[Air-L] CALL TO ACTION! Please help save Goldsmiths University

Tue Jun 4 06:58:26 PDT 2024

Hi everyone,

I know a lot of you aren’t on Twitter anymore, but for those who are Goldsmiths University would really appreciate your support to fight the brutal cuts that have been proposed by management. Goldsmiths is an amazing university (where I had the joy of doing my MA Digital Media) that generates critical scholarship, and these cuts speak to broader attacks on arts and humanities happening in the UK and elsewhere. You can read the Goldsmiths Union call to action below.

Thanks so much,

Zoe

~~~

CALL TO ACTION! SAVE THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES!

Goldsmiths UCU is calling on all staff, students, alumni, friends of the College, and members of the public who care about the future of arts and humanities education in the UK to participate in an urgent TWITTER STORM this Wednesday 5 June at 10am!

As part of their so-called Transformation Programme, Goldsmiths’ senior managers want to cull an estimated 133 jobs, but this could be more. They have grossly mismanaged the College, and they want to use our livelihoods to cover their tracks. There is no financial rationale for these cuts. They have failed to consult staff. And they have refused to consider seriously any of the counterproposals that were prepared and submitted by Goldsmiths’ staff, only 29 of which management even acknowledged.

They are counting on our exhaustion. They are counting on our passivity. They are counting on us feeling like these forced redundancies are a forgone conclusion.

But we know it’s #NotADoneDeal!

On Thursday morning (6th June) staff representatives will meet with a group of Council members, in order to challenge Council's support for management's disastrous plans. On Wednesday (5th June), we are asking everyone to send Goldsmiths’ Council a message. There is still time to right this wrong and still time to defend the future of arts and humanities education -- both at Goldsmiths and around the UK.

Council has the power to stop this. We have the power to remind them.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE TWITTER STORM

  1.  Prepare a tweet! It can be about Goldsmiths, or it can be about attacks on arts and humanities/universities more broadly. If you’re not sure what to tweet, we’ve offered some ideas/prompts below.
  2.  In your tweet, use the hashtag #NotADoneDeal and tag both @GoldsmithsUoL and @Goldsmiths UCU. If you only have space for one tag, make it @GoldsmithsUoL
  3.  On WEDNESDAY 5TH JUNE at 10AM GMT, tweet that tweet!
  4.  Throughout the day on Wednesday and Thursday, like and retweet all content you see using the #NotADoneDeal hashtag. Keep the storm going!
Other things you can do to support our action:

  1.  Ahead of Wednesday, contact 5-10 (or 20, or 50) people that you know who are active on Twitter and who care about the future of Goldsmiths and the future of the arts and humanities. Invite them to take part in the Twitter Storm with you.
  2.  To turn up the volume of our message, reach out to your “very online” friends with larger numbers of Twitter followers and ask them to join our action!

WHAT SHOULD I TWEET?

We’ve chosen the hashtag #NotADoneDeal because it speaks to our defiance in the face of management’s aggression and indifference, whilst also being broad enough for people both within and beyond the Goldsmiths to make it their own. So, make it your own. But if you’re not sure what to tweet or how to use the hashtag, here are some ideas:

Remember to include the hashtag #NotADoneDeal and to tag @GoldsmithsUoL (and @GoldsmithsUCU if you can)! Local MPs and journalists are also worth tagging.

  1.  Make a donation to the Goldsmiths Solidarity Fund<https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-goldsmiths-ucu-fight-mass-redundancies?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer> and tweet about why you want to support staff fighting mass redundancies! These redundancies are #NotADoneDeal because of the solidarity and generous donations that keep our staff afloat through this fight. Remember to link the solidarity fund’s GoFundMe page<https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-goldsmiths-ucu-fight-mass-redundancies?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer> in your tweet.
  2.  Already made a donation? Thank you! Share the GoFundMe page with your followers and encourage them to do the same, using the hashtag #NotADoneDeal and tagging @GoldsmithsUoL.
  3.  If you’re a student or alumni of Goldsmiths, you could tweet about why Goldsmiths matters to you and why you chose to study arts and humanities. Let Council know that the destruction of the College is #NotADoneDeal because our community is strong and ready to fight.
  4.  Goldsmiths’ senior managers aren’t the only ones attacking the future of arts and humanities education -- the Tories are at it, too. With a general election just around the corner, let the Tories know that their attacks on critical, creative education are #NotADoneDeal.
  5.  Retweet a recent news article about our fight at Goldsmiths, with either a quote or a comment and the hashtag #NotADoneDeal. Recent coverage includes this piece<https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/may/10/goldsmiths-university-to-keep-black-british-literature-course-open> about saving the MA Black British Literature from management’s attacks; this piece<https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/mar/27/goldsmiths-university-of-london-redundancy-plans> calling the attacks on Goldsmiths’ staff “cultural and social vandalism”; this piece<https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/michael-rosen-attacks-unbearable-goldsmiths-job-cuts> with comment and condemnation from Goldsmiths colleague Michael Rosen; and, this detailed and damning op-ed by Zoe Williams<https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/apr/11/the-goldsmiths-crisis-how-cuts-and-culture-wars-sent-universities-into-a-death-spiral>, whose insistence that the attacks on Goldsmiths and on arts and humanities are “not a done deal” inspired our hashtag.

Retweet a recent news article about how arts, humanities, and higher education have suffered under Tory rule with either a quote or a comment, the hashtag #NotADoneDeal, and @GoldmsmithsUoL tagged. Remind Council what they are being complicit in if they allow these injurious and unnecessary cuts to go ahead!

________________________
Dr Zoë Glatt
www.zoeglatt.com<http://www.zoeglatt.com/>
Postdoctoral Researcher: Microsoft’s Social Media Collective
Co-Founder: The Digital Ethnography Collective @DigECollective<https://twitter.com/DigECollective>
Twitter<https://twitter.com/ZoeGlatt> | YouTube<https://www.youtube.com/user/Zedstergal> | Mastodon<https://aoir.social/@ZoeGlatt>