It is somewhat ironic that a university that was founded on practical, working-class education is now at odds with its own employees. Robert Gordon University, which is almost universally referred to as RGU in Aberdeen, was founded on a tradition of evening classes and technical instruction, providing common people with the means to make a respectable living. And yet, in the spring of 2025, after two rounds of widespread layoffs that have left employees irate, perplexed, and, by many accounts, caught off guard, the university is witnessing its own lecturers vote for strike action.
The university is located in Garthdee, with a view of the River Dee, on Aberdeen’s southwest border. The granite Schoolhill building in the city center, where the institution spent much of its earlier existence, is a far cry from the contemporary campus, which features clean lines, glass facades, and architecture that denotes significant investment. For the majority of its existence, RGU wasn’t quite a university, so it has worked hard to appear like one. It didn’t become a university until 1992. It was a technology institute prior to that. A technical college came before that. Prior to that, a mechanics’ school provided workers who couldn’t afford to stop during the day with evening classes in chemistry and navigation.
This history is significant because it influenced RGU’s development into a university focused on careers in fields like pharmacy, engineering, nursing, architecture, and offshore safety. Employers genuinely want to hire graduates from this type of institution. Edinburgh and Glasgow, two of Scotland’s oldest universities, are prestigious, while RGU is more pragmatic. It has benefited greatly from that distinction for many years.
Therefore, it’s difficult to ignore how much that identity is undermined by the current crisis. Steve Olivier, vice-chancellor of the university, announced a voluntary severance plan in March 2024, citing a drop in international enrollment and growing expenses. Journalism, hospitality, and digital marketing programs were reorganized. About 130 workers departed. Then, in November 2024, there were an additional 135 layoffs, which together account for a sizable portion of any university’s intellectual infrastructure over the course of two tranches. The public services union Unison was especially critical, citing a consultation period that fell between Christmas and New Year’s, which many employees perceived as purposeful obfuscation.
In March 2025, the Educational Institute of Scotland decided to go on strike. Andrea Bradley, the organization’s general secretary, described the layoffs as “alarming” and issued a dire warning about the implications for the caliber of instruction. The dates of the planned strike were April, May, and September. Depending on how kindly you interpret it, Olivier’s description of the strikes as “disappointing” could indicate either sincere regret or a managerial tendency to downplay them. Regional MSP Liam Kerr described it as a “hammer blow” to both employers and young people. The underlying worry isn’t irrational, whether or not that is rhetorical.
The controversies surrounding RGU are not new. In 2010, Donald Trump, a businessman building a golf course close to Aberdeen that had drawn strong local opposition, received an honorary degree from the university. A former university principal is shown in the 2012 documentary You’ve Been Trumped returning his own honorary degree in protest, capturing that tension in uncomfortable detail. The honorary degree was officially revoked by December 2015 after Trump made a number of remarks during the US presidential campaign that RGU publicly declared to be “wholly incompatible” with its ideals. For a mid-sized Scottish university, it was a momentous occasion that served as a reminder that academic institutions do occasionally take moral positions, even when doing so attracts unwelcome attention.
Despite the institutional unrest, the campus itself is something to think about. It covers 23 hectares in Garthdee, and its most prominent feature is the Sir Ian Wood building, which was officially inaugurated in 2015. Additionally, the university owns farmland at Waterside Farm, which is located across the River Dee. This detail seems somewhat odd and appropriate for a university that has always held a unique position in British higher education: it is neither ancient nor elite, but it is deeply ingrained in the everyday life of the area.
It is still genuinely unclear whether RGU can stabilize its finances without losing the academic capacity necessary to maintain its credibility. Observing this from a distance gives the impression that the university is making decisions it thinks are reasonable but that could end up costing it in ways that aren’t immediately visible on a balance sheet. Building a teaching reputation takes time, and losing it happens more quickly. If students want prestige, Aberdeen will always have the University of Aberdeen. RGU has consistently provided something unique and possibly more beneficial. When the dust settles, will it still be able to provide that?
