UWS fine arts next on Howard's chopping block?

Issue 

Shelly Dahl & Fred Fuentes, Sydney

Recent academic and technical staff retrenchments have cast doubts about the future of the fine arts course at the Penrith campus of the University of Western Sydney (UWS).

As a result of the Howard government's starving of universities of funding to open them up to the "free market", numerous courses are being shut down across the country as universities try to balance their budgets.

Already this year, a large part of the arts faculty at the University of Queensland and the political economy department at Sydney University have come under the hammer.

"Over the last six months staffing levels have been cut in half and UWS management is exploring alternative uses for the purpose-built fine arts facility at Penrith campus", student representative Thomas Hungerford told Green Left Weekly.

The UWS Penrith campus's fine arts, electronic art and performance courses will all go next year as part of this savage attack. This month, a technical officer who operated the tool shop at Z block and the head of the printing department were made redundant. This has meant the printing room is only open two days a week and students are having trouble getting work completed for the graduation exhibition, which is held each year.

Similarly, the hours the shop remains open have also been cut drastically and many students are having to bring tools like as Stanley knives and screwdrivers with them from home.

GLW was told by a number of academics who asked to remain anonymous that staff have been threatened with losing potential voluntary redundancy payments if they speak out against the cuts.

On September 21, student representatives, fine art students and Resistance members held a speak-out on the campus, collecting several pages of signatures on a petition against these cuts.


Comments

Dear green left

Please correct the date of this article and insert correct my name. My history in the Green Left printed Word started in 2006. Prior to that time my revolutionary writings like many of us Forgotten Australians, liberation theologians, intersex asexual people, people born out of adultery and poverty and people with neurological disabilities like dystonic tremor unless we created our own newspaper's were not recognised by the corporate media. Fred Fuentes and Green Left was the first major newspaper in Australia i found in January 2006 sitting in the corner of the UWS Student Association in Kingswood who was not afraid to never forget to print the truth even if the prophetic truth of the God Word that we comrades write is hated by the corporate media.

 My name is comrade shelly Frances kershaw (formerly shelly Ann Dahl) and I am one of the authors of this article. I Fred Fuentes and myself wrote this article together at the old Resistance activist centre on the ground floor in 23 Abrecrombie St Chippendale  at 11am Wednesday 17 November 2006. Fred was the first one to recognise my gifts and talents of historical writing and research because we lived it. It was 2006. I had just entered the university of western sydney after a twenty five year fight to get into university only to discover the Howard government was killing voluntary student unionism and cutting our bachelor degrees at UWS. I was the UWS Penrith Queer officer, a newly recognised Resistance Activist, a new  Socialist Alliance Activist and Community Action Against Homophobia Sydney Secretary. At the time comrades found it unusual to find someone from my background that they didnt have to educate about courses getting cut by governments because you don't have to be a genious to work out there is something seriously wrong with capitalist governments need to cut students education of students from poor and oppressed backgrounds their not making any money from.

If you can correct this error on the date and correct the spelling of my name that would be helpful. God bless and love in struggle forgotten green left journalist comrade shelly Frances Kershaw. 

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