No Cuts at King's!

2010-03-26T13:17:00.000-07:00

No Cuts Bulletin 3

2010-03-19T08:03:00.001-07:00

London Demo 20 March

2010-03-10T14:10:00.000-08:00

Somerset House Demonstration

2010-03-07T17:27:00.000-08:00

No Cuts at King's March Bulletin

¡URGENT! Tomorrow 6pm: Student Council with Rick Trainor in the Edmond Saffra Lecture Theatre Strand

2010-03-07T10:40:00.000-08:00

Hey all! It's question time for Rick!

Hope this message finds you well,
As staff start balloting for strike action over redundancies, our principal Rick Trainor comes to student council to hear the "student voice", let's pack the room up and make sure he hears what we have to say about the job cuts and course closures!
The Student Council will take place tomorrow, Monday 8th of March at 6pm in the Edmond Saffra Lecture Theatre in the Strand Campus and all students are welcome, come along and forward widely!

For those of you who are around before, we will be meeting in at 5pm in the Terrazza café in the ground floor of the macadam building with other students who want to save our staff and courses…

See you soon and watch this space for a week of action in support of KCL Staff!

No cuts at King’s

join the facebook event:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=352555556640&ref=mf

Westminster Uni Occupies against cuts

2010-03-01T10:51:00.000-08:00

Today over 100 students at University of Westminster stormed the board of governors meeting to demand that the uni management stop their programme of cuts and austerity measures at Westminster. The students forced their way into the room with crys of "No ifs, no buts, no education cuts!" and "Education is a right, they say cut, we say fight!".

The students challenged the Vice-Chancellor Geoff Petts and the board of governors to explain why the management is pushing through cuts when the university made several million pounds surplus the year before and they are carrying out a $61 million refurbishment of buildings. His answers were typical management double-speak; first the cuts were in response to the government budget cuts, then they were part of the university planning ahead to meet the budget cuts, then Geoff Petts said he was on the side of students and was lobbying the government to stop the cuts! In response students demanded to know why he didn't halt the cuts while he was lobbying the government against cuts. To this he had no answer.

Disgusted with the lies and doublespeak from management students proceeded to occupy the management and admin centre. 40 students occupied the centre and made management leave. They now have control of the main management and admin rooms at Westminster uni and management are forced to wait outside, pleading to be let back in. The police and security have come to the room several times threatening the occupation with expulsion for violating university rules or health and safety but the occupiers have seen through these lies and are determined to carry on with the occupation.

The occupation is in response to over 285 job losses being forced through by the end of April by management, and this follows the closure of the ceramics department and nursery. This is part of 10% budget cuts across the University.

The demands of the occupation 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.

The students have put out a call for solidarity, please send messages of support to defendeducationuow@hotmail.com. Even better if you can, head down to the Regent street's campus and join the occupation.

Westminster Students have shown how we can fight back. They are fighting to defend their education and their lecturers jobs against the management and government onslaught. They have taken direct action and can defend their education from a position of strength. They've taken control of their uni, now we should do the same at King's.

Everyone should come to the protest on Tuesday against College Council to show Rick Trainor who really runs KCL. Assemble at the Quad at Strand campus at 4pm to protest against the cuts and restructuring and defend our education.

2010-02-23T14:29:00.000-08:00

No Cuts Bulletin Feb 2010

KCL Management slash journal subscriptions

2010-02-22T02:43:00.000-08:00

Many students may have noticed we no longer have access to the academic journals we need for our studies. This is because the subscriptions to those journals were cancelled by ISS management. Their excuse is that the poor exchange rate and a massive hike in the price of the journals made many journal packages no longer cost effective. In response we say, who decides what is “cost effective”? Students and academics should make these decisions, not unelected managers. And what price a decent education? Why is our education the first thing to be sacrificed when the college wants to cut costs?

Access to journals is crucial for all students. It allows us to learn from academics and researchers all over the world, brings us into contact with new areas of research and study and helps us develop our ideas and create new ones using the widest amount of information possible. Any cuts to this seriously damages student’s ability to study and access the great wealth of knowledge available in the world.

King’s College has £160 million pounds in the bank. Why can’t some of this money be used to pay for journal subscriptions? Or is this money only reserved for University vanity projects like buying Somerset House (Cost £20 million) or keeping Principal Rick Trainor (Salary £312,000) in the style of living he is accustomed too? The rise in journal prices and poor exchange rate are symptoms of the economic crisis. We are being made to pay for the crisis through cutbacks and course closures. Our education should not be sacrificed so the college can save a bit of money. We won’t pay for their crisis.

