Turner Prize winner among campaigners to save ceramics department at University of Westminster

The university has said the department, at its Harrow campus, is to close in 2013, but it now faces a storm of protest from experts in the field who have backed a campaign from UCU to save the department.

A petition on the Number 10 website has already attracted 1,000 signatures and the support of highly respected specialists in the field such as Turner Prize winner Perry; Felicity Aylieff, Chair of the National Association of Ceramics in Higher Education and a senior tutor at the Royal College of Art; Alun Graves, Curator of Ceramics and Glass at the Victoria and Albert Museum; Lord Queensbury, who spent 20 years as the Professor of Ceramics at the Royal College of Art; Rosy Greenlees, Director of the Crafts Council and Kate Malone, whose work is studied in the national school curriculum.

They are among the dozens of people to have written to the university's vice-chancellor, Professor Geoffrey Petts, calling on him to reconsider the decision to shut the department. UCU warned today that if the university pushes ahead with its plans the UK will be losing a unique course and the university will be damaging its international standing.

Harrow Ceramics Department course leader and UCU member, Kyra Cane, said: 'The department is quite unique in this country in that it provides training in the art, craft and technology of studio ceramics, backed up by a rigorous Art History and General Studies programme. Many of the country's most respected studio ceramists have studied on the course. The school has an international reputation and attracts students from all over the world, something that clearly will not continue if we are forced to close.'

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'We have been encouraged by the response to the planned closure from the luminaries of the ceramics world. Quite clearly people who really understand ceramics and value the department's incredible history and cutting edge work of today are adamant that it must not close. We simply cannot afford to lose such a prestigious department.'

Harrow Council has passed a motion calling on the university to save the ceramics department.