Reps and Contacts

If you have an individual, urgent, or legal problem, or have been called into a meeting at which you would like a UCU representative present, please see the Get Help page about requesting a caseworker. If you’re not sure who to contact about a problem, please feel free to email the branch mailbox on ucu@open.ac.uk. 

We have a variety of types of representative, each with a different specialism. Find out who your reps and learn more about what each type of rep does here:

• AL (associate lecturer) reps
• Unit reps (for non-AL staff)
• Open College of the Arts reps
• Executive committee
• Green reps 
• Health and Safety reps
• Pensions reps
• Union Learning reps
• National committees and congress

If you have an issue then we have someone waiting to help!

AL (associate lecturer) reps

AL reps support all UCU members who are associate lecturers at the OU. There are 8 vacancies on the AL reps committee - please get in touch if you would like to volunteer.

If you are not an associate lecturer, see the unit reps section.

Access, Open and Cross-curricular Innovation 

• John Pearson

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS)

• Mark Connelly 
• Jason Phillips 
• Kevin McNerney

Faculty of Business and Law (FBL)          

• Costas Athanasopoulos
• Rafa Canet 
• Gillian Jack
• Isabella Muzio
• Penny Oderberg
• Chenoa Putter
• Marianna Volpi

Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM)       

• Pam Cameron
• Andrew Hoaen 
• Lesley Kane
• Steve Kirtley 
• Matthew Rickard

Faculty of Wellbeing, Education & Language Studies (WELS)     

• Gerry Stroud-Campbell 
• Shivanti Lowton

By invitation to the AL reps committee

• Branch AL Staff Officers - Steve Kirtley & Jenny Kermally
• Honorary Secretary - Lesley Kane
• Branch President - Pete Wood
• Honorary Treasurer - Marianna Volpi

Unit reps (for non-AL staff)

Unit reps support staff who aren’t associate lecturers, whether that’s academic, research-only, or academic-related (including professional services) contracts. If your unit isn’t listed below, we don’t have a rep for your area and support will be provided by an officer or another rep. Get in touch if you would like to volunteer.

If you are an associate lecturer, see the previous section.

Academic Services       

• Danielle Cobham (FASS Student Support Team)
• Torin Grace (Student Support Services)
• Cath Tomlinson (FASS Student Support Team)
• Stevie Eglinton-Pacitti (Assessment Credit Qualifications)
• Elaine Walker (Student Support Services)

Our Academic Services reps cover all OU sites, but we are seeking additional Academic Services Reps physically based in Manchester and Nottingham

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS)     

• Francesca Benatti (School of Arts and Humanities, English and Creative Writing department)
• Ben Wiedel-Kaufmann (School of Arts and Humanities, Art History department)
• Marie Thompson (School of Arts and Humanities, Music Department)
• Julia Chukwuma (School of Social Sciences and Global Studies, Economics department)
• Caitlin Adams (Deanery)
• Malik Refaat (School of Psychology & Counselling)

Faculty of Business and Law (FBL)          

• Analisa Goodwin (Business School)
• Saoirse O'Shea (Business School)
• Daniel Haslam (Business School)

Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) 

• John Busvine (Deanery) 
• Kit Power (Deanery) 
• Ceri Gwyther (Laboratories) 
• Shawn Appleyard (School of Computing and Communications) 
• Iman Naja (KMi)
• Brendan Quinn (School of Mathematics and Statistics)
• Alessio Antonini (KMi)

Faculty of Wellbeing, Education & Language Studies (WELS)

• Severine Hubscher-Davidson (School of Languages & Applied Linguistics, Languages)
• Alison Higgs (School of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care, Social Work)
• Kieran McCartney (School of Education, Childhood, Youth & Sports)
• Chelle Oldham (School of Education, Childhood, Youth & Sports)

Institute of Educational Technology (IET)

• Anne Adams
• Liz FitzGerald
• Ben Tidman
• Koula Charitonos
• Kevin McLeod

Ireland Office (The OU in Ireland)

Please get in touch if you could be a UCU contact in Belfast.