Statement from Clive Bush, Emeritus Professor of American Literature, King's College, 14 February 2010

2010-02-20T16:40:00.001-08:00

At the moment I am too angry to write calmly about what has happened to American Studies at King's. However I will try. I believe there has been serious failure all around. American Studies was a fledging department built on half a century of teaching American literature and culture at King's College which in fact pioneered the teaching of American Literature in this country from 1961 onwards. It was a small department, It had a bad RAE result. It was therefore vulnerable. Equally, however, it has had no problem in attracting excellent students, its MA course has prospered in spite of general falls in MA recruitment through the country. Its staff teach quantumly more doctoral students than the higher rated Nottingham with a huge staff. The short-termism which the entire New Labour charade of the RAE exercise has encouraged--it is less than ironic that three major monographs of staff have appeared since the RAE--needs to be spelt out. What is politically spun as a public responsibility exercise is in fact a shrewd political move whereby the Universities police themselves--and I use the word police advisedly-- keep academics overworked, overstretched and generally terrorized, sets every department against every other department, every colleague against every other colleague and every university against every other university. Vice Chancellors becomes obsessed with Shanghai lists and citation indexes, and parade like politicians in the forthcoming general elections to show heroic "realism", responsible "pragmatism," parade more in sorrow than in anger countenances, and ruthlessly cut budgets lent on by their chancellors and the withdrawal of public funding. Unelected politicians like Mandelson explain why excellence will increase with "modest" publicly responsible cuts. I have some sympathy for Vice Chancellors (though their pay rates compared with the average academic are surreal) because higher education in Britain has always been seriously underfunded. In the old days they paid you badly and left you alone, now they pay you badly and are all over your back. Lacking the balls to raise taxes for education every political party in power seeks to reduce public spending. The British public now losing their houses and jobs in abundance, and every responsible economist I have talked to thinks the worst is come, will probably vote for the one who actually says he will cut more. It's known as a masochist style of political response. Unfortunately Vice Chancellors seem to imitate the mood. Not for them the long-term restructuring of debt, for which their assets would perhaps serve as collaterals to save what's valuable, Immediate cuts now is the order of the day. It's the political mood and they simply reflect it. Obama has upped education support in real financial support by 39% across America. Try telling that to Gordon Brown or David Cameron.

To be fair the universities have responded very well in raising private money but compared with any great American university they are still pigmies at the game. Consequently as much as every British Vice Chancellor beats the drum for excellence, with the exception of Oxford and Cambridge, nothing in this country can compete with dozens of American universities in the sheer size of financial base (even though some of them have lost heavily--Harvard and Yale for example in a too great a love of futures--but they have fat to lose), and frankly only with money comes excellence. I could never have written my books without American libraries, American funding, and American support. It is also true that British universities have even so punched above their weight, but not for much longer. And no politician has ever given them credit for that remarkable achievement.

It looks at this moment as if only Professors Howard and Castillo will survive by removal to the English department. They will be teaching visual culture and comparative literature, not American literature or history. One staff member has gone back to America, one has quit the game. Drs Zamir, Marshall and Floyd have been sacked. Again it's been spun as retirement for "personal reasons" and ...er well actually at the moment you're in an "at risk category" I'm told as a result of a interviews they had with Head of School. No supine bureaucrat ever uses the "S" word. And frankly if someone told me I was in an "at risk category" I'd be looking for another job and of course the powers that be know that..

In short American Studies at King's is over. The brilliant and fantastic culture of America, the greatest of all twentieth century cultures in science, literature, music, the popular arts, painting, and in many other spheres will not again be seriously studied in London, the nation's capital city with all its museums, galleries and libraries. Nor will American history with its troubled and extraordinary stories. Britain's closest ally will go unstudied at King's College. The War Studies Department will do its Chatham House thing, but that's about it.

Students at King's will not again be studying Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Faulkner, Pound, Hart Crane, Muriel Rukeyser, Mina Loy, Toni Morrison, nor Robert Lowell. They will never again be learning about the causes of the civil war, American industrialization, American globalization, urbanization, Reconstruction, the effects of slavery, the writing of the Constitution, race history or gender history, the Cold War, the earth shaking effects of the American led virtual world and silicon valley. It's over, finished. They will be doing fragments doubtless in other departments, but nothing focused on the whole that only an American Studies department can give.

