Join us on 9 February at 6 PM for a student-staff assembly to discuss how we can work together to fight the cuts
By Josh Pizzuto-Pomaco
There's been an incredible heaviness among staff and students in recent months. It's not hard to understand why.
We are facing an existential crisis, a battle for our future. There’s a significant financial shortfall at the University, if you haven't heard, and every day brings news of more cuts.
As we ask “why”, the natural response is to look to our leaders for answers.
And yet, at every opportunity, the same refrain rings out: “the sector,” “the government,” “the funding”- they're at fault.
This is true, to an extent. But there's something deeper at play here.
The refusal of senior management to take responsibility for the financial miscalculations of the last year is beyond the pale.
And now the fruit of mismanagement is ripe for the picking.
Millions to be cut from Geosciences and Social Sciences. A merger between LLMVC and DHPA. Scores could take early retirement.
And worst of all, thirty modern language lecturers could lose their jobs.
If hundreds of staff take voluntary severance, I'm told, our financial problems are solved- at least for now.
But what if they don't?
The money has to be found somewhere it seems, and in lieu of any creative solutions, management could turn to those dreaded words: compulsory redundancies.
“These are the times which try mens’ souls”, Thomas Paine once said.
We have a choice. We can shrug our shoulders, stop our ears, and go back to our studies and socials; or we can say enough is enough.
That we won't allow the humanities to be devalued.
That we won't allow management to operate with impunity.
That we won't allow the character of our historic University to be changed forever.
We need a mass movement of students, alumni, and staff to rise up and demand that the erosion of our University be halted.
Paine, sparring with his own King George in 1776, wrote:
“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
Two and a half centuries later, his words ring true. It's time to stand up and be counted.
Join us on Friday the 9th at 6 PM in Union Brew for a staff and student assembly to discuss how we can work together to stop the cuts.
Enough is Enough.
