QoT at Ideologically Impure has all the goss on this one, please go have a read, it won't take long.There is a protest tomorrow (Wednesday 28th May) from 12noon in the courtyard of the Hunter Building, Victoria University of Wellington, which is not just about the proposal to carve up Gender & Women's Studies but also about voicing concern about the tenor of recent restructuring at Vic. Some may remember that Film Studies was the last target, I'm pretty sure I heard an interview about it on National Radio in April sometime. Education is apparently also on the block this time around.
I never took Women's Studies at Auckland (although I once went out with a guy who did), but it seems to me to be an integral part of the critique and conscience role of any major university. And, as QoT ably points out, the Vic department seems to be meeting the financial targets necessary, so what is the point of fixing something that isn't broken?
4 comments:
At my varsity, gender studies is hands-down the most challenging and theoretical social science programme. If the Vic programme is anything like ours, it's loss will be a big blow to the academic rigour of the humanities division.
Unfortunately, Anna, GWS at Victoria is currently under the School of Education, for some long-irrelevant reason.
The protest went fantastically given the short notice and darn awful weather. I shall have a full report when I've finished moving flats this weekend!
Glad to hear it went well QoT and looking forward to your report - good luck with the moving!
Unfortunately I've been sick and busy the last few days and wasn't able to attend. :(
Vic has been placing all sorts of programmes into their targets like this, so I wasn't entirely surprised they've extended their reach to gender/women's studies, even though they clearly have no case here. I remember talking with friends a few years ago about how they've gutted high-level language courses that are necessary for rounded education on the premise of them being individually unprofitable, despite the fact that they contributed to attracting students to more profitable courses. Seems another case of our wonderful university being run into the ground by management, again...
Glad to hear things went well though. :) If you're doing anything for a follow-up, feel free to drop me a line again, and hopefully the timing will work out better, heh.
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