On Saturday, February 18, a protest will be held calling for the resignation of University of Edinburgh Principal and Vice-Chancellor Peter Mathieson.
Set to take place in Bristo Square between 9:30am and 1:30pm, the protest was announced on Thursday afternoon by the Staff-Student Solidarity Network and Edinburgh Youth in Resistance.
The protest is timed to coincide with a bi-annual meeting of the General Council, a governance body at the university responsible for electing the Chancellor.
Mathieson will present the university’s Annual Report during the meeting, which demonstrates the university’s assessment of its own performance as an institution.
In the Instagram post announcing the protest, the groups involved said this made it a good time to protest Mathieson’s time in office, saying “any student could argue the opposite” of the positive Annual Report that is expected.
The groups cited Mathieson’s handling of the disastrous People and Money HR system rollout and recent strike action by university lecturers as examples of his poor performance.
Also cited were the university’s poor handling of cases of sexual violence, inaction on poor student mental health, and inaction on the attempted showing of a transphobic film on campus.
Mathieson, the highest-paid figure in Scottish higher education recently faced a renewed round of criticism from Edinburgh students after he was knighted in King Charles’ first New Year Honours.
Students panned the Cambridge-educated Vice Chancellor’s knighting as ‘stupid’, ‘corrupt’, and ‘tone deaf’, criticising a wide range of aspects of his leadership.
Alongside the issues raised by the protest groups, Mathieson’s access to a £17,000/year university-provided townhouse amidst a student cost-of-living crisis has drawn significant ire.
So too has his time as Vice-Chancellor at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), Mathieson’s previous role, where 78 per cent of staff polled said he had not “effectively protected academic freedom.”
His move from Hong Kong to Edinburgh in 2018 drew criticism in itself, as the University of Edinburgh footed the £26,000 bill for transporting his cat and dog internationally.
Saturday’s General Council meeting will be available to view online by a livestream, available on the General Council section of the university website.
The 2021/2022 Annual Report can be accessed on the university website here.
‘University of Edinburgh: McEwan graduation hall’ by Kay Williams is licenced under CC BY-SA 2.0.