A communiqué from Westminster University, the ancient Polytechnic of Central London:
"Over 200 staff and students at the University of Westminster have protested, stormed the board of governors meeting and are currently in occupation, vice-chancellors office, in regard to recently proposed tutoring and administrative job cuts. Management are planning to slash 285 jobs by April and this follows the closures of the ceramics department and the nursery. Recently, over 150 staff and students placed a unanimous vote of no confidence in the vice-chancellor and his management at a rally addressing Westminster's severe proposed job cuts, on February, 17.
The vice-chancellor has openly declared that job cuts are the initiative of the governors, not his. Well, demonstrators asked him for themselves, after storming past security and into the governor’s meeting. They were greeted by a board of governors who were ‘quaking in their boots;’ shortly after students persuaded Geoffrey Petts, the VC, to stick around and answer some questions which he hesitated to on the first instance but then proceed to do with a full bureaucratic and dismissive tone.
Our demands to the vice-chancellor are:
A) Issue a statement on the avoidance of redundancies
B) Make freely available to the unions in the university appropriate financial documents
C) Produce alternative, sustainable plans for addressing the financial gap over the next several years.
Join us, over 40 students are currently occupying at Regents Campus, V-C's office!”
The University of Westminster serves more than 23,800 students from 132 countries. Its antecedent, the Royal Polytechnic Institution, goes back to 1838. Cherie Blair, the wife of the former Prime Minister, teached here law for a while. The device of the university is Education for professional life. (via libcom.org)
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