The University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, UK, plans to cut 36 academic staff positions, with most of the job losses due to the drop in arts and humanities. According to BBC, the Universities and Colleges Union said 31 of the university’s 36 faculty cuts were to be implemented in the arts and humanities. A UEA spokesperson said there was no redundancy proposal in the art history department.
The spokesperson said that to ensure UEA’s future financial stability, the university must achieve savings of £30million by September. “As part of the wider cost savings plans, the university is proposing to cut staff by a total of 113 staff in addition to those leaving through voluntary departure. We are reviewing proposed staff reductions of 77 staff in Professional Services and Faculty Professional Services and 36 proposed staff reductions in faculty. She declined to confirm whether the 31 arts and humanities positions would be cut.
Writer Jonathan Coe wrote on Twitter: “UEA has one of the best humanities faculties in the country. Much of its brilliant teaching staff must now be made redundant because the university is in financial crisis. The people who will lose their jobs will not be the ones who caused the crisis.
The spokesperson adds: “All areas of UEA’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities will be maintained: for example, our internationally renowned creative writing courses…the Faculty of Arts and Humanities will continue to be sustained to produce products of excellence, creative and innovative research both within and across disciplines.
The aim is to achieve the proposed staff reductions through a targeted voluntary departure program and redeployment opportunities, she said, adding: “The university has been very clear that the compulsory layoffs remain a last appeal. We are committed to supporting affected staff members during this difficult time. »
UEA alumni include the art historian and columnist at The arts journalBendor Grosvenor (PhD, 2009), gallerist Philip Mold (BA, 1981) and Andrew Bolton (BA, 1987), curator in charge of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
In May, the University of Brighton has announced the closure of the Brighton Center for Contemporary Art (CCA)saying it had faced “very significant challenges” in terms of funding, including “undergraduate tuition freezes for almost a decade” as well as “generation-high levels of inflation to another and soaring energy costs”.
