Dear Critical Management Types
If you don't already know, this coming Thursday (3rd April 2008) there will be a national rally to support colleagues at Keele University to help put pressure on its senior management to re-consider their decision to close the School of Economic and Management Studies (SEMS) and replace it with a new Business School, which will result in the loss of half of the current academic staff (38 out of 67 posts), many of whom you know well. (See email from Matthew Brannan below). This rally is an opportunity for CMS academics to take a stance against managerialism in HE - rather than simply theorise it! Irrespective of that 'most important research bid, research report or groundbreaking academic paper you really do need to write, and of course the weather, we should all make every effort to be there on Thursday to support colleagues who really do need and deserve our support.
please send this message on to as many people as possible
Regards
Frank Worthington
----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Brannan [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thu 06/03/2008 10:53 PM
To: UCU2
Subject: FW: UCU national Rally at Keele University
Dear Colleagues,
National Rally at Keele University
3 April 2008: 10.30 to 13.00
Keynote speakers: Sally Hunt, General Secretary, UCU
Roger McKenzie, Regional Secretary, Midlands TUC
As you probably know by now, Keele University is proposing to close the
highly respected School of Economic and Management Studies (SEMS) and
replace it with a new Business School, which will result in the loss of half
the academic staff (38 out of 67 posts). Senior management are still
refusing to withdraw the threat of compulsory redundancies, despite local
and nationwide opposition since the announcement in December 2007.
We know this is the thin end of the wedge. Getting away with this now will
mean it is rolled out across this University and others, as well as
providing an example for managers in other sectors.
UCU members at Keele are currently taking Action Short of Strike and members
in SEMS have also taken one day1s strike action. Keele Students1 Union has
also been actively supporting UCU1s stand.
The final decision regarding the proposals is being made on 3 April by the
University Council. Local support has been brilliant but the members at
Keele are seeking your support to attend a national rally.
Please come and bring all your friends
If you cannot make the rally please pass on your support to the Local
Association: Mike Ironside - [log in to unmask] AND let the Chair
of the University Council know, by 2 April, that the current situation is
totally unacceptable: Ian Dudson - [log in to unmask]
For more details of the rally, or to let us know you are coming, please
contact Mike Ironside as above, or Julie Cooper at UCU West Midlands region
([log in to unmask]), 0121 634 7386
This message comes to you from the Keele UCU Action Committee, endorsed by
Keele UCU branch. The rally is endorsed by UCU nationally.
Please circulate this email widely through your contact and distribution
lists.
Best regards,
--
Dr. Matthew J. Brannan
Department of Management
Keele University
On behalf of Keele University UCU
------ End of Forwarded Message
Regards
Frank Worthington
-----Original Message-----
From: Critical Perspectives on Work, Management and Organization on behalf of Cooke, Bill
Sent: Tue 18/12/2007 11:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Not about Keele's reverse retrofitting of management education but about CMS
I feel obliged to respond to Frank; but how quickly we have turned from talking about Keele to talking about us. So, this is not about Keele. I offer my support to colleagues affected there, and think we have to be guided by their proposals, and by the UCU.
As for CMS, I share a lot of Frank's concerns. But CMS is not responsible for the RAE, the QAA. And yes, there are people who have a particularly theoretical/methodological bent - and those that Frank lists are not mine, and sometimes I find them really, shall we say, challenging. But what I have to say first,is a lot of those people are doing a whole range of other things as well - without naming names - in terms of their organizing - eg in terms of their engagements with social movements, in open access publishing, and so on. And that is a challenge to the rest of us too.
And second, what I would also challenge in Frank's point is the implication that those who are interested in the high theory that he identifies are the only people who are engaged in CMS. So, yes, they are there; but so are people doing more grounded and/or empirical work; people interested in and engaged with teaching. I worry about the invisibilizing within CMS, of, say the plenary panel put together by Rose Batt of Marta Calas, Linda Smirchich, Stella Nkomo and Joanne Martin talking about race gender and class and CMS, or the workshop put together by Stewart Clegg and colleagues about teaching management critically to large scale classes; or of that put together by Alex Faria, Miguel Imas and Rafael Alcadipani about CMS in Latin America, or the one on Katrina, or Lou Uchitelle talking about labour in the US, all at recent AoM meetings. And so on.
But there are a huge range of different positions within CMS, and a lot of people doing a lot of different things. There is now so much going on at any one time that it is hard to create spaces where we come together physically or intellectually as a whole. More, so extensive has the range of work related to CMS become that we will easily be able to identify positions within CMS which are not ours, in terms of writing, organizing and so on. And of course, the obvious question is what do we have in common apart from our political problematization of managerialism. For me the obvious question is, is when we see what we are faced with, is that not enough? I know this sounds kind of silly, but for me CMS is some kind of popular front, embracing a range of positions, but with all the tensions that that implies.
And yes "we" can organize better, or differently. When I am rid of my AoM CMS responsibilities, for instance I am keen to help a more local, North West of England, low cost, non-exclusive CMS network get going (get in touch if you are interested). But there will always be failings, and we will always have to work with the tensions and contradictions of working in the academy, and in the business school sector. If we are not prepared to acknowledge the (phenomenal amount) of good things that have come out of this rather small movement of ours as well as our difficulties then we are doing the work of the Purcellists for them.
Bill Cooke