Nina Markl 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

Save Languages at Essex To add your signature to this letter, please complete this form: Save Languages at Essex (Google Form) Dear Prof Bowen and members of the Executive Committee, We, the undersigned, urge you to reco...

🚨Save Languages at the University of Essex 🚨 #langsky #linguistics

UoE plans to cut German, Italian, Portuguese and Chinese + all evening classes and merge Language and Linguistics with a larger unit. Only 2 languages will remain next October. Please sign our letter:

tinyurl.com/SaveLingLang...

Warnings from experts, learned associations, the APPG etc continue to go unheard as universities walk blindly into a strategy blackhole for language capabilities that will have intergenerational impact. @hetanshah.bsky.social @ucflangs.bsky.social @darrenpaffey.bsky.social @drbeckymt.bsky.social

we have really moved from ‘university community’ to ‘university management’ huh

update: after yesterday's very bad day i slept for 12 hours and that seems to have helped a little. would recommend.

this is one of the things that really gets me -- the unwillingness to actually be honest with us, treat us like adults who realise what's going on, and take responsibility for the decisions they're making.

yes, that's exactly how it went here. we haven't had GTAs since I arrived 3 years ago and we haven't been able to replace any staff who left, leaving us understaffed before this even started... it feels like a cruel, slow starving of the discipline until everyone's retired or burned out...

terrified someone messed up and I am supposed to be teaching RIGHT NOW instead of posting

for some lighthearted academic posting about student emails in between the "please help me save my workplace" messages -- if you're going to ask "is class cancelled" please for the love of god tell me which class you're referring to 😭

I'm so sorry. it's a godawful experience. also really speaks to the national character of this catastrophe.

Jfc this happened to my department years ago when I was at Sussex.

Exactly. UEA and ARU do not offer the languages to be cut at Essex (Italian, German, Portuguese, Chinese).

If languages close at Univeristy of Essex, that means large parts of the East of England is left without HE languages provision.

Today, we're shining a spotlight on Language & Linguistics - one of the founding departments of the University of Essex, and a very strong department on the national scale, and - as part of a cynical and short-sighted cost-cutting exercise - a department slated for 50% cuts by VC Frances Bowen.

good morning, pals. please share widely — University of Essex is joining the long list of universities gutting their language and linguistics programmes.

first stop reached pls someone get up

oh no at least one of them is a student

dw, it’s mutual, he booked my next work trip for me today because i had too much to do

anyway true love is me being on the really busy train to have a full friday evening with my partner

things are going great

person sitting next to chatgpt liability person is working on some document with chatgpt

i’m allowed to gossip about passengers who sit if i have to stand, that’s the rule

person on my train asking chatgpt about liability

Today, in a branch meeting with unprecedented attendance, Essex UCU overwhelmingly passed a vote of no confidence in our VC Frances Bowen and her senior management team for their appalling handling of the current financial shambles.

Please share the letter widely, we want to make clear to the university that we will not be cut down without anyone noticing or caring.

this is of course part of a much larger attack on modern languages, which, frankly, undercuts the supposed ‘market’ arguments around falling student demand. we know that languages improve graduate outcomes and employability and we know they enrich students’ lives.

literally part of the ‘argument’ for these cuts nationally tends to be ‘not enough students take languages at A level’ — maybe that’s because they’re not offered and maybe university is not Big School and sometimes students want to expand their skills and knowledge there

Language & Linguistics is one of the founding units of the University of Essex and was part of the much-invoked ‘spirit of Essex’ in our marketing. Removing our autonomy and cutting our programmes is, among so many things, just really, really sad and a loss for applied linguistics.

These cuts are devastating for our current staff & students but they also incredibly regressive — pushing education in languages and linguistics further out of reach for most students in the UK. We are the only uni in the southeast of England offering our range of languages (except Cambridge).

Save Languages at Essex To add your signature to this letter, please complete this form: Save Languages at Essex (Google Form) Dear Prof Bowen and members of the Executive Committee, We, the undersigned, urge you to reco...

🚨Save Languages at the University of Essex 🚨 #langsky #linguistics

UoE plans to cut German, Italian, Portuguese and Chinese + all evening classes and merge Language and Linguistics with a larger unit. Only 2 languages will remain next October. Please sign our letter:

tinyurl.com/SaveLingLang...

coffee and pasta helped