Sir Tom Stoppard, whose screenplay for the film Shakespeare in Love earned him an Academy Award in 1998, added his weight to the campaign against the cuts by signing a letter to Scotland's Education Secretary Michael Russell. It called on Mr Russell to put pressure on the court, whose rector is Liberal Democrat MP Charles Kennedy, "to avoid damaging and irreversible cuts to subject areas." Some 170 Glasgow University academics and 150 from other institutions have also signed the letter.

Nursing, anthropology, social work and the university's Centre for Drugs Misuse Research are among the areas under threat. Modern languages including Czech, German, Italian, Russian and Polish also face the axe. Evening and weekend classes, which serve up to 5,000 adults a year, could be cut back.

The signatories also called on Mr Russell to ensure the university remains "an outward-looking institution rooted in the community that it serves rather than working primarily to maximise income in the international marketplace."

The university's Hetherington Research Club has been under occupation by students and academics for over two weeks as part of the campaign. One student occupier, who wished only to be identified as Susan, warned: "The university will be turned into small elite body of people who can pay for education. The majority of cuts will be on the arts and humanities side so that the university can focus on money-making science and research-based subjects."