Student protesters at Goldsmiths, University of London, win concessions, name room after Shireen Abu Akleh
“To have that recognition of a Palestinian journalist that was murdered by the [Israeli military] and have that memorialised at this university will be amazing and something we are really proud of.”
Samira Ali
BREAKING: super proud and excited to share that our formidable students were not only amongst the first to start a #Palestine#Gaza occupation back in February - the occupation has now been resolved in the following agreement! There will be Palestine scholarships, a review of investments, and more!
Petition launched to save Black British #Literature MA at #Goldsmiths amid serious funding cuts
"It's like Black Lives Matter. The whole thing didn't happen years ago. It hasn't disappeared," Dr Kadija George tells us, who initiated the petition and is an honorary fellow
#UK#HigherEd#Humanities#Universities#Goldsmiths: "More sinister is the sense that Freedman describes: “It’s hard not to think that a culture war is being evoked against you simply for trying to think independently and critically.” Science minister Michelle Donelan’s recent shameful attack on two academics, reporting them to UKRI (the national research-funding body) for extremism and blighting their lives over an accusation that was wholly without foundation, springs to mind – but then so does almost everything Donelan and education secretary Gillian Keegan say about the sector in general, and humanities in particular. All those references to “woke ideology”, “intolerant woke bullies” and “cancel culture” are increasingly accompanied by defunding of the humanities, using increased accessibility to education as a fig leaf, as Keegan announced last week.
“Your subjects are mocked and called low value,” Freedman says. “Arts, humanities and social sciences haven’t played the instrumentalist game, so they’re seen as easy targets by tabloids, by GB News. We would laugh it off, but this is a huge asset to the British economy.” More importantly, he continues, “it’s not just a tragedy – it’s almost like a crime to shrink those spaces that provide a home for the inquisitive, the experimental. If the space disappears, it’s very hard to recreate it.”" https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/apr/11/the-goldsmiths-crisis-how-cuts-and-culture-wars-sent-universities-into-a-death-spiral
"Arts education is essential – yet on both sides of the Atlantic, the humanities and critical thinking are under attack"
The scale of forced redundancies in English Higher Education is currently unbelievable, & it's mostly arts, humanities & critical social sciences affected.
#UK#London#Goldsmiths#Universities#Humanities#HigherEd#Neoliberalism#Austerity: "The most immediate and seemingly tangible rationale for these closures and reductions in provision is falling student numbers. But to focus on this is as if it was just a matter of student ‘choices’, market forces and the ebb and flow of fashionable and unfashionable subjects, is to obfuscate a series of interrelated factors that have made so many institutions and departments vulnerable to cuts. Turning to my own institution (where I am an active emeritus professor), there is a poignancy running through the words that follow. Quite independent of the intricacies of managerial decision making, Goldsmiths, University of London exemplifies all the admirable strengths and now the fragilities of the sector. It is not so much that Goldsmiths is such an exceptional case that it deserves singling out for special support (though that would be welcome). But rather, with a large number of compulsory redundancies announced in the last week alone, we not only need to pay critical attention with people’s livelihoods and family lives on the line, but we also need to take stock of what the future of higher education looks like in this increasingly bleak landscape. It is shocking news to us all, as the management are looking to lose 130 full-time equivalent positions across 11 departments. With so much at stake there must surely be other ways to secure financial stability. The reality is that Goldsmiths is a microcosm. It has always been something of an experiment in higher education (in the best possible sense) and now it stands to lose much of its identity and of the wider value it has delivered as an egalitarian institution dedicated to combining international research with a socially inclusive education." https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/a-goldsmiths-diary
Hello! Just wanted to do a quick #ShoutOut here for a brilliant MA at Goldsmiths run by Anthropology and Social and Therapeutic Studies (STACS) at Goldsmiths. It is a unique programme combining theory and practice, academic with professional qualifications. There are three pathways:
MAs in Applied Anthroplogy and Community Youth Work; Community Development; and Community Arts
4/n Today the students organised filming testimonies about the MA, talking about what they arr learning and what other offers- will add this here when it’s edited! In the mean time, here another flyer, also designed by one of the students. I do think the fact they are voluntarily doing all this is in itself testimony to how much they appreciate the programme
#ClimateDiary Today a colleague texted: brace yourselves! Redundancies email at 12pm! In fact it still hasn’t come (though it will). But i was irrationally angry with my colleague for rather ruining my day, making it harder to give lecture etc. I just really don’t want to know until it happens. Totally head in the sand about this. Made me relate much more to people not wanting to hear about #ClimateCrisis - they too just want a bit more blissful denial, because the news are too bad. 1/2
2/2. Well, we have now had the email. 130 FT redundancies. That will be more when PT are included. We are 644 so potentially a quarter of us.
By now those reflections ⬆️ on knowing in advance feel irrelevant; it all just feels, and is awful. But there is still a connection to the #ClimateCrisis ; it is all interlinked. Capitalism destroys life.
Half thinking of starting an #AcademicVenting hashtag here, about the dire, dire state of UK (global?) higher education. Sharing nuggets of senior management decisions, neoliberal language, and overall slow collapse.
Won’t work of course because most of us can’t risk honesty, but honestly: the everyday reality of what is happening deserves recording in all its depressing and damning detail. #Universities#AcademicChatter#neoliberalism
Yesterday we were informed we will have 130 FT redundancies. More with part time staff included. We are 644 so potentially a quarter of us. From 11 departments, including #anthropology.
We don’t know yet who. I don’t know how these decisions are made (it’s related to which programmes or modules will be closed). I feel completely sick the whole time. Far beyond venting, just existential fear.
#AcademicVenting It occurs to me that some of you might not know Goldsmiths - my university, now being decimated ⬆️.
So I want to tell you about #Goldsmiths. It is a unique, brilliant, important university. We combine arts, humanities and social sciences, producing amazing critical research, politics, practice.
I have the best colleagues and the best, best students. The fact that all this is being destroyed now is just 💔💔💔. Not just existential fear, much more.#UCU@ucu
We are looking for an experienced researcher to lead "Health, Migration, Climate Change: Human Stories in Complex Systems" - a project inspired by #ClimateDiary and one which I am hoping to build up together with whoever gets this post.
Please share widely and feel free to contact me with any questions