It's actually worse than even all that. American Studies has always been one of the few subjects to challenge the dogma that the specialist is king which has always been in turn authorized by the desire for control and certainty by funders and grant givers. It has its fashionable areas to be sure, but its instinct has been to defy intellectual boundaries, seek new ways of putting things together across rigid subject areas. Its nature as a baggy monster was its strength. Certainly that was the spirit in which Eric Mottram first began to teaching American literature at King's College in 1961, accompanied by a Times third leader which rather implied that it was odd to be studying a country which was too young to have either a culture or a history. American Studies has always in my experience been viewed with suspicion by straight and more conservative disciplines.

I wish the nocutsatkings campaign every success, prepare yourselves for failure, so that you don't get disheartened too early. Even if you fail you will have understood that to get anything in this world you have to fight for it, and you must never get cynical about the fact that most ,though not all, people in power lie, lie and lie again. Organize, organize, organize, and sustain each other. You have certain strengths on your side. King's is getting a very very bad press both in the media and in the buzzy networks of the global virtual world. Its reputation as a friendly college is over, the original words of friendship on the glass windows have been covered over with historic celebrities in the best postmodern way. One wonders what Florence Nightingale or Keats would really have thought of the use of their portraits as academic publicity. I say this with no spirit of vengeance or out of spite, we live in a world of manic commercialized competition and the British University world I first entered, modest, devoted to teaching and its students, only publishing when you felt you had something to say, is dead and gone. I did three degrees at King's with wonderful teachers, the state paid fully for all three since my parents were very poor. I emerged with no debt. Since then I have been visiting lecturer and Head of the English department, and very briefly in the American Studies department, and am now Emeritus Professor of American Literature, still very research active. As far as I am concerned King's is family and that won't change. But families sometimes behave very badly indeed.

Don't let your voice get CUT!

2010-02-11T07:22:00.000-08:00

Don't let your voice get CUT!

Protest outside the meeting with the head of Humanities:

Tomorrow, Friday 12th, 1pm, Room K 2.31

Dear all,

Since the first cuts were announced last March, the management at King's has systematically avoided disclosing their plans and there has been no real consultation - with staff or with students. Decisions such as the closure of Engineering and of American Studies have already been made. Students in Humanities simply received an email about the "planned restructuring", without any real information. We know that the planned cuts include redundancies in Philosophy, cutting the only Palaeograhy chair in the country, the merger of the German and Comparative Literature departments and similar measures that will seriouly damage education and research at King's.
This Friday, a meeting will take place between the Head of Humanities and Humanities course reps. If this is supposed to be a real process of consultation, than we all have to be included in this, as well as our reps!
Don't let your voice get CUT- Come to the meeting this Friday, 1 pm, outside Room K 2.31 to show your concern about the planned cuts and to demand that our voices be heard!

See you there,

No Cuts @ King's

Campaign Meeting tomorrow 10th Feb and protest against the cuts in humanities on Friday

2010-02-09T09:20:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

The campaign will have its regular organising meeting at 1pm on Wednesday 10th Feb in Room S3.30 at the Strand building. The meeting is open to all so come along and get involved! The draft agenda is below, e-mail in or bring suggestions for anything else we need to discuss to the meeting.

Draft Agenda
latest reports on cuts - Humanities
Report from National Convention against Fees and Cuts
Student Union Emergency General Meeting proposal
KCL Student Union Elections proposal
KCL UCU Teach-in 27th Feb
College council protest 2nd March
SU council principal protests 8th and 25th March
National demo against cuts 20th March
Organising proposals

Protest this Friday against Humanities cuts and restructuring

We are calling a protest this Friday 12th of february at 12pm. The college management are holding a meeting with course reps from various departments to discuss the impact of the cuts and try and obscure the damage they will do to the university and our education, regular students have not been allowed to attend, despite sending a request to management stating the unusual circumstances. Talk to your course rep if you can and get them to express your opposition to the cuts in the meeting. We don't have the venue details yet but will e-mail them out as soon as we do. We're going to turn up and let them know we're completely opposed to all cuts and restructuring at King's. Join us!

email nocutsatkings.campaign@googlemail.com if you have questions or suggestions...

see you soon,

No Cuts At King's

The real financial situation at King's, what the management don't want you to know

2010-02-09T09:18:00.000-08:00

KCL's Financial report from 2009:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/about/structure/admin/finance/statement/

You may want to read the financial statement from last year and as you can see good news we made a surplus of £739, 000!

