As a student body, we are deeply saddened to hear of the potential redundancies of history staff. We have been taught by these lecturers, and personally know them to be hard working, passionate, committed, kind and incredibly inspirational. This has led us to question the justification behind such redundancies, and, more broadly, whether we can place our faith in UCL as an academic body.

As students, we are sickened by the behaviour of the department toward its staff. We accept that UCL is a business; however, we would expect a department which ostensibly prides itself on its progressive values to treat its staff with dignity and respect. In particular, we believe that the currentactions of the UCL department will seriously affect the career prospects of the staff involved. We understand that research is integral to getting a good job; in employing staff on teaching-only contracts for several (in some cases 5+) years, their ability to produce research has been seriously limited.

Furthermore, making such large numbers of academics redundant at the same time significantly reduced the range of modules available to current and prospective undergraduate and graduate students, who have joined UCL History and then planned and funded their studies in the legitimate expectation and representation that a sufficiently diverse range of courses would continue to be available for the duration of their studies, which, in many cases, will now have to be reconsidered.

UCL currently places seventh in Britain for its history course, according to the Complete University Guide (as of 15 March 2024). However, we wonder whether it will be possible for UCL to keep this impressive standing if it purges itself of experienced lecturers. This incident leads us to question whether UCL genuinely values the academic goals of its pupils.

Ultimately, this is a situation which will negatively affect everyone, including UCL as an institution.This may be economically beneficial in the short term but ultimately will erode the university from the inside. The loss of expertise will be irreplaceable, and graduate lecturers necessarily should be supported by more experienced staff, not left to operate without support.This will be extremely detrimental to student experience, as students will lose personal tutors, and potentially miss modules they specially applied to UCL in order to be able to attend.

The reason that so many history students choose UCL is its academic prestige. Please, keep UCL as a body which values academic work, merit, and student experience at its heart.