Student-led petition fights lecturer’s sacking at Sydney’s Macquarie University
In just over a week, mathematics students at Sydney’s Macquarie University have already won the support of well over 400 students and colleagues for a petition demanding the reversal of an announced retrenchment of a highly-regarded mathematics lecturer.
Dr Frank Valckenborgh was told he was made redundant on June 18 as a result of a “hunger games”-style process. Academic staff members across the entire university were forced to compete for their own jobs, via a “spill and fill” process, as the management sought to forcibly retrench more than 80 full-time academics.