OPPOSE PROJECT TRANSFORM AND ACADEMIC REDUNDANCIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM

PhD candidate in German, University of Oxford

I am happy to sign. This is not what is needed - language training is poised to become a growth area as schools grow in provision. This is a flagship modern languages cultural studies department. Without investment in languages, talk of internationalisation is surely imperialism by another name.

As an Alumnus of Nottingham University and also as German Studies researcher at Birmingham University I am very aware of Nottingham's excellent academic reputation which will be undermined internationally if reductions go through.

The learning of languages has always been at a comparative low in the UK. For those who wish to pursue languages, the opportunity to do so should be enriching and engaging. Cutting staff in the language department hinders this opportunity. In an increasingly globalised world, language skills are essential and should be encouraged.

Down with this sort of thing

We didn't agree to Project Transform, and to make cuts because the University wants a new sports centre is ridiculous. The higher ups are paid in the hundreds of thousands a year plus extensive bonuses. How about they start cuts there instead of reducing one of the most international language departments in the UK?

These redundancies just prove the continued devaluing of languages at the University of Nottingham. As we slip down the league tables, the University is desperately clinging onto their title as 'GLOBAL'. How can it dare call itself global when language students and staff are constantly crammed into the corner of Trent building while our £9,000 fees are spent on high-tech libraries for engineering students and state of the art gyms that we won't even be around to use (and if you've ever been to the gym on campus, you'll know it's pretty empty most of the time, is the biggest 'sports village' in Europe really necessary?) I could and would never recommend this university for someone studying arts because the support you offer us is diabolical. Don't make it even worse.

This is an excellent Faculty. It will not remain so if these plans are pursued.

the actions that are being taken without thought of the repercussions are appalling

Another astonishingly shortsighted proposal by yet another University administration at a time when the U.K. is desperately short of well-qualified linguists who possess the cultural competence any modern nation needs. Reducing the quality of education offered students whilst demanding increasingly high fees is merely cynical. Buildings, no matter how new and shiny, are no substitute for the care and attention a dedicated tutor can provide for his or her students. These proposed redundancies shame the university.

Good luck to my colleagues in Faculty of Arts at Nottingham in opposing these cuts, NG

Students shouldn't be kept in the dark about changes that will affect their course!

Savings should not be made at the expense of the quality of education that students get. It is ridiculous to even propose this.

These students deserve to get the quality and number of teaching staff that they were led to believe would be available when they applied to the University. To make these staff redundant now is the equivalent to false representation.

No to redundancies or a reduction in academic language provision!

Putting capital expenditure concerns ahead of human resources is more than just incredibly short sighted, and seems more as a means of closing departments by stealth by continually degrading the structures they need to continue to function. There's little use a new student building if there's nobody to teach in it!

We need to support in our university what makes it unique.

We need teachers and staff, not flashy buildings.

This is only going to worsen the quality of foreign language courses and reduce the number of applicants and future linguists in this country. All should be done to keep experienced year abroad staff to support students during this challenging time.

Taking away teaching staff to pay for a new Sports Centre, an arts building and for an upgrade to a centralised form of student administration is ridiculous. The University should be a place of learning above all and this is not in the best interests of Arts and Humanities undergraduate students.