Seen on Classicists (please send any responses to the folks mentioned in the quoted text, not to rogueclassicism!):
You may recall the recent email regarding the abolition of the Chair in
Palaeography at King’s College London as part of a large-
scale ‘restructuring’ of the School of Arts and Humanities. It has now
been announced that one member of staff in Classical Art and Archaeology
at King’s will be made redundant before 31st August 2010. This decision is
outrageous for many reasons, not least that the members of staff in
question have been arbitrarily singled out for their subject specialisms,
despite the nature of their research and teaching as integral to the
Classics department as a whole.This proposal is damaging to the Classics Department at King’s and
distressing for the members of staff concerned. Furthermore, it is an
alarming indicator of a growing trend towards coercive and arbitrarily
managed approaches to supposedly ‘sub-critical’ subjects. Academics are
being dismissed not because their work lacks excellence but because of a
lack of ‘fit’ with some strategy devised by administration. This threatens
the very nature of academic freedom. It is vital that researchers and
students in these subjects present a united front to stop this trend from
gathering momentum over the next few years.Please consider offering support to your colleagues at King’s by writing a
letter to the Principal (address below) to oppose the proposed redundancy.
This proposition is part of the same scheme that threatens Professor
Ganz’s position but is a separate and similarly urgent issue. The campaign
to stop these cuts is ongoing, so please consider writing a letter even if
you have already done so for Palaeography.The full document outlining the ‘restructuring’ has recently been released
by King’s and can be accessed at
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/content/1/c6/06/80/12/AHConsultationDoc.pdf (details
on the Classical Art and Archaeology cut can be found on p.5, item 5). A
petition has also been established at
http://www.petitiononline.com/kclCAA/petition.html – please do sign this
in addition to sending a letter – and a website with more information and
links has been created at http://stopclassicsfacultycuts.webs.com.Many thanks for your continuing support.
The address to write to is: Professor Rick Trainor, The Principal, King’s
College, The Strand, London WC2R 2LS (principal) and copy to
Professor Jan Palmowski, Head of the School of Arts and
Humanities (jan.palmowski).
… addenda:
Apologies for any confusion my previous message may have caused. It has
not yet been decided which member of staff will be dismissed; this
decision will be made "on the basis of performance" (see p.5 of the
document,
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/content/1/c6/06/80/12/AHConsultationDoc.pdf). Any one
of the four current members of staff may lose their job. Please write to
retain all four positions in Classical Art and Archaeology at King’s.
I also note that there is a facebook group:
rogueclassicism 