To quote the introduction “The College has generated a small surplus for the year of £739,000. Although this is a reduction of 78% on the previous year, this figure is after certain provisions for restructuring. The management of the College is to be congratulated for generating a surplus in a difficult financial year.”

The cost of restructuring (sacking people) is £5.7 million (pp 9) so we would have made a massive "profit" if we were not sacking people.

You might also like the cash reserves, £160 million (pp30). The Principals pay £312,000 (33). Highly paid staff (34). Legal fees £1.3 million (34).

the Guardian today on the Paleography cuts

2010-02-09T09:17:00.000-08:00

Today,9th of February, the Guardian has a two page spread on the loss of the only UK chair in Paleography in it's g2 supplement.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/feb/09/writing-off-last-palaeograph

er-university

In response, a piece of poetry from a member of the no cuts campaign:

2010-02-09T09:15:00.000-08:00

As Lewis Carroll might have written:

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of jobs--and cuts--and cost savings--

Of Principals--and Kings--

Of how the Palaeographer’s going--

And why we have East Wings."

KCL on aquiring the somerset house

2010-02-09T08:48:00.000-08:00

KCL's triumphalist PR about the acquisition of the East Wing of Somerset House is proving to be as welcome as a cup of cold sick:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/kings-college-set-to-expand-into-somerset-house-1887527.html

Read the comments underneath!

Statement on Staff and Student Solidarity- if you endorse it and are a humanities student, ask your course rep to take it into Friday's meeting!

2010-02-09T07:18:00.000-08:00

As a student body, we are becoming increasingly concerned by the emphasis placed on profitability at the expense of academic integrity and the education of students in the School of Arts and Humanities. We have already seen this realised to tragic effect with the dismissal of the Professorship of Palaeography, the only one of its kind in the United Kingdom, as of August 2010; the discontinuation of American studies; the compulsory redundancies of Professor Shalom Lappin and Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol; the coerced retirement of Professor Charles Travis; and, looking outwardly, the closure of the Engineering department to name just a few examples.

In addition, we have been told that there will be 22 posts at risk in total in the School. It is impossible to see how these posts will be eradicated without seriously disrupting the learning experience of students across the School. Furthermore, we find unacceptable what we see as the unfair treatment and scapegoating of our department administrators, lecturers and seminar leaders. That 'all academic roles within the School of Arts and Humanities...will be declared at risk of redundancy' (Consultation Document, p5) is degrading, psychologically manipulative and frankly disrespectful to academics who have provided us with top class teaching and provision throughout our time at King's. Members of staff effectively having to reapply for their current jobs is an exacerbation of this humiliation.

Already one of the wealthiest institutions in the country, the college’s credit rating has increased in the last year, according to independent financial assessment. We believe there are serious questions as to whether the financial crisis is being used to justify an unnecessary deterioration of our education. Much more fitting than investigating the supposed ‘failures’ of lecturers and support staff would be to ask first for an investigation into the quality of the senior management of the college in arriving at this situation. We might ask for a justification of the pursuit of a wing of Somerset House by the college administration at a cost of £22m at a time of 'rapidly declining funding'.

The amalgamation of independent and unique departments into clustered Hubs is also of concern. We feel it will erode the unique character of each discipline and is an attempt to coerce a new curriculum tailored around financial savings rather than academic attraction and workability. Pushing for a greater synergy in research projects between the new broad Language and Literature Hubs of English and Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American studies (as well as the plans to further fuse this Hub with the Hub of German and Comparative Literature, French and European Studies) will reduce the autonomy of the lecturer and instead centralise the teaching content. One of the successes of the department has been the way in which the lecturers have been able to engage students with a whole range of aspects to the course in which they specialise and have dedicated much of their life to study. To diminish the autonomy of the lecturer would be to reduce the academic freedom that is the source of innovative research.

We believe that the proposed changes should be put on hold immediately until all staff and students have been properly consulted, and the management decisions that have brought us to this point have been properly investigated. The processes of the Executive Board have been undemocratic and students have had virtually no input into it.

