WALKING the corridors of King’s, especially when they’re dripping with gaudy, self-indulgent Open Day banners, you get a feeling of prestige, honour and pride.
You don’t exactly sense that King’s unfairly culls 120 academics to bankroll building expansions.
Day-to-day, we see the shiny surface of King’s, not its rotten underbelly.
But the underbelly is there, and those decision-makers at the top are festering away in the knowledge that they are safe in their private power network.
They can swing the axe with no regard for the human cost, because they’re all right Jack.
And running a university is a bit of a game, isn’t it? If we get to the next level, who cares for the cost?
Well, no. King’s is a place of learning, and when it’s good, it’s really, seriously good.
It’s important to remember that we can be in love with King’s and still fight its injustices.
These cuts aren’t even all about the bottom line. They’re about opaque power, the power for management to do what they want with no transparency.
At best, the timing of the consultation is clumsy and the planners are stupid. At worst, it’s deliberate and deceitful.
Roar! believes the College is executing the cuts and the consultation in an entirely reckless way.
We urge university managers, who will sit down tomorrow to discuss the losses, to stop and listen.
We’re not here to fight for the sake of fighting, but we’re here to fight when learning is threatened.
These cuts set a dangerous and scary precedent for the rest of the College.
The message is clear: no department is safe, and if King’s wants staff culled, it will barely give them time to scream before “letting them go”.
Education cannot take place in this climate of worry and suspicion.
King’s needs to realise that, regardless of all else, it is responsible for breeding this fear.
Sign the petition against the cuts here. It will be delivered to the College Council meeting tomorrow.
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