We thank all signatories for their support. Nearly *7,000* signatures on the i-petition; with Birmingham undergraduate students collecting an additional 900 signatures on paper petitions in the first week. And it is not slowing down. Another 900 signatures in the second!
THE COUNCIL HAS MET ON 26th NOVEMBER!
Dear supporter
At its meeting of 26 November 2009 the University Council approved the continuation of the 90-day consultation process: this commenced when the College management announced their closure plans to the Department on 11 November.
In the same way that the original Review of the Department excluded staff and students, we were systematically prevented from having a voice on Council, with the University Registrar refusing to table our detailed Departmental response document, or a statement submitted by students. It was thus left to our vibrant and noisy march and rally outside the Council Chamber to let members know that students, academics and support staff will not put up with this sort of treatment.
We had of course hoped that Council would be able to exercise its proper scrutiny functions, and throw out the now widely discredited Review. However, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of students, parents, colleagues across the international academic community, political and media interest, the campaign to ‘Keep Sociology at Birmingham’ has succeeded in completely shifting the terms of debate. The implications of this run well beyond the Sociology Department at Birmingham:
The official position of the University is now that all options are ‘live’, in contrast to the draconian assumption that the closure and mass redundancy ‘option’ presented to the Department on 11 November by the Head of College would simply be implemented as a fait accompli.
The status of the Media, Culture and Society (MCS) degree has now been put ‘back on the table’, reversing the assumption that this would be closed without discussion.
A new framework for consultation is being proposed which commits itself to fully involve staff and students in deciding the shape of future teaching and research in Sociology and MCS.
The campaign has put questions about the nature of review processes, the executive powers of College managers and the wider nature of University governance firmly under the public spotlight. This has helped to mobilise all those, both in and outside academia, who believe Universities are public goods that need to be governed collegially with the full inclusion of students and all staff.
We still maintain that the original Review was illegitimate. Nevertheless, we remain committed to finding a way forward that protects and promotes Sociology and MCS at Birmingham, the educational experience of students, and the careers of committed academic and support staff.
We thank you for your incredible support which will sustain us over the coming period.
All members of the Department of Sociology, University of Birmingham
March 10, 2010
Click here for information about recently announced job cuts at the University of Sussex.
Departmental Response to the allegations of poor relations between some academic members of staff: "The Department has been placed in a very difficult position by a series of comments in Professor Peck's Report to Senate and Council, which are also in the Review Group's report. Inter alia, these comments state the Department to be divided and characterised by poor morale, to have problematic supervision arrangements for PhD students that have been subject to complaint, and to have been unable to provide a Head of Department since January 2009. In addition, the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Culture is stated as having been assigned a crucial role for research leadership in the Department and that it has failed in this role since RAE 2008. The Department deplores the fact that this list of symptoms and consequences has been described, but that it is not stated that they all have a single cause relating to a serious personnel matter that is subject to a confidentiality clause. If the cause could not be stated, the Department believes that neither should its consequences be stated, and believes there to be a serious breach of ethics involved in doing so, since it is unable to respond."
Staff and students at Berkeley campus of the University of California are challenging a 'furlough' programme (temporary staff leave without pay) and a proposed student fee increase of 32%. http://ucstrike.com
