Dear Colleagues,
The 25th of May marks one year since the announced closure of the Dept of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield. For the occasion, we have produced a press release (enclosed below) and a new edition of our Wall of Shame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRLGNfJz9Vw.
For those of you on social media see also posts on the SaveSheffieldArchaeology Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/SaveSheffieldArchaeology) and the Sheffield Zooarchaeology Lab Twitter page (https://twitter.com/ZooarchLabSheff).
You have helped us in the past and we are asking you to help us once again now.
Could you please spread this information as much as you can?
If you are on social media please share and retweet our posts or, even better, write your own messages stating what you feel about what has happened. You can also write your comments on our posts, which helps us in getting visibility, or share and comment at the same time. Transparency and openness are now as important as ever as the strategy of university management is to make sure that all this is forgotten and people will move on. This would be a grave mistake as injustice and iniquity need to be exposed - the war on culture and education cannot be left unchallenged if we want to guarantee an acceptable future for the next generation.
If you don't use social media, you still have the opportunity to send the links to listservs, friends groups, WhatsApp chats, and the likes.
Whenever you can please do use the hashtag #SaveSheffieldArchaeology.
That is very important for us.
Thank you so much for helping us in this long and hard struggle.
Best wishes,
Lenny Salvagno
PRESS RELEASE
24TH May 2022
The 25th of May marks one year since the University of Sheffield Executive Board officially announced its intention to close the Department of Archaeology, to the disgust of local, national, and international communities. Following massive pressure from a vibrant campaign of protest, about 1,500 letters of complaint, and more than 48,000 signatures asking for a reversal of the decision, the university management has now somewhat downscaled its initial aggression. The department will remain open for another two years and the academic staff on permanent contracts will be moved to other departments rather than made redundant. Although the intention to close, despite the massive damage to the university's reputation, is still in place, the University Staff and Student Unions (UCU & SU), and the #SaveSheffieldArchaeology campaign are still fighting against the decision. If the Department, one of the most renowned in the world, will close, the city of Sheffield and the overall region will be poorer for it, and local communities will have lost an important asset as well as a place of learning and development. The city and the region cannot and should not remain silent in the face of such disgrace, which should be interpreted in the context of the war on culture encouraged by the current UK Government. The two Sheffield Universities represent fundamental assets for the city and region and we cannot afford to see them depleted and diminished – we deserve better.
#SaveSheffieldArchaeology
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