Academics at Keele University are considering industrial action after the vice-chancellor announced last week a string of redundancy programmes.
Staff believe that 34 academic posts will be lost - around 10% of the total - in the science, social science and humanities departments. The cuts will begin with a round of voluntary redundancies, but compulsory job losses are expected to follow in December.
In a memo to staff, seen by EducationGuardian.co.uk, Professor Janet Finch, the university's vice-chancellor, blamed the cuts on the "worsening" financial problems facing higher education.
"This year has seen a serious worsening of the financial problem for the whole HE sector and the impact on Keele is now clear. The whole sector has experienced problems because Hefce was unable to fully fund the outcome of the RAE [research assessment exercise] 2001. It has also restricted the funding for teaching," she said.
Professor Finch said Keele's 2002 grant from the funding council was 0.58% higher than last year, while salary costs increased by 3.5%. Keele, she said, was particularly suffering a sector-wide crisis because it had the smallest teaching budget of any university, and was more dependent on government funding because it lacked the endowments other universities enjoy. A recent upgrading of the university's computer systems had also hit its bank balance hard.
Dr Peter Fletcher, president of the university's branch of the Association of University Teachers union, and a lecturer in the maths department, said there was "general outrage" among staff, particularly in the maths and American studies departments, which are facing a 50% cut in teaching staff.
"There is no indication on how these departments will function after the loss of staff, and because we only offer joint honours degrees a cut in one department will have more knock-on effects."
He said maths and American studies were both flagship departments that had scored a five and five-star respectively in the last RAE.
He called the cuts a "short-term panic response," before adding: "We have already decided not to cooperate on voluntary redundancies - we will not talk about them. We will also consider other forms of protest including, possibly, industrial action." He said demonstrations had been planned, including one of Friday when the new vice-chancellor, Sir David Weatherall, is installed.
In her memo, Professor Finch added that the government's plans to address the funding crisis in universities, expected to be announced in January, would "have no impact in the short-term".
Nobody from the university was available to comment this morning.
