The uprising in Charlottesville really does represent a
shift in university budget politics.
Rather than everyone watching as the small departments get axed, and
hoping that they will not be next, the entire university, from the President on
down, stood up in favor of preserving a coherent Liberal Arts curriculum.
The German and Classics departments would
have been the usual budget cutting targets.
Venerable and stocked with high grade professors the UVA German
department is, yet we would have all been signing online petitions to save the
program had it not been for the principles of the university’s president and
the fact that everyone else at the University of Virginia defended the larger
principle rather than watch the humanities get chopped off like some failing corporation.
This was what we found in Toronto. If you are in that position and are fortunate enough to have colleagues in other departments who understand the academic freedom issues involved in cutting departments, you can win. a luta continua. John N.
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