The Social History Society deeply regrets the recent announcement by the University of Chichester to suspend recruitment to two important history programmes, the unique MRes in the History of Africa and the African Diaspora and the BA Modern History. In axing these programmes, the University of Chichester has placed two highly respected historians and engaged … Continued
Earlier this month, the University of Essex UCU branch announced strike action in response to the threat of up to 80 per cent pay deductions for participating in the national Marking and Assessment Boycott. The proposed strike dates included the 5-7 July, so would have affected our annual conference. The SHS has long supported democratic … Continued
The University of East Anglia (UEA) recently announced that is in financial difficulty and, as a result, is exploring the likelihood of a significant number of compulsory redundancies. These proposed cuts will affect the entire institution, but will fall particularly heavily on the humanities and social sciences. This includes renowned and established departments like History, Politics, and American … Continued
The Social History Society is dismayed at the current plans for radical restructuring at Goldsmiths, University of London, which has put academics and administrative staff in the departments of English & Creative Writing and History at risk of compulsory redundancy. The History department at Goldsmiths is a dynamic and thriving centre of social history. Its … Continued
The Social History Society is dismayed at the news that undergraduate History programmes are under threat at Aston University and London South Bank University. These are the latest in a series of cuts and threats to Humanities teaching in the English HE sector, mostly among post-92 institutions. Alongside the personal distress these cuts cause to … Continued
The Social History Society has released an official statement on the impact of Covid-19 on the working lives of historians, and the implications for the future of our discipline. Click here to read more.
The SHS wishes to draw attention to this important report by the Royal Historical Society on race, ethnicity and equality within our discipline. We encourage all our members to read it and to share it through their own networks. Our chair, Prof Pamela Cox, attended the launch of the report and will look forward to … Continued
The Social History Society has released an official statement on the UCU industrial action, in which many of our members are currently participating.
The statement emphasises our belief ‘that universities should work to maintain the conditions of employment under which academics were originally employed, including pensions’. It also notes the degree of precarity often faced at the beginning of academic careers and that the proposed changes to the USS pension will significantly add to precarity at the end of academic careers as well.
Click the link above to read the full statement.
We are now five days into a strike called by the University and College Union (UCU), with another nine days of walkouts scheduled over the next two weeks. The strike has been called to defend the University Superannuation Scheme (USS), the pension scheme that staff in most pre-1992 UK universities are part of. Jonathan Saha explains why so many members of the Social History Society have felt compelled to take part in this industrial action, and why the dispute is particularly worrying given recent changes to patterns of employment in UK university History departments.
