... and look, there goes our humanity!
I'm torn between fucking mad and tearfully desperate.
Our university president, in his neverending wisdom, has decided to save money by firing people. And, of course all those people will be fired in the humanities. God forbid that computer sciences or economics might miss one of their 50 professors!
No, instead, let's fire some of those unproductive humanists.
Three of those job losses will concern the seminar for classical philology. My seminar.
We have eight teachers; two professors (one for Greek, one for Latin) and six "co-scientist" (two for Greek, four for Latin). They plan to fire three of the co-workers, leaving one for Greek and two for Latin.
The professor for Greek will probably retire next year, and his position won't be filled until further notice. Leaving one single person to teach Greek in the whole bloody university. But one person can't do that. So she will probably teach the Greek courses for the Latin students and do some Latin stuff on the side. But even so, our Latin prof isn't the youngest, and who knows whether his position will be filled again?
And even if that weren't the case. Four people can't juggle courses for over 200 students. They're all over-worked as it is.
If they fire those three people, we can all pack up and look for a new university. Clever, isn't it?
But we won't go down without a fight. I've already composed a letter to our president, and I know of several people who are doing the same. And once the semester resumes after the hols, I presume that there will be protests organised.
Our languages might be called dead. We aren't.
We're over 200 people, we will be joined by those who are threatened by the same fate, and we are very, very alive.