Katie Deutsch
On Thursday the twentieth of November at eleven in the morning, a coalition called Notts Solidarity Group formed of many leftist student groups based on campus, including DemilitariseUoN, Socialist Students, and the Nottingham Camp for the Liberation of Palestine, as well as more, formed a sit-in to protest the shutdown of forty-two courses across the university, as well as the job losses the university is pushing for. The goal of the sit-in was to deliver a letter to the vice-chancellor of the University of Nottingham, Jane Norman, and follows many other protests ever since the course cuts and job losses were announced.
The purchase of Castle Meadow Campus, which has cost approximately eighty million pounds and is still not a functional campus.
Jane Norman has been largely seen as responsible for the job cuts and course shutdowns. She has been the face of the recent restructuring, and when the University College Union (UCU) was on strike, they called for students to email Jane Norman directly to call for an end to staff cuts. She has been seen as largely responsible by the students at the university for the purchase of Castle Meadow Campus, which has cost approximately eighty million pounds and is still not a functional campus. It is currently largely a construction site, with it having no use to students thus far. Jane Norman is, according to University security, currently in China with many other members of the University Executive Board, visiting the University of Nottingham Campus there.
The petitions included more than 44,500 signatures.
The letter that the coalition intended to present included ten petitions to save various courses, including Music, Education, Mental Health and Child Nursing, and more. According to the press release sent to Impact Magazine, ‘students said they care deeply about the University of Nottingham and want the University to agree to no course closures and redundancies’. The petitions included more than 44,500 signatures.
Similar to this protest, students all over the university are showing their care and dedication to the university, protesting and signing petitions to save their courses and the staff who run them. There are many Instagram pages currently running, such as saveuonmusic, protectuontheology, and saveuonmfl. These pages are immensely popular, as students use them in order to organise and protest the closure of these courses that make up so much of the University of Nottingham.
The sit-in ended at around 11:30 due to the absence of the vice-president. One of the attendees, who prefers to remain anonymous, described it as a ‘warning for future actions’.
If you would like to find out more for yourself, you can go to Notts Solidarity Group’s Instagram here.
Katie Deutsch
Image courtesy of Notts Solidarity Campaign and used with their approval