We will finish by quoting the apt summation of the situation by a Professor at King's:

"What should the principle be upon which we stand? For the time being it should be this: that as things stand we cannot consent to the proposed redundancies in the School, because we do not have sufficient reason to believe that they are necessary, just or in keeping with a serious conception of the institution as home to the academic form of the life of the mind. Nor can we be party to the way the College has conducted itself. It has acted with astonishing discourtesy, and indeed, brutishness. If it does not give its academic staff in the School of Arts and Humanities good reason to consent to the School’s proposals, and if it continues to conduct itself in the way that it has, it will provoke justified bitterness in its members – and not only in those who are made redundant. Those who remain are likely to be demoralised and shamed, or perhaps, shameless. That is no way to move into the future.”

Hesham Yafai

Teach-in at King's 27th February

2010-02-07T15:51:00.000-08:00

Register at: www.educationactionlondon.blogspot.com

Facebook Group: here and event: here

Take Back Education - KCL Teach-in

National Convention Against Fees and Cuts a great success!

2010-02-07T14:53:00.000-08:00

On Saturday 6th January, the National Convention Against Fees and Cuts was held at UCL. The Convention aimed to bring together all those involved in the struggle against cuts to create a national campaign for the fight back against fees and cuts in education. The convention was attended by around 150 people, which included university students, lecturers, staff and also members of HE colleges and schools. The day itself was divided into an opening plenary, which consisted of introductions and talks from Joana from LCC, Mark from No Cuts at Kings, Tali, a college student, and Darren, a UCU member from Gloucestershire. This was followed by several workshops on various topics such as the Bologna process, the NUS and students occupations. There were also regional workshops, which brought together groups of students from London, the South, the North and East Anglia.

From these workshops, regional organising committees were elected in order to co-ordinate future open regional meetings, to establish open blogs and to maintain e-lists. The culmination of an interesting and exciting day was the closing plenary, which brought together the ideas of the earlier workshops, as well as stimulating and lively discussion. Proposals and actions points from the day were amended and voted on and a final statement agreed by the convention. The National Convention against Fees and Cuts became the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts, and a person from each of the regions mentioned above was elected to convene a national organising meeting. This will coordinate our national response to the governments offensive, planning actions and giving a lead to students organising against cuts around the country. Amongst other things we will be planning and organising for the upcoming demonstration against cuts called by UCU for March 20th.

You can read the statement and find out more about the campaign at: http://conventionagainstfeesandcuts.wordpress.com/

Demonstrate against Education cuts this Tuesday 26th of January!

2010-01-23T03:13:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday 26th of January, King's students will walk out at 12:50pm from lectures in solidarity with staff to symbolise the students and staff's opposition to the 10 percent cuts at King's and join the rally outside the Strand Building at 1pm. We will be joined by anti-cuts campaigners from accross london and march to Westminster for the lobby of parliament called by UCU and supported by KCL Unison and Unite to tell the government we will fight back against any cuts in education!!

Report on Defend Jobs, Defend Education – London activist meeting:

2009-12-18T07:02:00.000-08:00

Over 90 staff and student activists from universities across London and beyond met at King’s College on Tuesday 15th December to discuss ways of giving a united focus to the fight to defend jobs and education across the capital. Many activists had come straight from the 500 strong protest against cuts at London Metropolitan University (which resulted in the entire board of governors resigning later that evening!). Institutions represented included: UCL, Westminster Uni, Westminster College, London College of Communication, Tower Hamlets College, Queen Mary University, Goldsmiths, London Metropolitan, Sussex, King’s College, SOAS, University of the Arts London, and others.

The meeting was introduced by Jim Wolfreys, President of King’s UCU, who explained that it had been called in response to an escalating crisis in higher education caused by government attacks on the one hand and the desire, on the other, of HE management to use the present financial situation as a pretext to restructure their institutions. Staff and students across London needed to join together in defence of education or the situation would fragment, leaving management and the government a free hand to wreck higher education.

A number of speakers stressed the scale of the cuts being imposed, with some facing redundancy themselves. There was a general feeling that we can no longer wait, but that we must act now to stop these cuts. Richard from Tower Hamlets UCU told the meeting how his college went on all out strike for four weeks and successfully fought off all compulsory redundancies, including saving 300 vital ESOL places. He said that the solidarity from trade unionists across London and beyond, who raised over £30,000, was crucial in their victory. During the meeting, Joel from King’s UCU raised a collection and circulated a Christmas card in support of IT workers at Fujitsu due to strike on the 18th December over cuts and attacks on their pensions.

