115 Redundancies threatened at Sussex Staff, students and friends of the University of Sussex call on Michael Farthing, Vice Chancellor, and his Executive Group to remove the threat of compulsory redundancies, permanently. �Where possible we will try to avoid compulsory redundancies� is not good enough! SAVE SUSSEX EDUCATION! Some background: The proposed redundancies are set against a backdrop of the marketisation of Higher Education. More young people are coming through our doors. The University is seeking to increase its number of fee-paying overseas students. Students will all be incurring more and more debt. Yet The University proposes to cut teaching and support staff and is presenting a fiction that this will improve the student experience. We do not believe the proposals at the University of Sussex will deliver the extremely high quality of teaching, support, research and overall experience our students have rightly come to expect from us. We believe that the proposal will deter students from coming to Sussex and will lead to the decline of our world-leading institution. The 115 proposed redundancies are ill founded. The loss of 22 staff within Student and Academic Services will lead to less front line support for students, additional workload for academic staff and potentially lead to a drop in student retention. The loss of academic staff in Informatics (38% proposed cut) and Life Sciences (33% proposed cut) will inevitably lead to higher workloads for remaining staff and larger classes. This will impact on the student experience and on our ability to bring in research and third stream income. The loss of technicians, security staff, the attack on terms and conditions for our porters and the threat to childcare provision are equally disgraceful. Maintaining standards in labs, safety on campus and the general smooth running of our campus is being jeopardised. History, English, CCE, our creche, IT services and catering also face a significant threat. The impact on the staff and student experience in these areas will again be jeopardised. We urge The University to reconsider its plans, to remove the threat of compulsory redundancies and the engage in proper and meaningful consultations with staff and students.