[MGSA-L] Fwd: Chomski's signature

[riboush at uth.gr]

You can download the list of signatures from here, you probably looked at the
wrong site.



http://supportgreekacademia.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/signatures-25-8.pdf

The fact that you state there have been "YEARS of impotent discussions on
University reforms" shows total ignorance of what has been going on over the
last few years in Greek Universities, especially since the last law by 
Minister
Yannakou (2007) and more intensively since last year when the first 
ideas of the
present law were presented. Since then there has been a very lively debate
within all the appropriate instances of the academy, including staff meetings,
trade unions, senates (some of them were open to all members of the academic
commmunity), the Conference of Rectors, as well as many open public debates in
most of the University towns. What came out of all these discussions was a
broad agreement that a reform is needed, but not in the direction proposed by
the government and many concrete proposals have been submitted. None of these
proposals have been taken into account in the elaboration of the new law, in
spite of the Minister's alleged commitment to "open dialogue". We are grateful
for all the support we have received from University teachers all over the
world, many of whom are already struggling for years with the nefast
consequences of the neoliberal reforms in many parts of the world. For an
academic approach to these issues you might like to look at a special issue of
the Journal Social Anthropology published in February 2010. It also clear that
it will be very difficult to impose this reform on an academic community which
is opposed to it, whose views have never been seriously taken into account by
those in power and whose efforts to keep up international standards in 
academic
teaching and research has been denigrated by all means, legitimate and
illegitimate in public media campaigns.

Riki Van Boeschoten
Associate Professor of Social Anthropology
former president of the University teachers Union of the University of 
Thessaly


Quoting June Samaras <june.samaras at gmail.com>:

>> From: <mailto:cvrhasd at techunix.technion.ac.il>
>> cvrhasd at techunix.technion.ac.il<mailto:cvrhasd at techunix.technion.ac.il>
>> Date: August 29, 2011 11:36:09 AM PDT
>> To: Roland Moore <rolandmo at pacbell.net<mailto:rolandmo at pacbell.net>> 
>> Cc: June Samaras 
>> <june.samaras at gmail.com<mailto:june.samaras at gmail.com>>
>> Subject: Chomski's signature
>>
>> I think that you may both be interested in this text for your lists from
>
> http://news.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_columns_2_28/08/2011_454144
> ===================
>
> I checked the petition site myself
>
> The petition statement offers merely a blanket objection to the
> proposals, but offers no alternative suggestions or any relevant
> commentary on WHY the proposals are to be opposed, so Lord knows what
> some of the signatories might think they are adding their name to.
>
> Since there seem, so far, to have been YEARS of totally impotent
> discussion on educational reform in Greece it would appear to be
> somewhat redundant to ask, yet AGAIN, for even more delay and
> discussion and dialogue that may still lead nowhere.
>
> The site indicates that there has been to date
> 1358 signatures recorded, but exactly WHO these distinguished
> signatories might be is rather obscure since the site also states
>
> <<<PetitionOnline.com has disabled the display of email addresses for
> signatories who chose to make their address public. We have done this
> to reduce the spread of harmful Windows viruses which harvest email
> addresses from the web cache of infected computers. This also prevents
> spammers from harvesting email addresses from this site.>>
>
> Therefore I could find no way to actually find out who had signed up
> on this site. Not myself at any rate - since I would prefer to support
> some positive proposals for change rather than subscribing to a
> negative campaign that offers no solutions to problems.
>
> Here is contact information on the author of the petition :
>
> << The Defending Higher Education in Greece Petition to Greek
> Government was created by and written by Assoc. Prof. Stavros
> Kostantakopoulos (europeanuniversitas1 at gmail.com). >>
>
> To whom, perhaps, questions might be addressed for further clarification.
>
> June S
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