[MGSA-L] Department of Philology - University of Patras: Keep the Department in Patras! Stop its relocation.

Maria Charitou charitou.ma at gmail.com
Wed Dec 5 09:50:44 PST 2012


Keep Philology in Patras!
The department of Greek Philology in a major Greek University threatened
with relocation.
The financial crisis officially enters Greek academia as governmental
planning merges Humanities departments of the University of Patras (the 3rd
largest university of the country) with the University of Peloponnese (one
of the newest universities, founded six years ago and scattered through
several towns of Peloponnese).
The first Department to be affected is claimed to be Greek Philology which
includes the Divisions of Classics, Byzantine & Modern Greek Literature and
Linguistics. What is particularly striking is the fact that there are plans
for relocating an already established and internationally recognised
department of a well-developed University to a newly founded (2002)
department, with no established academic reputation, lacking a coherent
center (unlike Patras), and which is based in a geographically remote area,
280 kilometres away from Patras.
The relocation will affect 24 permanent faculty members and 1,300 students,
and will be a major blow to the Philology Department as well as the
University of Patras itself— a top-tier institution, maintaining a leading
role in the last fifteen years in the Humanities and the Sciences, and with
demonstrated international acclaim.
The results of the recent External Evaluation in early 2012 are
outstanding, ranking the Department of Philology first in the country. The
Department hosts unique institutions among Greek academia such as the
Centre for the Study of Myth and Religion in Greek and Roman antiquity
(managed by Classics), the Laboratory for the Study of Modern Greek
Dialects (managed by Linguistics)— and which is the sole research body in
the country documenting and studying varieties of Greek from a modern
linguistics perspective— and the Laboratory of Paleography (managed by
Byzantine and Modern Greek studies). These laboratories are dedicated to
documentation and analysis of valuable and, to date, largely undocumented
material in all areas of Greek, from antiquity to modern times. Faculty is
actively engaged is cutting edge research, and has won numerous national
and international awards, and highly competitive grants, such as Thales,
Aristeia, etc.
The faculty members maintain research collaborations with Universities
across the globe (e.g. Bologna, Cambridge, Harvard, UCL, Leiden, McGill,
Sorbonne, Ohio State, Pisa, UQAM, etc.) and, apart from its undergraduate
student cohort, it hosts 70 postgraduate students (both MA and PhD) most of
which are externally sponsored. The Department is also the only Philology
department in the country that promotes interdisciplinary research by
securing collaborations with faculty in natural sciences, health sciences
and engineering, thus also fostering collegiality and social cohesion
within the University.
There is, therefore, no scientific basis for downgrading a top-tier and
well-established department. Instead, a rational restructuring must support
the department of Philology at the University of Patras— as the external
evaluation committee urges—, and use it as the foundation for eventual
mergers.
The Greek Ministry of Education will announce their final decisions on
December 15th 2012. If you would like to support Greek Philology
(Linguists, Byzantine & Modern Greek Literature and Classics) in their
struggle against academic deprivation, please sign this petition.

http://www.change.org/petitions/department-of-philology-university-of-patras-keep-the-department-in-patras-stop-its-relocation


Thank you,

Maria Charitou,
Graduate student,
Department of Philology - University of Patras.
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