Keeping Wednesday afternoons free is the next big fight for Durham

Durham Uni wants to increase student numbers by 5,700 in the next few years in our city which is small, cute and overcrowded. This will add pressure to lecture halls, study spaces, counselling services and much, much more.

The timetabling pressure this will create has made Durham push to add a week to Easter term and lengthen the exam period, against student wishes. Free Wednesday afternoons are next in line, and the attack is already happening. Departments like History, with limited teaching space, are already being forced to schedule seminars later and later on Wednesdays as their student number expand, a problem that is only set to get worse.

This attack on free Wednesday afternoons is happening nationally, with Goldsmith students fighting for 4 years to Keep Wednesdays Afternoons Free #KWAF.

It’s not clear whether free Wednesday afternoons in Durham will disappear gradually, as more and more classes are scheduled later and later, or be removed in one fell swoop.

The University says it values Team Durham Sports, yet they will be the first affected by an end to free Wednesday afternoons, along with countless student art, theatre, music and volunteering groups as well as your precious, er, study time.

Either the University should come out and commit to Free Wednesday Afternoons, 12 to 5, for the next ten years, or it should call off its crazy expansion schemes.