[Sigmetrics] Update on decision on closure of Department of Information Science, Duesseldorf, Germany

[Isabella Peters]

Dear colleagues, friends and supporters of  Duesseldorf's Information
Science department,

 

yesterday was decision day:  after heated discussions that lasted more than
2h the faculty council decided for the closure of the department (10 for, 2
against, 3 abstentions). You can follow the live tweets under
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/saveiws> https://twitter.com/hashtag/saveiws

 

It appears that no substantial arguments were given for the closure, but the
dean made it clear that some financial cuts are necessary and that they have
to affect areas where a professor is retiring before 2020.

 

This is extremely sad and disappointing news. Dean and faculty council
seemed to have made up their minds already - neither the arguments from the
letters nor from the students who flooded the meeting room nor from
Professor Wolf Stock were seriously taken in account in order to revise the
decision.

 

But there is one last chance: We are now hoping for the university president
to reverse the decision and to find another solution. She might be more open
to the voices of the community. There the letters (more than 60 reached us)
and the online petition (more than 1500 signatures; see URL below) will
count even more.  


We will let you know once we have more concrete information and do know how
to proceed.

 

Thank you again for supporting us by sending passionate letters, spreading
the word online and offline, signing the petition, and by much more.

We haven't expected such an overwhelming response! It's good to know that
the Information Science community sticks together no matter what.

We hope that we can keep that spirit alive!

 

Best

Isabella, Stefanie, Violeta, Jasmin, Katrin, and Dirk

 

****

Link to petition:
https://www.change.org/p/petition-zur-erhaltung-des-studienfaches-informatio
nswissenschaft-an-der-heinrich-heine-universit%C3%A4t-d%C3%BCsseldorf-saveiw
s?source_location=trending_petitions_home_page
<https://www.change.org/p/petition-zur-erhaltung-des-studienfaches-informati
onswissenschaft-an-der-heinrich-heine-universit%C3%A4t-d%C3%BCsseldorf-savei
ws?source_location=trending_petitions_home_page&algorithm=curated_trending>
&algorithm=curated_trending

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