The financial pressures in higher education and the extremely dubious ways in which universities are seeking to respond to the demands for greater efficiencies are rather shockingly illustrated by news from King's College London. David Papineau, head of the philosophy department, reports that it was announced on Wednesday that the School of Arts and Humanities at King's is planning to lose 10% of its academic staff. Half these savings are planned by identifying areas for 'discontinuation', and half by reviewing all staff and making a around a dozen 'underperformers' redundant. The philosophy department has been hit by the news that its world class computational linguistics group (two members of the faculty) face redundancy. Those staff who are not discontinued in this way are to be declared at risk of redundancy, and so required to reapply for their own jobs. Reappointments are to be made on the basis of performance. I understand that at least eleven members of staff will be found to fail this test.
Having completed my masters degree and doctorate at King's, and worked there, I am not a neutral observer of these events. Nor am I blind to the realities of the looming crisis in public finances. However, such a crude approach seems ill-conceived in academic terms and shockingly short sighted in financial terms. The market value of King's humanities is in the depth and breadth of its departments. It's that which will sustain undergraduate demand and the flow of research students.
No doubt the exigency of the current crisis will be advanced as some justification of the brutal culling of departments - perhaps an excuse for what may strike many as a policy skirting along the border of the strictly legal. As with other institutions - mine included - enduring the burden of a crisis that started far from the academic world, one would hope institutional leadership amounts to more than playing the role of a glorified bureaucrat.
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Labels: King's job threats
posted by Paul @ 15:49
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