Jesse from UCL UCU, said that because principals and vice-chancellors meet to plan together, we must do the same. In order to organise and co-ordinate further actions an open organising meeting was suggested, provisionally called the ‘London Education Action Committee’, on the 19th January. All those interested in attending should contact: ucu@kcl.ac.uk

The meeting agreed to build and support the mass lobby of parliament called by the national UCU union on the 26th of January, mobilising students and lecturers to gather at the Strand and march on parliament. The meeting also decided to call a rally at King’s in the first few weeks of February to build the campaign and to challenge the marketisation of our education system.

Quoting the demonstrators at London Met, one activist said of the university management and the new movement: “They are the past, we are the future”.

merry christmas and see you in the new year!

2009-12-17T13:25:00.000-08:00

Tue, 26th Jan: Day of Action and March from King's to Houses of Parliament
Wed, 13th Jan, 1.00 pm, room S3.30: No Cuts Planning Meeting
Early February: Defend Education Rally at King's

The No Cuts at King's campaign wishes you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Thanks everyone for supporting the campaign throughout this term. This last week has been quite a success, with growing resistance everywhere. Indeed, about 500 students demonstrated against the closing of London Metropolitan Uni. Only the police could stop the angry students from storming into the Governors' meeting. Students and staff demanded that all they all resign, and after the protest, they did! And after the demo, a big planning meeting to fight cuts in Higher Education took place at King's. It was attended by almost 100 students and trade unionists from universities and colleges across London and the country and there was a real sense of a fightback starting.

Let's take this spirit into the new year. If you want to get involved come to the first planning meeting of the new year on the 13th January, 1pm, Room S3.30. And make sure to come to the Day of Action and a mass lobby of Parliament on the 26th January. We will march together from King's to the Houses of Parliament. Spread the word and bring everyone!

See you on the street,

No cuts at King's campaign

Food for thought and action: the No Cuts Campaign takes over the Maughan Library to defend the cafeteria!

2009-12-17T13:14:00.000-08:00

As of the 18^th of December, there will be no more hot food or coffee served in the Library cafeteria as all staff are facing redundancies. The no cuts campaign students found out about this latest attack from the college management two weeks ago, and decided to stage a protest in solidarity with the staff.

About 30 activists took the library by storm on Thursday 10^th of December, leafleting students and staff about the cuts and spreading the word about this outrageous decision. Students then went in to the packed cafeteria at lunchtime and announced the cuts to unaware students. We had free cakes of all sorts to give away to staff and students to demonstrate the fact that on an empty stomach, students cannot be expected to work properly, and that the vending machines and expensive chains that provide food around the library are not enough. The action was successful in delivering solidarity to the staff who were pleased to see students taking up the issue. Students were coming up to us to learn more about the cuts, and ask how to get involved, and we got more than two hundred signatures on the petition. It was also brought to our attention that while staff are being sacked and our living spaces destroyed, Rick Trainor is having several dinners a week, catered by King’s staff and worth thousands of pounds of College money in the Library wing! Should our money be put into entertaining Rick Trainor and his rich friends or into keeping and improving catering spaces for students?

However, the library cafeteria is still going to be closed on Friday. We need much more pressure on the management in order to overthrow the decision and prevent more cuts from taking place. On Tuesday, it took 400 students protesting outside London Metropolitan University to make the board of governors resign over the cuts. If we are to stop these attacks, we need to be hundreds of students and staff next time! Keep an eye out for further actions at King’s, come to our planning meetings (the next one will be on the 13^th of January at 1pm room S3.30 Strand) and help us mobilise to take over Parliament on the 26^th of January, as there will be a national day of action against cuts!

SAVE OUR STAFF! WE WANT OUR CAFETERIA AND OUR COURSES BACK!

No Cuts @ King’s protestors lobby college Council-- article from the London Student

2009-12-01T16:13:00.000-08:00

Over 50 protestors, students and staff, staged a demonstration at King’s on November 24th to lobby college Council over possible job cuts at the college.

The demonstration began outside the KCL strand campus before around 20 student demonstrators from the No Cuts @ King’s campaign later took the protest inside, entering the Old Committee Room adjacent to where the governing body were holding their meeting.

Among the portraits of former college Principals, protestors with megaphones and placards chanted “Rick Trainor, hear us say, ten per cent, no way”, and “Don’t take the PSC, save engineering” -referring to the planned closure of the department.

