March 9th 2008 ‘Save Sheila Rowbotham Campaign’: History so far.

Last autumn I asked the Head of Social Science, Prof David Farrell if I could stay on after I am due to retire in September 2008. In Britain the retirement age is 65 though European law now has raised questions about this. But in academia it is quite common for people to come back after retiring doing part of their former job. I asked to do a third -undergraduate and graduate

teaching- for a further three years, partly because I enjoy teaching and partly because my pension will be very small as I entered university work late in life. He said no because Manchester has under the new President/Vice-Chancellor, Alan Gilbert got into financial difficulties.

62 academics (from sociology, anthropology , economics, geography, history, drama, English and even medicine) signed an email asking him to

reconsider mentioning that I have a book out

soon on Edward Carpenter and another manuscript almost finished but he still said no. I decided (based on my experience) that it was not worth appealing. However I did want to register that I had wished to stay on and when I wrote saying this to Busola Phillips from human resources she said I must go and see him again with a trade union representative.I have since learned this is the formal procedure if you want to appeal.

A friend in English , Prof Janet Wolff, had meanwhile been told by her head of school and the dean Alastair Ulph that she could stay on for half her job. But Prof Terry Eagleton, who also wished to stay was told he could not.

Terry Eagleton has been in a debate in the media with Martin Amis (one of the ‘iconics’ appointed to raise the profile of the university). In an interview he mentioned that he was one of three professors. The Guardian education correspondent , Polly Curtis, worked out through friends we have in common that one was me. She rang me under the impression that a mass McCarthyite witch hunt was afoot at Manchester University. I explained it was just that I had asked to stay on for a third of my job and been told no.

There is, however a wider context. My own rather small grievance has arisen amidst widespread unhappiness and discontent. We are meant to be a ‘business’ ‘entreprise’ type university with an international profile. Hence all the big spending. I come from a small business background where debt was regarded as folly and sacrilege so it all seems rum to me. The causes for the debts are not clear; however new buildings, status appointments of ‘iconic’ figures and increases in staff pay have contributed. Opinion varies on how long term it will be and on how far it was planned or due to bad calculations.

A centralised top down management structure has been introduced and departments abolished. The rationale is efficiency but the result has been the opposite. Right through the university administrative staff have faced dramatic increases in their work load and been cut off from contact with students and academics except through email. Many have taken voluntary redundancy (encouraged to reduce the debt). This has intensified the pressure on administrative staff and had a roll on effect on academics making day to day operations very difficult.

Academics in Social Science have written collective letters of protest expressing concern about our conditions of work and academics from several schools have had critical meetings with the President about the negative consequences of the decision-making structure. Graduates too have protested. However, and this is new in Manchester, the undergraduates have emerged as the most active critics .

The students on social science

courses have been particularly outraged by the ill-conceived new building we all had to move into last term, which required academics throwing out many of their books to fit into the new rooms. The graduates’ work space is open plan and few use it as they find it hard to concentrate. To secure their belongings and the computers, entry is by card only. So undergraduates have to telephone us outside the doors when they come to talk about their work and we have to go and let them in. We trot back and forth like shepherd dogs. The students are also unable to go and see the administrators as they are shut in a communal room. The students queue to see someone at the desk. The built environment has become the symbol of an approach which denies the importance of human relating in an educational institution and reduces us to functional units ticking boxes.

A narrow concept of efficiency failed to recognise that over the last decade as students numbers grew and academics became more remote from them as individuals, the secretaries in each dept were crucial as communicators. In 2007 to offset the debts incurred more students have been admitted and numbers on the teaching assistants’

tutorials have gone up from around 10 to 14 to over twenty in some cases. This makes it difficult for students to mull over ideas and participate. They have been demonstrating and agitating on Face book. The building has come to symbolise the wider denial of human relationships within the institutions official structure.

It was the undergraduates who decided it was unfair that I could not teach a course they like ‘Sociology of the Counter Culture’ next year. My courses are options which attract large numbers of students. One has gone up to 100 some years.

‘Sociology of the Counter Culture’ is over 60 and people were evidently turned away because the room allocated was not big enough. Even though the university is now seeking to address student discontent I had no faith that the fact students like my classes would carry any weight. Indeed my head of department told me he had said they were large to the Head of the Social Science School before the decision was made that I could not stay on. Anyway the students told me I was being defeatist, and some third and second year combined to put a ‘Save Sheila Rowbotham’

campaign on Face book. Several hundred people (mainly young as oldies like me don’t know how to do Facebook much) have signed up. From Face book the news reached human rights and women’s networks and people have been writing to the President/Vice Chancellor, the Dean and the Head of Social Science from India, Europe, the US. The first I heard of this was a phone call from Ros Baxandall the other day. Now it has also been taken up by labour movement people and women activists locally who do not usually relate much to what is happening in the university.

I am rather overwhelmed. I had Repetitive Strain Injury badly several years ago and it flairs up under stress. I try and cut down on typing. I don’t think I have good stamina for battling with institutions. Campaigning for others is what I am accustomed to! I also think in terms of the terrible suffering so many people endure in the world my own case is not high priority.

However I am moved and very grateful. It is an honour to receive support from so many different people. I feel great respect for the students. It is also lovely to see how rebellion fires up students to be interested in ideas and reading more generally- just as it did my generation in the 1960s. They have made me feel that the university could be so much more alive and exciting if that energy and creativity could be fostered more.

I am also aware that this issue has wider implications. Because of all the outside support , the union has decided to push on the issue of older people being allowed to work if they wish and have taken up my case. The Associate Vice Chancellor for diversity and the director of the race relations centre have also been supportive because they know about my work. Colleagues in sociology have organised a conference on the importance of continuing the role of the public intellectual which is to be held on June 7th.

The university room was too expensive so it will be in the premises of the Unitarian church.

Manchester Unitarians have a great history of opposing slavery and in recent times meetings around prisoners in Guantanamo were held there so it is a pretty honourable place to be meeting in. Helena Kennedy, Peter McMylor, Lynne Segal and Hilary Wainwright have agreed to speak. My dept, sociology is giving £200 to this and the Centre for Cultural Theory is also backing it.

The John Rylands Library in Deansgate are planning to put on an exhibition on their Carpenter collection in relation to Queer up North and want to link it to my forthcoming biography. So I do feel that my contribution to the university is being recognised.

It is evident that Manchester is part of a wider picture, the changes in the structure of the universities are occurring in many places. Up till now I have just groaned with colleagues.

This is forcing me to look around and think in a more concerted way about what would be better in terms of work and education. Whatever happens to my particular case it feels as if it has helped to create an opening for resistance.

Sorry this is a rather long outline. I hope it clears up the confusion about what has been going on. I am still employed until the end of September this year. Just now I am in rather a limbo. (And frantically cutting hundreds of end notes in the book I am doing on Edward Carpenter). David Farrell is not able to meet up with me and the union rep Ivan Leudar on March 11th as planned so it looks as if we won’t meet until after the Easter break.

Thank you very much for your time and for your concern.

Sheila