Learner and Discovery Services (LDS)

• Allie Kerper (Editorial) 

Marketing, Communications and Development

• Michael Bartlett
• Maddie Buckland

PVC (Students)   

• Rachel Garnham

RES (formerly Research & Academic Strategy)

• Helen Bowes-Catton

Scotland Office (The OU in Scotland)      

 Please get in touch if you could be a UCU contact in Edinburgh.

• Pete Wood

Strategy Office    

• Franzi Florack

Wales Office (The OU in Wales)     

Please get in touch if you could be a UCU contact in Cardiff. 

Open College of the Arts reps

Open College of the Arts (OCA) reps support any staff member who works for the OCA.

Flexible Tutors

Please contact ucu@open.ac.uk if you are a flexible tutor at OCA and would like support, or want to volunteer for the role.

Programme Tutors

• India Ritchie 

Programme Leads

• Dan Robinson
• Louise Cunningham

Academic-Related & Professional Services

• Richard Cleverley
• Lia Harness

Executive committee

The executive committee is responsible for the day-to-day running of the branch. They are elected once a year in a ballot of the membership. For more information about the executive committee, see the Branch Executive Committee page.

Green reps

• Peter Wood

Health and Safety reps

Health and Safety representatives address all matters of health, safety and welfare at work, including work-related stress, venue/lab safety, and IT use. They sit on the university's Health and Safety Committee. Some (those marked with an asterisk) are only trained to address workload issues.

• Caitlin Adams
• Francesca Benatti
• Alison Higgs*
• Kit Power
• Lesley Kane
• Saleem Rashid
• Shivanti Lowton*
• Torin Grace*
• Kieran McCartney*
• Chenoa Putter
• Ben Wiedel-Kaufmann*

Pensions reps

Pensions Reps represent the branch at the OU/Trade Unions Pension Forum, supported by the branch’s Pensions Working Group. Reps and working group members receive training and access to the UCU national pensions email lists.

• Alan Carr (retired member)
• Steve Kirtley
• Marianna Volpi

Union Learning reps

The Union Learning Rep role involves ensuring staff have access to high-quality training and professional development provision (including paid time for study), raising awareness about the value of learning, helping organise courses in the workplace, and supporting members to take part in learning. We do not currently list Union Learning Reps. If you have a learning query contact the branch mailbox and we will assign a rep to it. 

To learn more about becoming a ULR, see the Union Learning Reps page on the national UCU website.

National committees and Congress

The OU branch has always made a strong contribution to the union's national and regional structures, particularly the advisory committees and National Executive Committee.

• Becca Harrison – National Executive Committee, May 2023-2025
• Lesley Kane – National Executive Committee, May 2024-2026
• Lesley Kane – Women members' standing committee, 2025-2026
• Gillian Jack – Women members' standing committee, 2025-2026
• Les Levidow – Climate and Ecological Emergency Committee, November 2023-2025
• Peter Wood – Climate and Ecological Emergency Committee, November 2022-2026
• Shivanti Lowton - Black members' standing committee, 2025-2026
• Shivanti Lowton - Anti-casualisation committee, co-opted March 2024
• Penny Oderberg - Migrant members' standing committee, 2025-2026
• Saleem Rashid - Black members' standing committee, 2025-2026

The OU UCU is entitled to send observers to the Scottish and Welsh National Executive Committees, the Northern Ireland Regional Council, and the English Regional Committees. Please email ucu@open.ac.uk if you would like contact the existing observers or to attend the meetings yourself.

Finally, we are entitled to send a number of delegates to Congress, which alternates between the late May Bank Holiday weekend (Sat-Mon) and the week before (Wed-Fri). The process for seeking motions and volunteers to be delegates tends to start in January, to support planning.