Notices by Pauline von Hellermann (pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green), page 2

#AcademicVenting Surreally, I am on my way to a big conference, Anthropology and Education. Doing a panel on regenerative anthropology. But the conference cost an obscene £320, that I only secured at the last second - we don’t have a research budget anymore, but suddenly we did get one now (in June). Meanwhile of course also #redundancy looming. We so desperately need a new everything. #RegenerativeAnthropology, #RegenerativeAcademia, everything.

#AcademicVenting 🧵

For the (self-pitying) record: we will hear Monday or Tuesday who will be made redundant. “We” being those of us still in scope; there has been a bewildering reduction of “in scope” groups this past week, after everyone spent days and days on their IAFs (see above).

I am in scope; all reduncancies in my dep are at SL/Reader grade. 5 of us scored (out of “90”) and ranked. Top 2 stay, bottom 2 go, middle gets 0.5. It is psychologically torturous. We are friends! #HungerGames

#AcademicVenting #HungerGames

Well this is it. i am being made redundant.

#AcademicVenting 🧵#Redundancy It’s now been a week - what a week, with two historic elections thrown in too!

A HUGE thank you for all the lovely, supportive messages. They have really helped me, hugely. Knowing that others have gone through this (what a total experience), and that there are other possibilities. It’s early days (and there is so much work in the reduncancy process itself), but as so many of you’ve said: other doors may open.

Maybe i will keep this 🧵to share this transition?

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy Two weeks today and sadly not quite there yet with finding new ways forward - for one, there is just so much to do, get your head around, decisions to make around redundancy process itself. And this past week a physical reaction set in, just sheer exhaustion.

Also want to note once more: it really is unbelievable what is being done to myself and 96 brilliant colleagues. The “how” aa much as the “what”. And to Goldsmiths. It is total vandalism, brutal, traumatic.

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy These days I really can’t find the words to recount what’s going on. Let’s just say a lot of back and forth; chaos, incompetence and cruelty; never ending visionless mediocrity that destroys everything.

One thing to report: i have now had the privilege of an ACAS webinar. More competent than anything coming from SMT, but no faces, no in person questions, and a cheery “See you next time” screen at the end. Corporate dystopia, straight from #BlackMirror

#AcademicVenting #Redundancy

After more back and forth (a great 0.5 was advertised for us 3 to compete for - same duties, half pay - but none of us applied) and more charming communications from our “Transformatipn Programme team” (always anonymous!) I have now accepted “enhanced redundancy”. Onwards and upwards!

@inquiline thank you, it’s ok. I am honestly by now just glad to leave the place behind me. I don’t have anything else lined up, which, in the current climate, is a little daunting, but still. Just resentful that because of constant crisis and abusive world conditions i have managed virtually no writing over last year and am so behind, but determined to catch up now!

#AcademicVenting 🧵. Just realised I hadn’t added here yet Zoe William’s excellently researched piece about our crisis at Goldsmiths. Really great we have had so many people speaking out for us. Loved this piece in particular as it’s also about the student occupation about #Gaza, and it cites a brilliant student who I have had the pleasure of teaching, Danna.

Best perhaps the final sentence: “But I don’t think ita done deal”.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/apr/11/the-goldsmiths-crisis-how-cuts-and-culture-wars-sent-universities-into-a-death-spiral

#AcademicVenting The vice chancellor of York (a Russell group university!), Charlie Jeffery:

“There is no other way of saying this. The UK higher education system is in crisis. The way it is funded just doesn’t work anymore. A rough guess is that about half of the sector is responding by cutting jobs and courses”.

#AcademicVenting 🧵 another really excellent piece on the UK higher education crisis, by Hannah Rose Woods in The New Statesman”:

Experts believe it is already “too late” to avert the oncoming funding disaster: “all everyone can do now is brace”.

https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2024/04/university-funding-is-in-crisis

#AcademicVenting

“With wearying inevitability, cuts will be borne disproportionately by arts, humanities & social sciences. Some will doubtlessly cheer the trimming of supposedly “low-value” subject areas. They may be less enthusiastic about the knock-on effect their demise would have on more expensive to teach science and technology subjects, or the wider impact of rapid restructuring in a sector that supports more than three quarters of a million jobs and contributes £130bn to the economy.”

#AcademicVenting 🧵

One reason why it’s all falling apart this year are changes in visa regulations for international students - Tory gov trying to curb immigration - who are no longer allowed to bring dependents.

Hey James Cleverley and Michelle Donelan - stop denying and ignoring this MASSIVE crisis that you are causing! You are destroying a vital sector with your stupid short-sighted policies. You will lose anyway- stop wreaking havock now! (I know this is 💯 pointless)

#AcademicVenting Finally read Jonathan Miller's #DeathSpiral piece, and I wish all SMTs across the country getting rid of all their PRODUCTIVE lecturers (ie, the people actually making money for universities, through student fees and research income) would read it, too. They genuinely don't understand what they are doing!

Please, understand the British Leyland's 1970s coat [*EDIT: this should be cost! I copied a typo! See @rubinjoni
below!* 😅] allocation death spiral

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1735406631159029823.html

#AcademicVenting Couldn’t have put it any better. Not just the redundancy process; just so sick of all it, what it has become. #Neoliberalism #university

“I am sick of higher education leaders, I am sick of neoliberal thinking, I am sick of scarcity mindsets, I am sick of austerity, I am sick of senior management lacking morals, I am sick of education being decimated, I don’t know how we hang on + do important work for students”

#AcademicVenting Good 2021 piece by Asheesh Kapur Siddique linking rightwing university politics - ie, the oppression of #Gaza student protests we are currently seeing - to this 🧵’s overall theme: the marketisation of HE. Tight establishment control (with all its crappy values) is a direct result of marketisation.

About the US but much of it applicable to UK and Australia too.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/campus-cancel-culture-university-boards

#AcademicVenting 🧵 and now this piece by Jessica Wildfire @aral shared earlier today.

“Universities aren't institutions of knowledge anymore. They're assets. They're revenue streams. If they're not generating money for the top, then they only pose a threat, and they have to be weakened and destroyed.”

https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/112359018143961300

#AcademicVenting Reading "Tips for Redundancy" compiled by a UCU colleague elsewhere:

"Keep a Diary
Going through a redundancy process is traumatic but you will find that you become hardened and come to expect the mistreatment to which you are being subjected. Keeping a diary of how you felt at points throughout the whole process is a way of tracking how it is impacting upon your life (both work and personal)."

It's true, writing things down helps! But also: you definitely harden up.

#AcademicVenting I had not mentioned so far: Goldsmiths lectures and union are resisting redundancies in many ways, including a Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB). Senior Management have responded with highly punitive 50% salary deductions, for 2 months. So we are losing one month pay!!

This too is unbelievably stressful - in fact, is stressing me out more than anything at the moment (unappreciative teenage children for a start). Especially when you might still end up jobless. #UCU.

#AcademicVenting We now have a GoFundMe for our Goldsmiths #UCU hardship fund, due to 50% salary reductions for marking boycott. If you are in HE and in your union, perhaps you could ask your branch whether they could contribute? Feel awkward about saying this but: every donation welcome.

#Redundancies #HE @ucu

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-goldsmiths-ucu-fight-mass-redundancies