Unique teaching positions in UK academia under threat

Students and scholars at home and abroad have voiced their concern for the future of specialised UK academia, following news of job losses caused by budget cuts at King’s College London (KCL).
 
Staff and students at KCL have united in protest against cuts across the University of London that have so far claimed the jobs of two professors of philosophy at University College London and threatens the sacking of the UK’s only chair of palaeography, the study of ancient handwriting, David Ganz.

By last weekend, a Facebook group in support of Ganz had attracted 6,273 members, while a separate petition had 7,493 signatures.
 
The campaigners have received support from international academics, with several American professors calling on UK university administrators to consider the importance of unique disciplines like palaeography and to re-evaluate what is seen as a finance-orientated.

It comes as another distinct role has come under threat, with online protestors rallying to the defence of the Koraes Chair in Byzantine and Modern Greek History at KCL. The chair, founded in 1919 by inaugural holder Arnold Toynbee, is  Richard Clogg and Averil Cameron, is the only one of its kind in Britain.

Speaking to The Journal, James D’Emilio, Professor of Humanities at the University of South Florida, and one of the academics to have criticised King’s in direct correspondence, said: “It is easy to make a caricature of palaeography as an esoteric field… but there is a constant interplay between such specialised scholarship and the development of a broader synthetic vision of history and culture.
 
“If we allow individual fields to be trimmed because they are deemed unnecessary, if departments are set against one another competing for a shrinking pool of resources, we will all lose.”
 
Outspoken Harvard University fellow Ken Mondschein highlighted the particular necessity to preserve specialist fields such as palaeography, criticising a statement from King’s expressing the university’s intention to “create financially viable academic activity by dis-investing from areas that are at sub-critical level.”
 
In correspondence with The Journal, Professor Mondschein warned that “the reason for the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ is because Frankish kings and Gallo-Roman bishops didn't think writing was a good investment.
 
“There is a sizeable population in the UK who cares very deeply about medieval history. To cut these positions is to blatantly ignore consumer demand.”

The government has argued that universities must accept budget cuts. The business secretary Lord Mandelson, who ordered the £1 billion reduction in university spending, said last month: “[Lost jobs and redundancies] are being resisted because people don't like change, because they don't want resources redeployed in a different way.

“They think university teachers and lecturers have a right to be set in aspic in what they do and how they do it.”

The Scottish branch of the University and College Union has expressed concern that similar cuts could affect more specialised disciplines north of the border.

In a statement, UCU said:“Expertise could be lost Scotland-wide as there is no body that oversees subject provision. This is also true on an individual basis where expects are made redundant due to financial constraints."