The University of Greenwich has suspended several senior staff members from its architecture school, according to insider sources, amid ongoing tensions over the university's controversial restructuring program. The suspensions occurred in July and are believed to be connected to staff protests against planned mass redundancies and budget cuts that threaten the quality of architectural education at the institution.

Three prominent faculty members were suspended with immediate effect, including Simon Herron, the academic portfolio lead in architecture, and senior lecturer Susanne Isa. Sources indicate that three additional staff members were also suspended, but their employment contracts have since expired and they will not be returning to the university. While the university has not officially confirmed the reasons for the suspensions, insiders believe they are directly related to faculty opposition to the school's restructuring plans.

The controversy stems from the university's announcement in May of plans to eliminate 319 positions across the institution, including significant cuts to the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Greenwich Business School. The restructuring specifically targets hourly-paid lecturers (HPLs), with the university planning to replace 151 casual teaching staff with only 50 new academic positions, most of which would be part-time roles equivalent to just 17 full-time positions.

The School of Design, which houses the architecture department in a building designed by Heneghan Peng in Greenwich town center, faces some of the most severe cuts. Within the architecture program alone, 50 of the 70 teaching staff members were slated for redundancy, with only 20 positions to be reinstated. This dramatic reduction has sparked widespread concern among faculty and students about the program's ability to maintain its academic standards and professional accreditation.

More than 30 teaching staff members in the architecture school signed a letter to senior management strongly criticizing the restructuring plans. The letter described the proposals as "hugely damaging to the faculty and its students" and included calculations suggesting that the changes would reduce student teaching time by 40 percent. Faculty members warned that such drastic cuts to staff-to-student ratios could jeopardize the program's accreditation with professional bodies including the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Architects Registration Board (ARB).

"There is a real risk that affected courses will lose their accredited status or be put on special measures," the faculty letter stated. A former University of Greenwich tutor told reporters that "the working assumption among staff is that this is linked to opposition to the restructure and concerns over resourcing and student experience. There is deep anxiety that the scale of redundancies will significantly weaken teaching capacity, push workloads onto fewer people, and erode course quality, especially in design studio."

University administrators have defended the restructuring as financially necessary, explaining that hourly-paid lecturers, while providing valuable specialist teaching and coverage, have been used to meet core educational needs that should be handled by permanent staff. A university spokesperson stated that "the faculty considers that, however able and committed individual HPLs are, it is important that core teaching should be provided by members of staff with a longer-term commitment to, and stake in, the university."

The university has characterized many of the affected positions as limited in scope, claiming that some hourly-paid lecturers provide only a few guest lectures per year. Officials noted that the university's average total staff in 2024 was 3,052, with 244 hourly-paid lecturers representing approximately 30 full-time equivalent positions. However, internal documents reveal that 66 HPLs in the affected faculty are considered permanent employees whose contracts were not set to expire.

Financial pressures have driven the restructuring decisions, according to university leadership. "Like many universities across the UK, the University of Greenwich is facing significant financial challenges outside of our control," a spokesperson explained. "These challenges affect the amount of cash we hold, which is what we use to pay our staff and our bills. We know that this will feel like a difficult message, but it is essential that we take sensible and proportionate action now to ensure that we continue to be able to offer high-quality teaching and an outstanding student experience."

The suspension controversy comes at a particularly sensitive time for the University of Greenwich, which recently announced plans to merge with the University of Kent to create what they describe as the UK's first "super-university." The merged institution, to be called the South East University Group, will serve nearly 47,000 students and operate under a single vice-chancellor beginning in the 2026 academic year. Both universities' leadership has insisted that the merger is not driven by financial distress and should not be viewed as a takeover by either institution.

Regarding the faculty suspensions, university officials declined to provide specific details, stating that they "would never respond to questions asking for detailed personal information in relation to staff members." The suspended faculty members, including Simon Herron, have not responded to requests for comment. The situation continues to create uncertainty within the architecture program as students and remaining faculty members await resolution of both the personnel issues and the broader restructuring plans that have generated such significant opposition within the academic community.