Security attempted unsuccessfully to persuade demonstrators to leave, saying that they were, “disrupting”, to which one protestor responded, “Us disrupting them is a good thing, because they are disrupting our education.”
After being notified that a ceremony was taking place in the nearby chapel, the protesters withdrew to a campaign meeting billed as an ‘Alternative College Council’ on ‘defending jobs and education’.

Glen Baker, branch secretary of KCL UNITE , the largest trade union in the UK, said: “These cuts are short-sighted and unnecessary. Management have shown us their figures; this is a long-term problem but they are tackling it by taking short-term measures.

“They admit they don’t have a long-term strategy, they’ve just said 5% this year, and 5% next year.”

A spokesman for King’s has confirmed that some staff within ISS (Information Services and Systems) have already had to re-apply for a reduced number of roles, resulting in some departures under the King’s Voluntary Leavers Scheme.

Meanwhile the catering services are, “under review as part of a modernisation process,” and, “many of the 24 staff affected have been offered new roles or opted to take advantage of the King’s Voluntary Leavers Scheme”.

Responding to the proposed cuts to Equality and Diversity (E&D), Becki Elson, a 1st year undergraduate, said: “Somebody much wiser than me said, ‘A society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable.’ Why are cuts being made to Equality and Diversity, when 10% of students have some form of disability?

“How can we, as moral human beings, stand by and take this. As a disabled student, I know how much E&D have helped me, in little ways which may not seem like a lot, but when you face extra challenges you need that help there.”

With regard to the E&D department, a spokesman for KCL said: “King’s is consulting staff about the restructuring of the department of Equality and Diversity.

“The consultation may lead to a reduction in posts concerned with policy and governance issues and would reduce administrative costs.

“Equality & Diversity services that have a direct impact on students would be unaffected; indeed, the proposal aims to re-focus and strengthen relevant operational activity by including it managerially under ‘Services for Students’, where it will be embedded at the heart of the wider welfare services.”

The Principal, Professor Rick Trainor, said: “The College remains totally committed to equality and diversity issues and will continue to provide a first-class service in these areas”.

Hilary Aked, London Student

Protest this tuesday 24th outside College Council at 16 30 and join the alternative council on 'Defend Jobs and Education' at 17:30

2009-11-19T06:41:00.000-08:00

TEN PERCENT CUTS ACROSS ALL DEPARTMENTS? NO WAY!!

On Tuesday 24th Nov, the College Council will meet. This is the governing body of King's where decisions such as the closure of Engineering are made. In protest against the management's savage attacks on education and jobs, we are asking everyone to come and lobby their meeting just before it starts (24th Nov, 4:30pm in the quad), bring banners and things to make some noise, we have to make sure that we are heard. At 5:30pm we will hold our own "Alternative College Council", in the Large Somerset Room, outside Chapters Cafeteria on the 2nd floor of Strand. There we are going to discuss the situation of the cuts at King's and in other universities. Speakers include students and staff from King's and from Tower Hamlets College, where planned redundancies were successfully fought back in a 3 weeks-long, all-out strike.
Please bring your energy, everyone you know at king's and let's really get a campaign going that can stop these cuts and save our staff and courses!

URGENT NUS calls for a demonstration TOMORROW against Top Up Fees

2009-11-10T09:12:00.000-08:00

NUS calls for action against fees tomorrow, Wednesday 11th November outside parliament, 12:30Yesterday the government announced that its panel for the higher education fees review will be chaired by ex-BP boss Lord Browne, who, in 2002 called for tuition fees to be increased by 'perhaps a factor of four'. The threat of lifting or removing the cap is imminent, and this in a situation where in many universities courses are being cut and teaching staff made redundant. In reaction to this the NUS (National Union of Students) has called for emergency action outside Parliament tomorrow. KCLSU has already sent out an emergency email about this. The meet-up point for King's students (see KCLSU email) is at 12pm by the main entrance to the Macadam building (SU building). Please come along or meet us there from 12:30 on. Call 07595832183 if you have any questions or can't find us.

No cuts at King's planning meeting
Because of the protest tomorrow we are moving our planning meeting to Thursday, also 1pm in Room 3.31. Please come along to this and share your ideas, information you have about the cuts and things you would like to see change at king's. We will also be making posters and banners with people's ideas. If you can't come please post your imput on this blog!

