Many of you will have signed the petition calling for a protection of Statute 21. Negotiations about the precise form of statute 21 are ongoing, but the University has so far not adequately consulted staff on these changes. We are urging senators to support the motion below, which calls for an open consultation process, and we urge the University to delay any final decision until this process has taken place and an agreement that is satisfactory to all sides has been reached. The meeting of Senate where this motion will be tabled is on July 1st, and a strong show of support from Global Studies (and hopefully other Schools across the university) would signal to the Senators that this issue has widespread support and that the university must make provision for adequate consultation over these reforms to the governance of the university. Although this petition was initiated from within the School of Global Studies, we welcome signatures from staff across the whole university. Please sign the petition to show your support!

 Motion on Statute Reform, proposed by Luke Martell:

1. Senate notes the university's work on updating and modernising its statutes and welcomes its continuing commitment to the principle of academic freedom in the statutes;

2. Senate asks that this commitment to academic freedom is backed up by inclusion in Statute VI[1] of external and independent checks in procedures, freedom of expression for all staff, and a commitment to redundancy avoidance;

3. Senate notes that all the statutes are being revised, welcomes the publication of the draft of these on Sussex Direct and asks that an open meeting for all staff is held where the changes to the statutes can be outlined and there is the chance for the university community to discuss the reforms collectively.

4. Senate asks that this motion be passed on to and read out at Council.

[1] Currently Statute 21.

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