My congratulations to a group of students on Facebook under the name of Save Our Subjects.
These people have pressured the University of Liverpool into reviewing its plans to close the departments of Politics & Communications, Philosophy and the division of statistics.
It’s heartening to see students achieving a deserved victor, that is as much a victory for common sense, something for which the University is not well known.
I fully expected the university to railroad its plans through, without much regard for the ramifications on students, lecturers and the profile of the university.
Hopefully this doesn’t entail an old tactic of union-busting governments and businesses where an apparent disaster is avoided, only for a watered-down version of the same plan to sneek in under the radar at a later date.
From my dealing with the university, it wouldn’t surprise me.
Liverpool – or rather the organisations responsible for branding the city – is/are getting it in the neck again, this time from the business community.
Liverpool is “‘not credible as a place to locate knowledge economy businesses”, according to LDP Business, paraphrasing a report by the outgoing chief executive of Liverpool Science Park, Dr Sarah Tasker.
Dr Tasker – who is apparently like a ‘dyed-in-the-wool native’, albeit one who lives in Cambridge – says that Liverpool is known primarily for culture, football and The Beatles.
Tasker makes the point that while Liverpool’s cultural branding successfully conveys all the fun stuff, it’s not attracting any wider interest. This is due to its failure to brand itself as a knowledge economy destination.
However, the Mersey Partnership says that Liverpool is doing better than the national average for employing those in the knowledge economy.
So, this is a problem of branding, again, if you listen to Dr Tasker. Following Liverpool’s various branding disaster of its logo and slogan, the people responsible for marketing the city must be close to jacking it in.
I’ve only just found about the University of Liverpool’s plans to close its politics, philosophy, statistics departments – apparently because it can’t be bothered with them any more. Several other departments also seem to be threatened. While other universities are considering closing departments because of a de facto budget cut Liverpool is not and, reports
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