Mergers: who benefits?

One academic's experience of coalescing institutions was not a positive one, largely owing to a lack of forethought or consideration.

Some years ago, the university I work for merged with a further education college about 30 miles away. The merger posed some immediate challenges for staff: public transport links to the college were poor; for those without a car, journeys required a train and a bus, and the return journey took more than two hours.
My university had an emerging solvency problem at the time. I suspect that part of the rationale for the merger was the fact that the further education college was solvent - but, as it turned out, only in the short term. The merger was short-lived.
In the end, the university closed the further education campus and the work of the college was transferred to another provider. Careers were disrupted, and staff working in the college had to live through the unsettling transition of merger, demerger and remerger with a new partner in a very short space of time. Read more...