A student protest has been organised to oppose proposed cuts made by Bangor University, it is being organised by two students – Owen Hurcum and Kayleigh Lavornia.
The protest will take place on Friday 18th January 2019 from 1PM-4PM to show solidarity with staff and to put pressure on the University to change its planned course of action.
This date also corresponds to when the first round of redundancies are expected to be privately sent to the affected staff.
Student protesters are aiming to fill the Quad at Main Art, and the current plan is to host speeches and have placards at the event.
Hundreds of students have already expressed their interest on the Facebook event after it was posted this afternoon.
Owen Hurcum, a 3rd Year Archaeology student, and an organiser of the event, said: “I’ve never seen a student reaction like this one before.”
He added: “I think it is clearly showing students care about the happenings of Bangor University and we won’t accept circumstances where our lecturers are threatened with redundancy.
“Bangor has had a history of student lead protests over its history, you just have to look at the 1976 and ‘79 Welsh Language protests. Those protests changed University policy and I see no reason why this one can’t.”
These protests come at a time where Bangor University are aiming to make £5m in cutbacks.
Currently, around 60 lecturers/staff are at risk and the Chemistry department as a whole is facing closure.
Also, outgoing Vice-Chancellor John G. Hughes will be retiring earlier than expected, stepping down at the end of 2018 – despite previously stating he would stay for the remainder of the academic year.
Owen Hurcum, who is also a Bangor City Councillor for Plaid Cymru, says students are extremely frustrated by current happenings at Bangor University.
“These cuts are a ridiculous and needless exercise by the higher-ups of the University who have no engagement with students.
“I cannot accept the VC getting the wage and expenses he gets whilst our hard-working lecturers are forced to spend Christmas waiting to hear if they are going to be let go.”
He added: “I’m sure you don’t want to reproduce the more direct words used by students who have already been expressing their anger on the FB page ‘Bangfess’ – I’ll summarise. We are all very angry, we won’t accept these cuts and we will fight to stop them.”
Event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/201950287413173/
