No confidence vote in Leicester v-c as 145 at risk of redundancy

“We are currently in the process of consulting with colleagues about our proposals for change, and want to stress that no final decisions will be taken until this process comes to an end” This is PR/HR codswallop. The VC and his senior management had already decided, which disciplines and subject areas they wanted to "divest", prior to any consultation. The departments and schools were not involved or asked. In the business school, for example, only colleagues of certain subject areas were singled out for redundancies: critical studies and political economy. This smacks of a purge on ideological grounds. This clearly is a move against academic freedom and a power grab by the university senior team (to determine the curriculum and research of a department); inspired and encouraged by outside "consultants" if you believe the grapevine. If this succeeds and forms a precedent for others, you can say goodbye to academic freedom and the last remnants of academic self-determination in the UK. Dark times ahead.

Academic freedom has long been under threat, UK universities need to scale down on the number of bureaucrats first - silly meetings, silly piles of paper, silly strategies and silly PR stunts and instead concentrate on allowing academics to get on with the actual teaching and research.

Open Letter to University of Leicester (please sign if you support the staff): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd6LKASpFkpwidMcqFrNl_dKzI07as4ZbtOQAiuJWpSlWwNIA/viewform?fbclid=IwAR1wc5-kbsPUCfn8A_cDV_HMeCYzHgJkNoDPRU4pRP5GhH8JByzX7ce1Pi4