Protests at University of Birmingham over plans for sociology department
Lecturers facing redundancy at the University of Birmingham over plans to close their department have accused internal managers of a cynical PR offensive among students.
More than a dozen academic jobs have been put at risk at the leading research institution following a review of the Department of Sociology.
Staff and students, who staged a protest rally on the giant Edgbaston campus on Wednesday, fear that the university’s College of Social Sciences is to effectively close the department, resulting in the media, culture and society degree programme being scrapped.
Campaigners, who have so far collected more than 5,000 names on an online petition, claim this would result in only three staff being retained, and the rest – comprising 14 academics and two support staff – being made redundant.
Lecturers within the sociology department have taken the unprecedented step of writing to all students, saying they were now able to talk openly about the situation.
The letter, obtained by the Birmingham Post, said: “Needless to say, we totally reject the proposals of the College board.
“Virtually all the staff who have designed and currently deliver the programmes will be gone under the proposals.
“We find it cynical that the review process completely ignored students but now the College management are trying to launch a PR offensive by inviting you to a further series of ‘meetings’, and sending letters trying to claim that your degrees will be unaffected.”
The lecturers said they were now asking all students to join them in opposing the attack on their education, their jobs, and the department they had all worked so hard to develop.
Hundreds of staff and students staged an hour-long demonstration outside the Aston Webb building on Wednesday as part of their campaign.
They will take their fight to the University Council, its governing body, on November 26 to try to persuade it to reject the proposals, which involve the sociology degree programme being transferred to social policy.
A university spokesman said the wide-ranging review of the sociology department had involved extensive discussion including senior academic and support staff as well as regularly updating sociology students.
