Close Menu
Honi Soit
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Trending
    • UTS elects new Chancellor
    • Out of the Deep: The Story of a Shark Kid Who Dared to Question Fear
    • Prima Facie: Losing faith in a system you truly believed in
    • Jason Clare seeks replacement for ANU Chancellor Julie Bishop after $790,000 expense report
    • ‘If you silence someone or shush someone, you can get out’: SISTREN is an unabashed celebration of black and trans joy. Is Australia ready?
    • Mark Gowing waxes lyrical on aesthetics, time, language, and his new exhibition ‘This one is a song’
    • NTEU wins wage theft case against Monash University
    • Turning Kindness Into Strength in ‘A Different Kind of Power’
    • About
    • Print Edition
    • Student Journalism Conference 2025
    • Writing Comp
    • Advertise
    • Locations
    • Contact
    Facebook Instagram X (Twitter) TikTok
    Honi SoitHoni Soit
    Wednesday, July 9
    • News
    • Analysis
    • Culture
    • Opinion
    • University
    • Features
    • Perspective
    • Investigation
    • Reviews
    • Comedy
    • Student Journalism Conference 2025
    Honi Soit
    Home»News

    “Our uni has been overrun by a culture of profit”: Hundreds protest to save the Arts

    Students and staff united against the potential dissolution of SLAM and closure of departments.
    By Claire OllivainJune 2, 2021 News 3 Mins Read
    Photo: Aman Kapoor
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    Hundreds of students and staff gathered on Eastern Avenue today to protest the disbanding of the School of Literature, Art and Media (SLAM) and potential cuts to the departments of Theatre and Performance Studies, Studies in Religion and Linguistics.

    Speakers emphasised the importance of the departments facing closure as spaces of knowledge and community storytelling, before marching to the Quadrangle to chant outside FASS Dean Annamarie Jagose’s office.

    Isla Mowbray, Vice-President of the Sydney University Dramatic Society (SUDS) said: “We need [Theatre and Performance Studies] to stay for the future of the Australian arts community. Think about how many future directors, writers, actors, creators will lose out if this degree is cut.”

    “If they get through with this next will be English, Media and Communications and possibly other arts degrees,” she continued, highlighting that the proposed cuts take place in a broader climate of government attacks to the arts.

    Photo: Aman Kapoor

    Alana Bowden, of both Theatre and Performance Studies and Studies in Religion, expressed anger at having to push the University for transparency over the last two months: “The numbers we’re faced with don’t add up. SLAM is in a surplus of $36 million.”

    “I’ve just spent four years working in these two incredible departments that I’ve found a home in… I’m angry because I’ve got students, friends who are worrying if their degrees are worth it, whether they should just drop out.”

    Bowden argued that management salaries should be cut rather than compromising on the quality of education: “As critical thinkers, we’re a threat. We’re a threat to big business, we’re a threat to the Liberal government.”

    “It doesn’t end here, we’re part of a global crisis in the arts and humanities … These attacks are ideological and we’re going to keep on showing up, we’re going to keep on fighting.”

    Photo: Aman Kapoor

    Senior lecturer in Studies in Religion, Chris Hartney, said that “the corporates want a dumb, uncritical Australia.”

    “Studies in Religion is the critical examination of the impact that religion has on society, and there are a lot of people in this country who don’t want that critical reflection. One of them is Annamarie Jagose.”

    Hartney drew attention to the fact that these cuts are likely to occur despite the University’s better than expected financial situation, having experienced a net loss of only $2.2 million in 2020 rather than the $470 million loss forecasted at the beginning of the pandemic.

    Photo: Aman Kapoor

    Political economy student Simon Upitis argued students shouldn’t have to pay the cost for an economic crisis: “Universities to no end are run as total degree factories with no concept of the beauty of learning … if the schools aren’t profitable we don’t give a fuck, they still shouldn’t be closed.”

    Linking cuts to SLAM to the situation at the Sydney College of the Arts, Veronica Bull spoke to the diminishing quality of education, fee increases and the lack of space that visual arts students currently face: “The art school has been treated as a financial liability rather than a legitimate and important part of this institution.”

    “Our uni has been overrun by a culture of profit, so consumed by its finances that it’s lost sight of the very thing it exists for: education.”

    A University spokesperson told Honi that “no final decisions have been made” and that “change in some areas is an inevitable consequence of an organisation of our size.”

    The protest, which was organised by the Education Action Group, saw the F23 Administration Building go into lockdown again.

    Annamarie Jagose Arts cuts education cuts fass protest slam uni management

    Keep Reading

    UTS elects new Chancellor

    Jason Clare seeks replacement for ANU Chancellor Julie Bishop after $790,000 expense report

    NTEU wins wage theft case against Monash University

    USU June Board Meeting: Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye

    Former Greens candidate Hannah Thomas demands apology from Tony Burke and Sky News following eye injury at protest in Belmore

    Night Mass, MONA, and the Cult of David Walsh

    Just In

    UTS elects new Chancellor

    July 8, 2025

    Out of the Deep: The Story of a Shark Kid Who Dared to Question Fear

    July 8, 2025

    Prima Facie: Losing faith in a system you truly believed in

    July 8, 2025

    Jason Clare seeks replacement for ANU Chancellor Julie Bishop after $790,000 expense report

    July 7, 2025
    Editor's Picks

    Part One: The Tale of the Corporate University

    May 28, 2025

    “Thank you Conspiracy!” says Capitalism, as it survives another day

    May 21, 2025

    A meditation on God and the impossible pursuit of answers

    May 14, 2025

    We Will Be Remembered As More Than Administrative Errors

    May 7, 2025
    Facebook Instagram X (Twitter) TikTok

    From the mines

    • News
    • Analysis
    • Higher Education
    • Culture
    • Features
    • Investigation
    • Comedy
    • Editorials
    • Letters
    • Misc

     

    • Opinion
    • Perspective
    • Profiles
    • Reviews
    • Science
    • Social
    • Sport
    • SRC Reports
    • Tech

    Admin

    • About
    • Editors
    • Send an Anonymous Tip
    • Write/Produce/Create For Us
    • Print Edition
    • Locations
    • Archive
    • Advertise in Honi Soit
    • Contact Us

    We acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. The University of Sydney – where we write, publish and distribute Honi Soit – is on the sovereign land of these people. As students and journalists, we recognise our complicity in the ongoing colonisation of Indigenous land. In recognition of our privilege, we vow to not only include, but to prioritise and centre the experiences of Indigenous people, and to be reflective when we fail to be a counterpoint to the racism that plagues the mainstream media.

    © 2025 Honi Soit
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms
    • Accessibility

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.