more on SOAS's difficulties

[Dominik Wujastyk]

Status: RO

I have now learned that also the External Services department at SOAS
is to be axed.  This is the dept. which teaches Japanes, Arabic,
etc. to diplomats, businessmen, and so forth.  It was started as
a money-making project, but didn't, apparently.
 
There has been some comment that my note sounded as though I
was more concerned with the loss of SOAS's Bulletin than of
the Linguistics dept.  On re-reading the note I thought I got
the emphasis wrong too.  I was writing in a hurry, and was
aiming the note particularly at the members of INDOLOGY.  Also,
it isn't just the Bulletin, but all the staff in the publications
department, including the Bulletin's editor.
 
Furthermore, there is at least some hope that the Bulletin will
survive with another publisher, or in some altered form.  But
the loss of Linguistics is much more final.
 
I have heard a little more about the whole affair, but nothing
very substantive.  Apparently the committee within SOAS which
made these decisions has had a long and tortured series of
meetings over the past months before coming to these decisions.
It looks as though the real villan of the piece is the Universities
Funding Council, who are putting SOAS in an impossible position,
financially.
 
In yesterday's Independent newspaper there was an article about
King's College, London, which is facing a funding deficit of
four million pounds, and is laying off 220 staff, of which
70 are academics.
 
Dominik