English

The Humanities Rally unites students and staff in their resistance to the cuts being made to the Faculty of the Humanities at the UvA. The humanities, in the Netherlands and abroad, have been under pressure for a long time: there is a steady decrease of government spending, and corporate industry usually has little interest in these disciplines. The University executive board strives almost exclusively for financial efficiency, often at the expense of research and education. Consequently, the Faculty of the Humanities (FGw) was forced into a number of reorganizations over the past few years. Now that the financial prospects of the FGw have made a turn for the worse, the executive board refuses to make extra investments in the humanities, and imposes another large-scale reorganization. For many of the staff and students, this is the last straw.

Our protest is aimed primarily against the policy of the executive board: we aim to resist these precipitous budget cuts, and fight for a fairer distribution of the university budget. More generally, we object to the corporate style in which the UvA is currently managed, as well as the systematic ignorance towards the concerns of (the) students and staff.

Meanwhile, we are developing an alternative vision on what needs to happen in the humanities, not using financial norms, but academic values as the/our starting point. As we believe that a durable solution will prove impossible without structural changes in university culture, we have been cooperating with other protest movements, at the UvA, in the Netherlands, and throughout Europe.

Besides uniting everyone we are organising multiple actions. Follow our Facebook or Twitter if you would like to be involved and stay informed about the plans of the board and our own plans for action. You can also keep an eye on this web site or send an e-mail to humanitiesrally@gmail.com.

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Our Manifesto in English
Factsheet Reorganizations: What is about to change?
Factsheet Allocation Model: How is the budget divided?
Factsheet Organisational Model: Who decides what?

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English-language press about the cuts

http://www.nltimes.nl/tag/humanities-rally/

http://svenlutticken.org/2014/11/12/holland-in-2014-a-cultured-nation/