MOVING TO FRONT FROM MAY 14--SCROLL DOWN TO COMMENTS FOR LATEST DEVELOPMENTS--sASKATCHEWAN REALIZES THEY MADE A MISTAKE
Many readers have sent this story, which is appalling: see here and here for two accounts.
UPDATE: A philosophy student at Saskatchewan writes:
Regarding your most recent post about the University of Saskatchewan, academic freedom is unfortunately not the only problem. A few other problems would be:
1) The university is merging four programs (Philosophy, Women and Gender Studies, Modern Languages, Religion and Culture) into one, and having the gall to suggest that this program will a) be superior and b) produce more research, while providing significant incentives to faculty to retire without replacement.
2) Removing four libraries, including the law library.
3) Guarding the project briefs for the above changes behind passwords, so that only current students and faculty can access the files that tell us what the university shall do.
4) Doing all of this without properly consulting departments or students.
As you can see, the university is quite simply devastating what had been a modest, but creditable, humanities division, as well as damaging its dentistry program, its law program, its political science program and its libraries. I think it would be unfortunate if the focus was only on the academic freedom issue, rather than on the broader problem that Robert Buckingham sought to address before he was fired.
There have been two open letters published in response to this already. These can be found at: http://freeacademiausask.blogspot.ca/ What is more, the philosophy students are in the process of producing a further letter. We were hoping that if we sent it you, you might be able to make it a little more public and perhaps help us get signatures. The link is here: http://philosophyopenletter.blogspot.ca/2014/05/open-letter-to-university-of.html and if anyone emails us at [email protected] with their details then we shall add them to the signatories of the letter.
More direct emails can be sent to:
Ilene Busch-Vishniac, President of the University of Saskatchewan, uofs.president.usask.ca
Brett Fairbairn, Provost and Vice-President Academic of the University of Saskatchewan, [email protected]
UPDATE: I'm opening comments for links to more information and commentary. Please be patient with comments, they may take awhile to appear, as I am on the road.
