Statement Regarding Elmwood Animal Care Closures

We are saddened, and frankly outraged with the recent decision by SRUC's Senior Management to close the Animal Care Course and Elmwood Campus main building.

We contest the idea that appropriate steps were taken in the decision-making process, and believe the decision fails in considering the long-lasting impact on students, staff lecturers and the wider community.

Once again students and staff find themselves forced to bear the brunt end of a devastating decision at the hands of SRUC's Senior Management.
For months we have had numerous conversations with students, lecturers, unions, the local community, politicians, staff at other colleges, and SRUC's Senior Management to resolve an issue which should never have taken place in the first place.

Many students and our local community members took part in protests that students and SRUCSA organised for which we express our gratitude.
We appreciate students would like an update on our actions so we are publishing our response here. More updates are likely to follow, please keep a look out for these – especially where they relate to promises of student support made in the principal’s letter.

Recurrent Failures

Foremost, our thoughts are with everyone bearing the brunt of these cuts and we stand in solidarity with their subsequently emerged struggles. However, more than just condemning this decision, light must be shed on how it fits with various other bad decisions that have been made in relation to Elmwood Campus.

These decisions include the closing of the Residential Building in AY2022/23; main parts of the campus and essential student services in AY2023/24; and the animal care course in AY2023/24 - a decision that was reversed after student protests only for it being proposed once again this academic year (2024/25).

Recurring mistakes were found in as much that: 

1. students were informed too late to make appropriate adjustments and the decision was made whilst applications were still ongoing, thereby confusing potential and continuing students; 
2. the needs of the community were ignored; 
3. a guise of a ''democratic consultation" process put to staff was used to sail through a decision already made.

Addressing Failings to Senior Management

Now, once again these and other mistakes resurface. SRUCSA has used the opportunity to address failings to the SRUC Board as well as to Senior Management directly.

Our perspective is that Senior Management are unclear in their response and have yet to fully address the following six areas which we highlight here below to provide full transparency to our membership.

1. Poor Timing

The proposal to close the Animal Care course came after the UCAS' main deadline - 29 January 2025 - had already passed. Incredibly inconvenient for students wanting to continue their HE studies next year, but expediently convenient for a Senior Management wanting students to relocate to different campuses so to avoid a significant 10% reduction of students in the whole of SRUC (thus substantial funding).

Senior Management acted in the opposite of student interest. They neglected to act in the interest of students by announcing the decision this late in the Academic Year.

We have pressed Senior Management to provide answers around their poor time management, which is a repetition of the same decision made last year.

There can be no excuse; after retracting the decision last year, Senior Management claimed they were going to find an alternative provider for hosting the course locally - and thus, this timeframe should have allowed them to inform students before the UCAS deadline.

In response (at the March Board Meeting before the decision announcement whilst already proposed) Senior Management expressed some sympathy to the situation students were put under and promised - among other things – an improvement in future communication (see outline of other promises below).

This is simply not enough, and we remain deeply sceptical until any substantial policy change in decision-making at senior level is put in place.

2. Ignoring Communities

We have spoken to countless of student affected by this decision, and many have already indicated that relocating to a different campus is simply impossible.

It is important to note that, despite offering both FE and HE courses, our college operates for many students like most other colleges: as providing education to local communities.   

We are aware that the idea behind the Scottish Government's Centres of Excellence strategy is to boost expertise and specialise particular curricular areas whilst reducing duplicate courses in an institution. Put it shortly, fewer campuses and institutions will offer a type of course, but those who do will do it better than before.

The justification behind this strategy is that students will move no matter how far to that institution given the high-quality of education that's on offer to them.

Whilst this model might work well for universities, however, it does less so for local communities looking for local opportunities – particularly those relating to rural economies.

This is not to say that SRUC does not offer high specialised education, they certainly do. But most students are simply not relocating from other ends of Scotland, let alone the UK to go study in SRUC.

That is the simple reality, as many students affected by the decision have told us.

Whilst claiming (the principal's statement) that our activity in Fife supports several areas of strategic local importance not seen elsewhere in Scotland we, nevertheless, strongly doubt the credibility of our Senior Management in maintaining student intake if seemingly unable to understand how SRUC provides to local communities.

If it was true that this “strategic decision making” turned out to be conducive in making a local community in Fife prosper, these local communities would welcome this decision surely with open arms. Evidently, they have not.

Lastly, besides the fact that Elmwood College was once a blossoming campus with a high student population having courses oversubscribed, it must also be noted that the Animal Care Course in Elmwood was already a highly specialised unit fitting in perfectly with the Centres of Excellence idea.

As has been claimed before, it was considered one of the best of its kind in the whole of Scotland. Considered by anyone but SRUC's “strategic decision making’’ Senior Management.

3. Overdue Maintenance Planning

One of the reasons for the closure of the animal care course provided in the principal's statement noted the reality of the ''building's deteriorating structural condition''.

We have asked the Deputy Principal when this was first noted and why no appropriate steps had been taken to budget for this problem when it first came to anyone's attention. We were confounded when no clear answer was given, yet shocked by the poverty of the excuse.

Rather than being handed a standard ''I will get back to you on that'' the Senior Manager in question informed us that he was not a builder or site manager and therefore unable to provide an answer.

Answers as such are an affront not only to us, but all the students we represent and now left with an uncertain future due to poor SRUC leadership.
Moreso, this very response confirmed our suspicion that this disastrous decision has been made a long time ago when the poor state of the building came first to their attention.

