Save Our Art & Design Technicians
Category: Sunderland Petitions
The University of Sunderland promises students who pay to complete our art and design courses access to a variety of resources and workshops on campus. We have highly qualified and experienced technicians who have very different specialities in different media and techniques who make these services possible for the students to access. The courses rely on them hugely. They make lesson plans possible, they are essential in the planning of events in the university spaces, and they offer tailored advice to students and help them one-to-one. Former students have spoken fondly about our technicians and have stated they couldn't have completed their degrees without the knowledge and skills of the technicians helping them.
The university is making two technicians with very different specialities who work with different art courses compete for the same job. Both technicians have decades of experience in their different fields. One is focused on design, particularly working digitally and aids design students with techniques such as 3D printing, fabric and sublimation printing, and working with our vinyl cutter. The other focuses on fine art courses and is a sculptor, welder, and woodworker. These jobs are very different. They cannot be merged. We cannot stand to lose either of them. Students paying for services and workshops promised to them when they accepted their offer should not lose out on those services part-way through their course. It is unreasonable for the university to expect either technician to learn a new skill set for a different practice; it shows a lack of understanding and a disrespect for the artistic disciplines to think they can be transferred so easily. Our students and our loyal staff deserve better.
We urge the university to rethink the decision to remove either technician. It will be a huge loss to our university.
Company limited by guarantee.
Company registered in England no: 07702161
Registered Charity no: 1148212
VAT no: 178592316
University of Sunderland Students' Union
City Campus,
Edinburgh Building, Chester Road
Sunderland, SR1 3SD
Company limited by guarantee.
Company registered in England no: 07702161
Registered Charity no: 1148212
VAT no: 178592316
Comments
Get rid of some of the executives running this university into the ground on their 300k+ salaries and keep both technicians instead
Getting rid of the technicians is the dumbest idea I have ever heard they literally keep everything running. Next your gonna say your getting rid of the walls for blocking your view
Bad enough our course is teaching out without the threat of losing the technicians!
Honestly if it wasn’t for the technicians especially the ones that is about I wouldn’t of gotten to third year the workshops, classes, one to ones and being able to ask advice and opinions on ideas and have the help of an experienced technician support these ideas and make them work. I wouldn’t accept an offer at this uni for any creative course knowing that the technician could be gone part way or even before I left after being promised these things. If this happens I will not be doing a postgraduate or masters at the uni. This uni just keeps getting worse and worse after a promise of an amazing time and experience and education. I should of just moved abit away from home and came back to visit or went to somewhere else local.
I've joined as a mature student, as a top up yr 3. The technicians are amazing at there jobs. I would not have had the confidence to produce the work with metal was it not for them
Having to remove either one of them is unfair to students and technicians cause they helped us with our challenges based on their knowledge of different art fields . You can’t just put them together thinking that either one will work just as well. It’s a disrespect to technicians who have decades of expertise with this change it will definitely affect students learning .
Technicians were, are and will be an essential part of any academic institution to keep the teaching and learning procedure running, as well as further enhance both the student's and educator's experience. Laying off people who hold such an important role in this university is a poor decision that will, ultimately, affect the students and teaching staff greatly, the very few that truly keep such learning institutions running in the first place.
This is another blow to the arts. The university promises an amazing experience yet they're threatening to rid of the very people who help us students with various challenges we face when we are producing work. It's thanks to the technicians that we get the knowledge we need to make work, and we form amazing connections with them that motivates us to keep creating and exploring different artistic outlets. This is unfair to both the technicians and us students. Get a grip and stop running the arts into the ground.
The technicians are the back bone of art and design, without them the uni wouldnt function and to suggest their jobs are anything less that vital is an insult to both them and the students that need them
As a first year student this news is devastating. I chose this university for the facilities and the staff that facilitate the them. Cutting back vital technicians is unacceptable. How are we meant to succeed in our studies with these cuts ? The members of staff that are in jeopardy are a vital part to the arts Cutting them will end the arts departments.
As a first year student this news is devastating. I chose this university for the facilities and the staff that facilitate the them. Cutting back vital technicians is unacceptable. How are we meant to succeed in our studies with these cuts ? The members of staff that are in jeopardy are a vital part to the arts Cutting them will end the arts departments.
Students shouldn’t have to pay for a course if there are no qualified teachers to run it
Getting rid of the technicians would be a recipe for disaster they run the whole art and design building making sure all of us students have everything we need from equipment to knowledge, in my short amount of time of being here I have learnt more from the technicians than all the tutors put together through out my whole education career and I'm sure others feel the same too. Getting rid of the technicians is the same as saying your not bothered about your creative students future's, they are the heart and soul of why we choose to continue studying here
I started last year as a mature IFY student. I know I would not have got the grades I did if it were not for the help and support of the technicians. I needed help with different types of printing and was given expert help in completing my major assignment. Nothing was any trouble and I was given help whenever I needed it. I would never have been able to complete my assignment to the standard I did without the help of the technicians. Without the help of specialist technicians a lot of students will struggle and be put under a lot of unnecessary pressure.
This is so unfair!!! We as paying student deserve the highest standards of teaching and lose either one of our amazing technicians is absolutely ridiculous. Plus the technicians deserve respect as an employee of the university. Treat them with respect and dignity. Our teaching staff in the arts field, work above and beyond what there are pay for and this is how you are going to repay them.... SHAME ON THE SO CALL Chancellor or vice Chancellor for even thinking of doing this. Why don't you try a day in our technicians day of work, You might learn something 🤔. And take a pay cut out of your bursting pay packet to save our amazing staff before you lose existing and new student wanting to attend this university. Think it's time to rethink this 💡 idea
Whoever had the disrespectful idea to get rid of any of the technicians needs to be fired themselves. This uni would be so much better off without them.
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As a international students its really hard to recognize every objects and things. We need a guidance who can build up our confident who make our life succed academically. I join this university because of the facilities u provide us but now i´m really upset that i heared a news that this university toss out our technician.....we need our technician.....we need our confidence....we want our future bright✊✊