Unsere HU

DEAREST ALL,

In response to the planned closure of Middlesex Philosophy students have been occupying the Mansion House on Trent Park campus. After failure of the Dean to attend a meeting that he set up with students on Tuesday morning explaining this ridiculous decision, we now have use of the entire Mansion building to organise teach-ins, screenings, pedagogical
and cultural events in an open, non-hierarchical format.

Today we announce the opening of an experimental and communal space for educational presentations and conversations at the interface between philosophy, theory, activism and art. Transversal Space is an alternative educational experience in which the boundaries between disciplines and the relations between students and teachers are blurred. Relationships and ideas are explored in an open and collective way continuing the ethos of our philosophy department and its series of events.

A program of events for the weekend (7-9/5) is now being set up. Current program on www.savemdxphil.com, Updated every hour.

Please come and join us on the beautiful Trent Park campus. A free shuttle bus will take you here from Oakwood station on the Picadilly line (penultimate stop in Northern direction). Let us know if you have suggestions for the program and join us at any point during the weekend.

Email or call me for details, to drop by or contribute in any way: 079 6328 8323 Syd

Guardian piece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/may/07/philosophy-cuts-closures-middlesex-university

VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH FACULTY

VIDEO DAY 1

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=105342736176537&oid=119102561449990

twitter feed

http://twitter.com/saveMDXphil

fb group

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=119102561449990

Older Posts:

29. April 2010

Subject: closure of Philosophy at Middlesex University

Dear friends and colleagues,

I hope you might forgive this group message.
I regret to say that Middlesex University has just decided, rather abruptly, to close all its Philosophy programmes and to shut down our Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP; http://www.web.mdx.ac.uk/crmep/ ; staff include Eric Alliez, Peter Hallward, Mark Kelly, Christian Kerslake, Peter Osborne and Stella Sandford). Some members of the Centre may be laid off more or less immediately, and some will remain temporarily, to teach out the programmes.

As you might expect we're scrambling to put together a response, and to begin with we're asking colleagues and friends to send a brief email or letter about the closure to the University administrators who have made this unexpected decision. If you have time to write such a message, please feel free to extract some points from a draft letter that a few of our most recent collaborators will be sending later today to Times Higher Education, below.

The main people involved in the decision are as follows:
Vice-Chancellor of the University, Michael Driscoll, m.driscoll@mdx.ac.uk ;

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Enterprise, Waqar Ahmad, w.ahmad@mdx.ac.uk ;

Deputy Vice Chancellor Academic, Margaret House, m.house@mdx.ac.uk ;

Dean of the School of Arts & Education, Ed Esche, e.esche@mdx.ac.uk .

(The full set of emails is then: m.driscoll@mdx.ac.uk; w.ahmad@mdx.ac.uk ; m.house@mdx.ac.uk ; e.esche@mdx.ac.uk ).

If you are able to send this sort of message, and are willing for your message to be posted subsequently on a campaign website or blog, please copy or blind-copy (BCC) it to our campaign email, savemdxphil@gmail.com .

By tomorrow I expect we'll have set up a petition to save the CRMEP, and will get back to you about this soon.

Although it may already be too late to save Philosophy at Middlesex, some decisive action now may help protect other vulnerable subjects at the University, and in the UK more generally. It's been very encouraging, over the course of today, to receive dozens of messages of support and solidarity.

I'll circulate more information about the campaign to save the CRMEP once we've had time to set up a basic website or blog.

all best,

Peter [Hallward].

================

Draft letter regarding the closure of Philosophy at Middlesex University

The abrupt closure of the Philosophy programmes at Middlesex University is a matter of national and indeed international concern. Not only does it flatly contradict the stated commitment of Middlesex University to promote 'research excellence', it represents a startling and perhaps irreversible stage in the ongoing impoverishment of Philosophy provision in the UK.

The Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (http://www.web.mdx.ac.uk/crmep/) at Middlesex makes a significant and distinctive contribution to the teaching of philosophy in the UK. Its set of MA programmes is currently the largest in the UK, and Philosophy is the highest research-rated subject at the University.

The CRMEP is now widely recognised as one of the most important centres for the study of modern European philosophy anywhere in the English-speaking world. Building on its grade of 5 in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, in the 2008 RAE Middlesex was rated first in philosophy among post-1992 universities, with 65% of its research activity judged "world-leading" or "internationally excellent".

More importantly, work carried out at the CRMEP is characterised by a unique emphasis on broad cultural, artistic and intellectual contexts, and a marked sense of social and political engagement.

Middlesex Philosophy is one of only a handful of programmes left in the UK that provides both research-driven and inclusive post-graduate teaching aimed at a wide range of students, specialist and non-specialist. It also happens to generate a substantial amount of surplus revenue for the University, currently contributing close to half of its total income to the University's central administration.

Middlesex University has decided to close its CRMEP in the complete absence of any persuasive academic or economic rationale. We call on Middlesex University to reverse this damaging and ill-judged decision to close its Philosophy programmes, and to renew its commitment to widening participation in education and to excellence in research.

Subject: more information about Middlesex Philosophy closure

Dear all,

Further to my last message, about the closure of Philosophy at Middlesex: all of us who teach philosophy at Middlesex have been overwhelmed by the tremendous outpouring of support from students and staff at other universities that we've received in the last 24 hours. Middlesex students are mobilising quickly, and we will meeting tomorrow and in the coming days to discuss how best to organise a forceful campaign to save Philosophy at Middlesex, and more importantly, to protect other vulnerable departments in similar situations both at Middlesex and in universities across the UK.

I promise to keep future messages about this to a minimum (and please let me know if you'd prefer that I remove your email from this distribution list), but here are a few more bits of information:

There's now a petition to save Philosophy at Middlesex, at http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-middlesex-philosophy.html

Middlesex Philosophy students have set up a Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=119102561449990 (3600+ members in the first day).

Nina Power, who graduated with a PhD in Philosophy from Middlesex a couple of years ago, has a Guardian comment piece on the closure, at www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/29/philosophy-minorities-middleqsex-university-logic.

We will be posting new information about the campaign on our temporary blog, at http://mdxphilcampaign.blogspot.com/, and hope to replace this soon with a campaign website.

If you haven't yet written to the people behind this decision, they are:

Vice-Chancellor of the University, Michael Driscoll, m.driscoll@mdx.ac.uk;

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Enterprise, Waqar Ahmad, w.ahmad@mdx.ac.uk;

Deputy Vice Chancellor Academic, Margaret House, m.house@mdx.ac.uk;

Dean of the School of Arts & Education, Ed Esche, e.esche@mdx.ac.uk.

(The full set of emails is then: m.driscoll@mdx.ac.uk; w.ahmad@mdx.ac.uk; m.house@mdx.ac.uk; e.esche@mdx.ac.uk).

This fight is only just beginning,

yours in solidarity,

Peter [Hallward].

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