Demonstrate Against the Cuts at the Principal's Fora Monday 2nd November 12PM

2009-10-28T16:47:00.000-07:00

The Principal of King’s College, Rick Trainor, is not only responsible for the cuts at King’s but has also been quoted as saying we needed to increase top up fees to at least £5000. Let’s make it clear that we have another view on education:

Assemble at 12pm ON MONDAY 2nd Nov outside Strand Building to march to Waterloo Campus where the Principal's Fora will be. If you can only join us later, come straight to Waterloo...

"King's Students Say: 10 percent cuts: NO WAY!"

bring your fellow staff and students, your energy and spread the word...

"King's Students Say: 10 percent cuts: NO WAY!"

2009-10-28T16:38:00.000-07:00

King’s College London management has announced sweeping cuts of 10% across all departments over the next year. We are ALREADY seeing the effects this ‘cost reduction’:

Engineering Department: to be CLOSED with the loss of many jobs!

ISS Information Resources: 30 posts axed and staff made to reapply for only 15 new posts, HALVING the workforce! This means:

STAFF will face redundancies, increased workload for those who remain, fewer research opportunities and fewer support staff will mean an increase in the administrative load of all staff including academics.

For STUDENTS this will mean entire courses being closed, an increase in staff-student ratios and fewer opportunities for small group teaching. There will be less feedback and context hours, more e-learning and facilities will be even worse.

WE DEMAND:

*NO COURSE CUTS

Bring back Engineering! The new PSE school means no more undergraduate engineering at King's, less lecturers every year as they are gradually made redundant, thus less modules and less teaching hours for those who remain. 10 PERCENT CUTS ACROSS ALL DEPARTMENTS means that students in all departments are threatened, we need to all unite in a campaign to oppose this decision.

*NO JOB CUTS

Save our 30 library staff, our lecturers who face more workload, our staff in the Diversity and Equality department!

*MORE TRANSPARENCY

If the colleges claims that there is no money it should open its books. The recent upgrade in the College’s Standard & Poor’s credit rating suggests that the situation is not as bad as they say (significant cash reserves of £185 million).

*CAMPAIGN FOR MORE GOVERNMENT FUNDING

Instead of making students and staff pay, why doesn't the management turn to the government and ask for more funding? We are spending billions in an endless and destructive war in Afghanistan. Bail out education like you did the banks, fund jobs and education, not war and occupation!

*NO TO TOP UP FEES

Our principal Rick Trainor was quoted as saying we needed to increase top up fees to at least 5000 pounds. More fees, less education? Where is the logic?

WE CAN WIN:

TOWER HAMLETS COLLEGE: An all-out 4 week strike by lecturers was able to prevent compulsory redundancies.

DONCASTER COLLEGE: After a joint campaign by Unison, the UCU and students a proposed restructuring involving 300 job losses was taken off the table.

Please publish your concerns about the cuts

2009-10-25T11:43:00.000-07:00

The management hasn't been consulting students and staff about the cuts, have you heard about cuts being made in your department? do you have a question for the management? would you like a say in all this? please email the principal at principal@kcl.ac.uk and cc to nocutsatkings.campaign@googlemail.com or copy paste your email in a comment below:

photos from the demo

2009-10-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

by photographer from london studen

Walk Out and Demo across Waterloo Bridge!

2009-10-21T12:47:00.001-07:00

The first demonstration of the term was a great start to the No Cuts campaign. Over 100 students gathered outside the Strand building to show their opposition to the cuts plan being imposed by King’s College Principal Rick Trainer. Speeches were given by students from the Engineering department which is facing closure within 3 years and staff from ISS which faces 30 redundancies this year. After rallying outside the strand for half an hour we marched across Waterloo Bridge to the James Clerk Maxwell building where Rick Trainer’s office is. We held another rally outside, watched over by campus security, while chanting slogans against the cut backs and job losses. Despite calling on him to come out, Rick Trainer didn’t come and face the students whose education he is trying to cut back, privatise and destroy.

We heard there were reporters from the BBC outside the High Courts of Justice and decided to head back across the bridge to try and get some media coverage. As we got to the other side we tried to make a detour through the Strand building to get more students involved in the protest but when we got to the Strand building, campus security had locked all the entrances! Even though it was just the first demonstration of many the university administration is already worried about the impact of the protests. We stayed outside chanting and demanding to be let in while security blocked hundreds of students from going in our out. We ended the protest then knowing we’d raised awareness of the campaign and given the university administration a fright. Now we just have to get organised to make sure our next protest is even bigger so they can’t ignore us and can’t lock us out!