AIBU to have great expectations?

[MuddledMiddlebrow]

I know I'm not being unreasonable, but I need help please!

The University of Portsmouth has suddenly announced plans to cut the jobs of over half of the English Literature staff and I need all the help I can get to show the University management that their proposals are damaging and wrong. The University has spent over £800,000 on a rebrand, is spending millions on buildings and has just given the vice-chancellor a £9,000 bonus... despite saying these job cuts need to be made for financial reasons.

They have publicly stated that the reason for these cuts are a decline in application numbers- but they haven't told the whole truth. Despite applications being down, student numbers are staying the same, so making so many staff redundant is going to be damaging to the future of the course, and will eventually ensure that the department cannot continue.

Students like me are concerned that this will mean fewer specialists, and thus fewer options for study leading to a compromised curriculum. It also means that we will lose the expertise of world-leading scholars. On a purely human level, I hate the idea of 8 people being made redundant for spurious reasons, especially people who shown loyalty to a University which isn't showing loyalty in return!

I believe in the power of mumsnet, and I beg you to please sign and share our petition. I also ask that you let the University know publicly just how much you disagree with their decision.

www.change.org/p/vice-chancellor-professor-graham-galbraith-save-university-of-portsmouth-english-literature-department?utm_content=cl_sharecopy_20479660_en-GB%3Av5&recruiter=449265146&recruited_by_id=c9d3d84d-1e8b-4b13-8164-1b57a5dfd50f&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_message&utm_term=1566c29102d44aad83995a317a8d631c&share_bandit_exp=message-20479660-en-GB&share_bandit_var=v0

Completely agree with everything you have said. I'm doing a Masters in literature at a different university, and we've lost some of our main professors. It's hugely increased the workload on the others and we're not getting anywhere near the level of support or teaching continuity that we should be as they are so thinly spread now.

no you are not being unreasonable Bradford did this last year spent money they didn't have on student accomadation and six months later my OH was one of the 9 lecturers that got made redundant, he was due to retire this year , the engineering department now has even less students due to the person taking over his courses is less experienced than he was and restructuring the course so students didn't want to do certain modules and they weren't in the top ten to start with, they have done a stealth lets get rid of engineering by making it not attractive so this year numbers will go down again

Playing devils advocate a bit, if applications are down, does that mean that ultimately they are lowering the acceptance standards? Does that mean that they might end up asking AAA for other courses and BBB for yours?

I’m sorry but they’re really not going to care what their current students think unless you threaten to sue or drop the course.

Thank you for your support. And sorry that you’ve been through this as well.

On the topic of applicant numbers, these are down across the board at all unis thanks to what is called a demographic dip- basically due to low birth rates in certain years there are fewer student to apply! It’s not about lower tariffs.

The point of this petition is to show the university that people care, not just current students but all people. We want them to know we won’t let them get away with doing this to any department, not just ours!

Have already signed in professional capacity.

Seeing this all over the place: staff numbers cut, remaining staff made to work absurd amounts of overtime, some staff collapsing with strain/physical injuries, remaining staff made to take over their modules with no compensation, students complaining, staff blamed...

@corythatwas this is what we are fearful of... we’re doing our best to ensure that doesn’t happen!