As staff members of Amsterdam University College – the joint liberal arts and sciences programme of the UvA and VU – we want to express our solidarity with the protests currently organized by De Nieuwe Universiteit, Humanities Rally and ReThink UvA.

Particularly, we underline the following issues that have been expressed through the various actions during the past weeks:

  1. The need for democratization of the university’s governance structure;
  2. The need for staff and student representation at all levels of decision-making;
  3. The need to move away from financial and managerial motivations for decisions that affect the quality of education;
  4. The need to foster a genuine academic community that combines teaching and research;
  5. The need to limit the number of temporary contracts;
  6. The need to define equitable workloads in teaching, research, and administration, and creating visible and accessible paths to career development for temporary and permanent staff alike.