Strike? Demonstrate? For the University Forum, that 1 billion must be off the table no matter what
The new cabinet’s announced 1 billion cut in higher education has little sympathy from the University Forum. Around 100 members of the UvA staff gathered in De Rode Hoed on Tuesday evening to discuss it.
It is Tuesday, 1 October. Time for a University Forum from the UvA. In ‘new style’, as the forum does not take place as often as before, but only twice a year, with dinner in a beautiful location. This time in the main hall of the Rode Hoed. There, on Tuesday evening, about a hundred UvA academics, including students, lecturers and two members of the Executive Board, Jan Lintsen and Rector Peter-Paul Verbeek, were ready for discussion.
It quickly becomes clear that they are all concerned in some way with that sword of Damocles hanging over their heads this evening. That hefty, announced cutback in higher education (about 1 billion) by ‘the first radical-right cabinet since the war’, as moderator and lecturer in legal theory Tamar de Waal, calls the Dutch government in her opening remarks.
‘Worst cut ever’
It is not yet known exactly what consequences this severe cut will have for higher education, but at least the start-up grants seem to be cancelled. In any case, at the start of the evening, nobody really seemed to feel like fiercely defending this cabinet’s announced cutbacks. On the contrary. The only speaker behind the lectern this evening immediately calls for a strike. Speaking is Rens Bod, founder of WOInAction and professor of Digital and Computational Humanities at the UvA. He tellingly calls it the ‘worst cut in higher education ever’. Only taking action against it would be sufficient, he believes.
It is then up to the audience to come up with initiatives. This is done using the following, rather suggestive statement: ‘The entire university, including all students, should actively demonstrate against the announced cuts. The best way to do this is...?’
Yet this opening and set-up is not entirely exemplary of the rest of the evening. In the groups, discussing this proposition, other voices do resound. People who think that higher education should take a break or realise that this government is making different choices. A sentiment of ‘we all have to accept the cutbacks’, ‘make do with what we have’. The rector also noticed this, he said later in the evening, in a short plenary speech. Beyond the intimate setting of the groups, however, these noises did not emerge.
Plenary it was rather demonstrations that were considered important. Strikes against the plans were also met with understanding. Rens Bod said he heard ‘no opposition to his plans’ in the group he was in. ‘Or everyone was very friendly to me...’ he says laughing.
Role of scientists
Second proposition then, served up right around the main course: two pieces of cauliflower in mash. The proposition on the table was: ‘The biggest threat to academic freedom is not academic austerity, but...?’ Crippling the co-determination boards according to some, dismissing science as nothing more than an opinion, according to others. The latter also involves a role for science itself, notes someone from a science background. Scientists should make it clear what science is and what it can do for people, he thinks. “For example: explaining to people that you cannot use GPS without the theory of relativity.”
The results of the evening will be sent to the Executive Board. The final word is to a member of it, Rector Peter Paul Verbeek. He saw a lot of diversity in the discussion, but concludes in style: “That we don't agree with that 1 billion cut, we all agree on that.”
