Dear colleagues, Some of these issues have been discussed here in the past, so I thought this may be of interest ... Doreen From: William Keith <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 08:31:00 -0600 >Subject: Pétition : Appel international à tous les universitaires > >International call. > >French universities are on a permanent strike. > >The French system of universities is public, with teachings and research >of high quality. It has always enjoyed independence, liberty and >recognition. But, within the past few months, the government has decided, >brutally and without any concertation, to end this system and replace it >by some sort of marketplace model of research where arbitrary decisions >and instability prevail. > > The previous statute of the academics has ended and their teaching > duties are now decided on face value. > Permanent positions are being cut dramatically and being replaced by > temporary, insecure and dependent positions. > PhD students can now be fired without any justification during the first > six months of their PhD, and are now made available to private industries > without any recognition of their rights. > The training of teachers is in distress. > Universities are autonomous (but in fact, they compete with each other > under a reinforced government control) and without sufficient funding, > they will soon have to put in place tuition fees and put themselves under > the influence of local funding sources > The CNRS is suppressed and changed into a funding agency managed by > technocrats > Academic researches are evaluated by inadequate and inept "quantitative > means" rejected by all scholar societies > >We, academics and researches from all around the world, assert that these >decisions are bureaucratic, financially motivated and dangerous. Similar >decisions were or are imposed in other institutions of many countries. As >such, we support the French academics in their fight. If, the education >and the research of the country of the Encyclopédie, of Voltaire and >Rousseau, and of the Declaration of Human Rights, are now reduced to >market laws and under the influence of the political powers, then it is >the freedom of the whole world that is under threat. > >The powers that are imposing this new deal are organizing themselves. To >defend our common values, we need to organize ourselves better and in >greater number. Therefore, we call for all academics of all political >sides, of all beliefs and of all creeds to join to oppose these changes >that no humanist scientists of any time ever supported. > >To sign >:<http://math.univ-lyon1.fr/appel/spip.php?article2>http://math.univ-lyon1.fr/appel/spip.php?article2 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- To leave the list, send a SIGNOFF CASLL command to [log in to unmask] or, if you experience difficulties, write to Russ Hunt at [log in to unmask] For the list archives and information about the organization, its newsletter, and the annual conference, go to http://www.stu.ca/inkshed/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-