Statement of Solidarity from Irish Academics
As Irish academics, working both at home and abroad, we write to express our solidarity with the students currently occupying the London School of Economics. The insidious corporatisation that has consumed higher education in the UK over the last generation is a process with which we are becoming ever more familiar also in the Irish context. Both in the UK and in Ireland, we are being encouraged to treat our students as ‘customers’, to regard ourselves as ‘service providers’ and to deem everyone with whom we interact on campus as ‘stakeholders’. Never have we needed more urgently another model of what higher education might be – one guided by the pursuit of learning rather than the pursuit of profit, driven by free speech and radical enquiry rather than the often bogus metrics of ‘excellence’, and committed to creating a space in which everyone who teaches, works and learns is afforded the entitlement and responsibility of equality. The students who are presently occupying the LSE are committed to exploring the possibility that another university is possible and, for that, all of us who are concerned with the fate of higher education are in their debt.
Harry Browne, DIT
Dr Colin Coulter, NUIM
Mairead Enright, University of Kent
Dr Clara Fischer, LSE/UCD
Dr Sinead Kennedy, NUIM
Eoin O’Mahony, St Patrick’s College/DCU
Dr Gavan Titley, NUIM
Dr Tina O’Toole, UL
Dr Audrey Bryan, St Patrick’s College/DCU
Prof Helena Sheehan, DCU
Henry Silke, DCU
Dr Alana Lentin, University of Sussex
Dr Conrad Brunstrom, NUIM
Dr Andy Storey, UCD
Goretti Horgan, University of Ulster
Dr Anne Mulhall, UCD
Dr Debbie Ging, DCU
Dr John O’Brennan, NUIM
Dr Pauline Cullen, NUIM
Dr Stephanie Rains, NUIM
Daragh Grant, University of Chicago
Dr Carmen Kuhling, UL
Sheamus Sweeney, DCU
Dr David Landy, TCD
Katie Moylan, University of Leicester
Tina Kinsella, TCD
Dr Karl Kitching, UCC
Marnie Holborow, DCU
Anwen Tormey, University of Chicago
Colm O’Cinneide, UCL
Dr Deirdre Hynes, Manchester Metropolitan University
Deaglán O’Donghaile, Liverpool John Moores University
Prof Tadhg Foley, NUIG
Dr Lionel Pilkington, NUIG
Dr Heather Laird, UCC
Dr Chandana Mathur, NUIM
Dr Conor McCarthy, NUIM
Dr Colmán Etchingham, NUIM
Claire Brophy, NUIM
Dr Koen Leurs, LSE
Fergal Treanor, University of Antwerp
Dr Myria Georgiou, LSE
Piia Lavila, University of Helsinki
Dr Roderick Flynn, DCU
Linnete Manrique, Goldmiths, University of London
Fergal Finnegan, NUIM
Nicholas Kiersey, Ohio University
Caoimhe Butterly, Kimmage Development Studies Centre
Anna Maria Mullally, ITT Dublin
Dr Illan rua Wall, University of Warwick
Dr Kylie Jarrett, NUIM
Dr Maureen O’Connor, UCC
Dr Patricia McManus, University of Brighton
Paloma Viejo, DCU
Aileen O’Carroll, NUIM
Dr Eugenia Siapera, DCU
Dr Bald de Vries, Utrecht University
Tina Askanius, Lund University
Raymond Deane, UCD
Dr Conor McCabe, UCD
Ntina Tzouvala, Durham University
Dr Cathy Bergin, University of Brighton
Ronit Lentin, TCD
Prof Patricia Coughlan, UCC
Claire Bracken, Union College
Dr Mel Duffy, DCU
Prof Joseph Valente, University at Buffalo
Prof Lucy McDiarmid, Montclair State University
Dr Clare Hayes-Brady, UCD
Dr Fionnuala Dillane, UCD
Jane Grogan, UCD
Dr Graham Price, UCD
Dr Ellen McWilliams, University of Exeter
Dr Cliona O’Gallchoir, UCC
Dr Moynagh Sullivan, NUIM
Prof Gerardine Meaney, UCD
Dr Niamh Pattwell, UCD
Dr Charlotte McIvor, NUIG
Matthew Reznicek, Creighton University
Dr Sharae Deckard, UCD
Prof Margot Backus, University of Houston
Dr Susan Cahill, Concordia University
Prof Nicholas Daly, UCD
Prof Eithne Luibheid, University of Arizona
53 degrees 