Senior members of NUI Galway's arts faculty have signed a petition expressing "widespread" anxiety at the university's decision to close its women's studies centre.
Some 46 members of staff from 16 departments and centres, including a dean, assistant dean and seven professors, have queried the manner in which the decision was taken.
In their petition presented last week to the university's academic planning and resource committee (APRC), the academics have said that procedures followed "did not fully meet the objective of consultation and assent".
The university has said that there was 15 months of consultation preceding a decision to move two academic posts within women's studies into the university's department of political science and sociology.
This department will offer a new undergraduate course in humanities, social sciences and women's studies, Prof Kevin Barry, NUIG's dean of arts said.
He hoped this would attract greater numbers to undertake women's studies. However, staff at the university have said that the centre is being "closed by stealth" for budgetary reasons in advance of extensive restructuring within the university.
The NUI women's studies centre, which has two-full time and one-part time staff, was established in 1988 and has run undergraduate, diploma and postgraduate courses. It publishes an annual journal, the Irish Feminist Review, formerly the Women's Studies Review, and has developed extensive outreach links with community groups and organisations such as the Galway Rape Crisis Centre.
A review of the centre was carried out in late 2005 which confirmed its existing role in March 2006. However, after the resignation of its director, it is understood that some members of the review group reconvened to "reappraise" the situation.
On August 28th, 2005, Prof Barry sent an e-mail to heads of departments and centres in which he said he had been asked to "organise a process whereby disciplines of the faculty, to assist in the determination of the particular area of expertise to be designated in filling the permanent academic posts in women's studies, be invited to suggest areas which would complement areas of existing expertise with a view to strengthening that expertise and further developing the research strengths of the university".
Prof Barry said that the arts faculty was consulted at two meetings in early October and on November 29th last, when a full record of all consultation was also made available. He also said that the women's studies centre did not take up an opportunity to make a "counter proposal".
However, it is understood that the centre made a submission in response Prof Barry's e-mail which it regarded as a proposal.
Staff at the centre were told of the closure in early October.
