Collective Change
Goldsmiths Community Solidarity
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Letter to Council about Suspension of Heads of Department of Media, Communications & Cultural Studies
10 November 2022 Dear Members of Council, As members of staff and students of Goldsmiths, University of London we formally request that Council, as the governing body of Goldsmiths, holds Professor Frances Corner, as Warden of Goldsmiths, accountable for breach of College Policies, Statutes and Regulations through the wrongful suspension of Professor Des Freedman and…
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Concerns over the Connected Curriculum from those Tasked with its Delivery in the Centre for Academic Language and Literacies
The UCU members of the Centre for Academic Language and Literacies (CALL) have written the following statement to register our concern over proposals for the Connected Curriculum, and over our role in administering and delivering it. In our view, the most troubling aspect of the Connected Curriculum is that it is envisaged as accounting for…
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Letter to the Visitor to Goldsmiths – The Right Honourable Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP
The Clerk of the Council, Privy Council Office, London 16 March 2022 Petition to the Visitor of Goldsmiths, University of London To the Clerk of the Council, We are writing to petition you in your role as Visitor to Goldsmiths, University of London pursuant to section 46 of the Higher Education Act 2004 and The…
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Colleagues Warn Goldsmiths’ Proposed ‘Connected Curriculum’ Highly Disruptive to the Ecology of Programmes in Media, Communications & Cultural Studies
Colleagues in the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths have drawn together this response to the ‘Connected Curriculum’. With the Department of Sociology, whose response you can read here, colleagues and students of MCCS are deeply concerned about the grave implications of this proposal. This feedback has been gathered from staff occupying…
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Sociology respond to the imposition of a ‘Connected Curriculum’
The Senior Management Team (SMT) of Goldsmiths—comprised of 9 members of staff (3 interim; 1 permanent staff member about to leave)—is seeking to impose an unpopular ‘Connected Curriculum’ that is univserally derided by staff across departments. SMT continue to use forms of “consultation” that ask individuals and departments to provide “feedback” along extremely narrowly confined…
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A Crisis in Governance at Goldsmiths? Urgent Questions Asked to Council Over Conflicts of Interest
The below letter was addressed to Dinah Caine, Chair of Goldsmiths Council, on December 10 2021 Questions for Chair of Council Dear Dinah Caine, We write as concerned members of staff to raise important and troubling governance issues that have come to our attention. These relate to issues of conflict of interest, transparency and accountability…
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What You Said: Comments to the Decision Makers
“The current plans for Goldsmiths could signal the end of democratic education in the U.K.” Christopher Connery, Chair, History of Consciousness Department, Professor, World Literature and Cultural Studies, UC Santa Cruz, USA “Another example where core teaching and administrative staff pay for bad management. We need change.” Professor Steve Edwards, Birkbeck, London, UK “Goldsmiths is a treasure…
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Open Letter to Professor Frances Corner, OBE, Warden of Goldsmiths, Council & Senior Management Team
We are academics, researchers and artists who have in various ways collaborated with members of the Goldsmiths community over the years or have been members of staff or students ourselves – or are simply acquainted with the College’s stellar reputation. Goldsmiths, University of London, is internationally renowned for its progressive and critical education, its commitment…
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Actions Taken by Goldsmiths Communities – Timeline
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#SaveGoldsmiths
How Goldsmiths Staff Are Fighting Covid Austerity 700 Lecturers Refuse to Mark Essays as 120 Job Losses Loom at Goldsmiths University Students Union criticises university management over Evolving Goldsmiths plan ‘Despicable in a pandemic’: fury as UK universities plan job cuts
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GOLDSTAFF JISC
Why JISC? JiscMail is the national academic mailing list service. JiscMail helps people working in education and research sectors to discuss, debate, collaborate and communicate with peers, experts and partners using mailing lists. Discussion lists enable free flowing discussion and debate between subscribers and are set up to allow subscribers to post new messages and…
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Staff Assembly
Brown Paper Bag Lunchtime Assembly Second Meeting 18/02/21 @1pm To get your Zoom link invitation register with Eventbrite The time has come to reconstitute ourselves, to push ahead with widening the grassroots, staff-led discussion about Goldsmiths and its future, including the College’s response to the budgetary deficit and the COVID-19 crisis. To our knowledge, the…
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What’s Next for Collective Change?
Creating the Vote To generate the Vote of No Confidence we needed to make two crucial decisions: (1) Who would be the constituents of the VoNC? (2) How would the VoNC be administered? Limiting the VoNC to Academic Departments We value all voices on campus and had lengthy and heartfelt discussions about who could and…
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VoNC Results
I DO NOT have confidence in the Goldsmiths Senior Management Team 605 votes I have confidence in the Goldsmiths Senior Management Team 93 votes Total 698 votes
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Where did Collective Change come from?
Back in April 2020 the Steering Group of the Professors’ Forum sent out a proposal to all staff in academic departments, inviting them to ask how Goldsmiths might ensure better decision-making structures going forward. The impoverished capacity for inclusive and participatory decision-making across the College was highlighted as a key shortcoming of ‘Evolving Goldsmiths’. The…
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Outcomes of the VoNC
The ongoing campaign initiated jointly by members of Collective Change and the Professors’ Forum asks All Staff Members in Academic Departments to Vote NO Confidence in SMT The Detail
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Workshop on Collective Change for Academic Board
The Warden invited representatives of the Collective Change Working Group to run a workshop for members of Academic Board on 23 September. We saw the workshop as an important opportunity to transform the Collective Statement (and appended departmental statements) into actionable items. In this post you can view our workshop presentation in which we discuss…
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Staff News or SMT News?
Back in July, departmental Change Rapporteurs contacted Communications to see if we could get an item on the Collective Change process in the weekly Staff News. In doing so, we aimed for “transparency, inclusivity and accessibility” within the College–and stated us much in our correspondence. We were keen to share our report as widely as…
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Collective Change Statement
The following was sent to the Senior Management Team (SMT), Council and Heads of Department on 24 July 2020: Over the last three months, departmental Change Rapporteurs (CRs) from different departments across College have facilitated open discussions amongst colleagues in order to produce a collective, constructive and positive response to the challenges faced by Goldsmiths,…
We Are Goldsmiths 