Hi All
A number of us are in Florida at the ISA conference, and have just been made
aware of this (thanks to David Cranstone). I just spoke to Thilo, and
we agree
that the Times Higher Education Supplement should be the target for a letter.
The letter should focus on the fact that that the denial of a permanent
position was based on faulty reviews. For this reason we need to
establish that
the articles in question are (contrary to the opinions of the
reviewers) of the
highest quality and of broad international relevance.
This will give Gill's union a basis for seeking to have the decision
overturned.
I have the text of these reviews and will circulate it via this list when I
return to Tucson tomorrow. Frankly I don't care whether those who wrote the
reviews consider this a breach of confidentiality. These names of the
reviewers
are not on the reviews, so they can hide behind their ill-informed opinions.
Dave
Quoting David Scott <[log in to unmask]>:
> A letter to the Times HES seems like a good idea to me, although since
> i am resident in usa i have no idea if this is taken as seriously as
> it once was. i have still not received a reply to the letter i wrote
> on jills behalf and was interested in the bureaucratic gobbledegook
> response that was already sent out by exeter....best to all...
> Professor David A. Scott
>
>> Dear All,
>> Since the last post, SALON have published a 'correction' from Exeter
>> to the previous item:
>>
>>
>> Feedback
>>
>> Exeter University has asked that the following corrective statement
>> be published in Salon in respect of the report that appeared in the
>> last issue, headed ‘Leading archaeological metallurgist has post
>> downgraded’.
>>
>> ‘The University of Exeter would like to make clear that Dr Juleff
>> was not demoted or downgraded; indeed, the University of Exeter has
>> no mechanism by which staff can be “demoted”. However, it does,
>> on occasion, appoint staff to temporary academic contracts with
>> further employment linked to specific targets. In such cases, the
>> targets, and the processes of ascertaining whether these targets
>> have been achieved, are mutually agreed between employer and
>> employee. As is the case with probation, where the targets are not
>> achieved, the employer has the right not to extend the contract.’
>>
>> I've also had a reply to my letter to the Vice-Chancellor
>> (presumably others have had similar replies?), including the
>> sentence 'Following the decision not to promote her, Dr Juleff has
>> been excused all teaching duties this year to allow her to dedicate
>> her time exclusively to her research'. And Gill has now been
>> told by her department that as a teaching fellow her work will
>> not be included in the REF.
>> So Gill hasn't been demoted - she has been dis-promoted to a O.3
>> Teaching Fellow, who is excused all teaching in order to do research
>> that is excluded from the REF because she is now just a Teaching
>> Fellow! Does that make her an unperson? And is this out of Kafka
>> or George Orwell? And Gill has been at Exeter for nearly ten
>> years, and been included in two RAEs - not a demotion?, and how
>> does anything akin to 'probation' apply?
>> Seriously, this is horrific, and utterly unfair to one of the best
>> researchers in our subject - and the letters of objection from the
>> lines of David Killick and Phillippe Dillman make it quite clear
>> that her work on Sri Lanka is not just of 'local importance'.
>> I'd hoped Exeter would realise they'd made a mistake, and reverse
>> their decision, but clearly that isn't going to happen. I don't
>> think we should let matters rest - this is too important for Gill,
>> for our subject (especially in Britain, where there are so few
>> university archaeo-metallurgists), and seemingly for academics
>> generally if this sort of use of the assessment system is allowed to
>> grow unchallenged. Would the best way forward be a letter, or
>> even an article, to either the Times or the Guardian Higher
>> Education Supplements, from several leading international
>> professors and experts (David Killick, Phillipe Dillman, and I
>> think several others from UK and elsewhere have also written to
>> Exeter)? That would automatically give the lie to the assessment
>> that Gill's work is only of 'local importance', and I think it
>> would be more effective than a letter or petition signed by the
>> rest of us.
>> It's also possible that the wider publicity might flush out some of
>> the assessors - from what we've seen here, I do wonder if they
>> actually knew how their assessments were going to be used, and
>> whether they will be happy about it.
>> Let's not give up!
>> David Cranstone
>>
>>
>> --- On Tue, 4/5/10, DILLMANN Philippe <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> From: DILLMANN Philippe <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: Please support Gill Juleff
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Date: Tuesday, 4 May, 2010, 18:33
>>
>>
>> Dear list
>>
>> I had the opportunity to serve the cause in France ! I was contacted
>> by a journalist of the French scientific magazine "la recherche" to
>> give my opinion the "Juley" affair. I try to transmit in French our
>> anger.
>>
>> Just to inform you that the affair is now crossing the channel !
>>
>> Yours
>>
>> Philippe
>>
>>
>> Le 3 mai 2010 à 18:59, "Dave Killick" <[log in to unmask]> a
>> écrit :
>>
>>> Thanks to all who have written to the Vice-Chancellor at Exeter to
>>> protest Gill's demotion. The appeal had been spread further via the
>>> British Women Archaeologists listserv, the South Asian archaeology
>>> listserv and the British Archaeological Jobs resource listserv.
>>> There was also a short piece on this in the Society of Antiquaries
>>> of London Online Newsletter (http://www.sal.org.uk/salon/
>>> #section15). This contains a link to a page about Gill's Exmoor
>>> project on the Exeter Archaeology web site - and if you go to the
>>> Exeter Archaeology home page you will find in the upper right hand
>>> corner a link to a page about her current project in India.
>>>
>>> I have heard from a couple of people with contacts inside Exeter
>>> admin that this campaign has caused both anger and embarrassment. I
>>> hope that the pressure on them can be sustained.
>>
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