uk
- All correspondence will be passed directly to the independent group (with no editing or shaping by the University).
- The deadline for comments will be 4 April.
- The dvc@essex.ac.uk email remains open for any comments you would like to pass to me.
I will be providing an update to the University Council on 13 May 2019, with the final report to be discussed and approved on 11 July.
The independent group looks forward to all feedback.
With best wishes
Professor Jules Pretty OBE PFHEA FRSB FRSA
Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Environment & Society
University of Essex