4. Questioning Assurances Given at the Board

At the end of March Board Meeting, where we pressed the principal on the problems with the proposal of closing the Animal Care Course and campus building, we were given the following assurances:

1. Better communication with SRUCSA and students will happen from now on and SRUCSA will be better consulted in future decisions
2. An official statement from the ELT will put minds of student at ease over false rumours of other course closures
3. Consideration of extenuating circumstances for Elmwood animal care students this year
4. Travel bursaries will be provided by SRUC for students currently studying animal care who wish to continue at another campus

The first assurance was quickly broken. As soon as the proposal had become a decision set in stone, addressed in the principal's statement, students heard little about how things were going forward.

The statement mentioned that students were helped to ''complete their programme of studies, including those who may have resits, at SRUC's expense''. Continuing students were also promised engagement and advise on where to go to the next level, either with SRUC or an alternative provider.

We spoke with students, and the overall feeling is that, instead of being helped further, they have been left in the dark ever since the decision was made.

What's more, SRUCSA had to wait approximately two weeks later to address Senior Management in a conversation with the Deputy Principal after the principal's statement went out. This added an incredible pressure as we struggled to answer numerous questions raised by students shortly after they had been informed.

Other assurances given at the March Board meeting have been honoured with equal half-hearted regard - which says a lot about the level of honesty to which Senior Management resorts not only towards SRUCSA or our student membership, but also the Board itself.

We, for instance, noted at a recent meeting between a Senior Manager and Elmwood students that the “travel bursaries provided by SRUC for students currently studying animal care who wish to continue at another campus” will not extend into the next academic year.

5. Using Consultation as a Tool for Faux-Democracy Decision Making

Did you miss your chance to send in your ideas for alternatives to the disastrous decision now leaving you with no place to go? We are not surprised, nor are probably you.

Not only was the opportunity to consult the principal on the initial proposal hardly advertised, but it was also entirely unavailing by its very nature.
The gist of the consultation was not to comment on the proposal, but merely to propose an alternative.

Naturally, when a Senior Manager is overcome by a lack of options in a difficult funding climate at sector level, it may appear at first hand sheerly reasonable to claim tough decisions must be made and thus ask: what would you do?

Yet, doing so quickly becomes a nugatory practice if you are not able to present the alternatives you received.

Indeed, we pressed the principal on releasing the complete and full responses received in the consultation process and asked why the consultation was not better promoted given what had to be made "has been a difficult decision" as the principal letter states.

Frankly, this consultation process has been a tool used previously in various decisions leaving both students and staff stranded with the outcome – closing of Elmwood house to name one.

More importantly it must be realised that this consultation trick deceives us to see what really went wrong: strategic indecision from years ago. This was to repair the Elmwood Campus building when it was needing fixing.

Instead, the issue was brushed under the carpet. Asking anyone at this moment to find alternatives would make as much sense as letting rust grow over an already broken car for several years. Once rendered beyond reparable you will be asked: how will you have it repaired?

6. Concern for Elmwood's Future and Scepticism of Using Virtual Resources

Lastly, we draw attention to the principal's claim (in the Principal Statement on the decision) of how ''the measures we are proposing enable SRUC to maintain its presence in Fife and create a more positive future for the Elmwood Campus'', as SRUC will ''continue to offer options for in-person, hybrid and distance learning in this region.'' This is absurdity at its most telling, sitting clearly in opposite of reality.

Any measure resulting in the loss of not only one of SRUC's best but also the single most populous of course on a campus, cannot contribute to ''a more positive future for the Elmwood Campus'' or any campus in the history of education anywhere thinkable.
If anything, after the residences, main campus, and course closure, we are deeply concerned this measure could be a step in the direction of continued cuts at Elmwood in years to come.

Equally ridiculous is the suggestion that somehow SRUC will ''maintain its presence in Fife,'' by ''continue to offer options for in-person, hybrid and distance learning in this region.''

Not only, would it be a struggle to work out how hybrid and distance learning, contributes to maintaining a presence whilst clearly no physical presence exists, it also adds concern to steps in place to improve the situation.

This is not to say that virtual learning cannot improve education; indeed, it has proven to be successful in equestrian courses (similarly, blended learning is an excellent practice in other areas).

Yet, whereas it may work in some areas, when this solution was proposed last year, the approach was overwhelmingly condemned as not being practically applicable for the Animal Care course by staff lecturing the very topic.

Instead, the aim here, we suspect, is not to really improve the course, but merely to cut jobs and the livelihood of those brilliant lecturers who have dedicated great parts of their lives to the profession.

We would like to invite Senior Management to provide evidence to the contrary.

Next Steps

As mentioned at the very start, ongoing circumstances as well as delayed response from those who must be held responsible, have caused a delay in the timing of this statement.

We must be clear that we do not think the SRUC Board will be convinced to save the course and campus building from being cut, even as some may start losing confidence in the Senior Management.

That is not to say that many actions we have taken with our student membership - from direct protest, arguing at committees, and convincing politicians to add pressure on the management – were fruitless or not worthwhile. We put up a fight that was worth fighting and are proud of everyone involved.

We are here available to students to answer any questions and to provide as much information and support as possible.

We would like to ask you to keep in touch with us and to keep us informed if you like request promises made by the principal such as the travel bursaries and continued individual approach - issues, we hear from affected students, nothing substantial has been done since the principal letter went out.

In Solidarity,

Catherine, Jeremiah and Saul
SRUCSA Co-Presidents 24/25