The Human Sciences Degree program* is now on the frontline of market-orientated cuts at the University of Sussex. According to the proposal before the School's Teaching and Learning Committee the program will discontinue recruitment after 2010. This is because the program does not carry the standard "economically viable" number of 30 students, nor is it currently designed to do so. This is a wrong decision. It represents a troubling trend in UK higher education towards meta-schools, intellectual homogeneity and job-orientated programs. In other countries such as the USA, interdisciplinary education is still integral to most universities' undergraduate programs, but in institutions like Sussex it appears to amount to nothing more than a tokenistic buzz phrase. What is at stake with the loss of Human Sciences is more than just a degree program, it is an intellectual approach. Current benefits of the program include: - an opportunity for students to gain a greater critical understanding of KNOWLEDGE and how it is generated across disciplines -it is one of the only programs that allows students to creatively and constructively pursue study in almost whichever fields they feel most inspired at Sussex -it is a cross-disciplinary discursive space also for faculty who interact and cooperate to help students on the program This petition is in favour of the expansion and development of the Human Sciences degree program. It intends to show management that real interdisciplinary programs are DESIRABLE and MARKETABLE. It also urges Sussex management and faculty to consider a reformation of the program which will entail a new collaboration between more faculty in different schools. *For a degree program description see http://www.sussex.ac.uk/studywithus/ug/degrees/subjects/Human%20sciences/21359

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