Tom Wills
The Badger
Monday 25 February 2008
- Students and staff rally against University reforms
Over 160 students and staff rallied against proposed University reforms in a mass meeting last week.
Speakers from across the university community said the changes threatened Sussex’s long-standing tradition of unique, critical approaches to teaching and research, echoing concerns reported in recent issues of The Badger.
They are expecting an even bigger assembly this week, as an increasing number of staff and students speak out. They say the plans, set out by University management in a green paper, run counter to core principles of education.
The Green Paper suggests new teaching and research themes, which it says will allow the University to improve its finances. But some staff say the themes will fail to attract extra funding while undermining academic freedom. One Professor from SOCCUL said “We should defend the particular way that this university takes up any subject it wants, and defend that mode against a management which obviously came here with a plan. That plan is not so much a market plan, but a political plan. Whenever people start pontificating about the market, usually they have political aims.”
“The political aim has something to do with the economy, but not with letting market forces work. Because if market forces were to work, International Relations, for example, should be supported and allowed to do what it does, because we are attracting more and more students. But apparently we are attracting the wrong students. What is being imposed, I feel, is a particular discipline. Society wants a grip over the kind of person that comes out of University. Every aspect of what we do has to be disciplined. You have to be disciplined so when you come out of university you are a particular type of person, who dreams of working for the Ministry of Defence, for example.”
Another Senior Lecturer told the meeting the plans were partly a response to government pressure to carry out research with measurable economic and political benefits – a trend which he said was degrading standards of academic research.
Their concerns reflect recent worries from UK academics in light of the latest cut in Arts & Humanities research funding. Dr Tom Gretton, head of History of Art at UCL, told the Guardian last week, “It is clear that [the government] want research whose findings can easily be measured. We have moved from research that is critical to research that is manageable, and in the process academics are being turned into civil servants, because they will inevitably only submit proposals for study into areas they know the government think are worthwhile.”
Jim Guild, secretary of UCU, the main campus trade union, said “The green paper has not been thought through properly.” He highlighted the plan to recruit 465 extra students to business and management courses, which he said was unrealistic and would likely result in funding being withdrawn from other areas.
An Associate Tutor said they would be affected by the changes in their multiple roles as tutors, students and researchers. She told fellow students, “If we follow the administration’s advice, your education will suffer.”
Koos Couvée, USSU Communications Officer, said “We are not in control of our education. We are increasingly subject to ridiculous curricula and performance standards imposed on us from the top. Education Not for Sale tries to address this and take back control.”
One member of faculty captured the mood of the meeting when he explained what first attracted him to academia. He said, “I spent three months making a lot of money in the 1970s on an oil camp in the middle of Libya, as an Italian-Arabic-English translator – between the Italian company, the Americans and the locals – while they laid a pipeline across the desert.
“After three months I was absolutely desperate to go back to university. It was a thirst for knowledge and understanding, in an environment in which there was neither of those things – everything was ‘make money, make money, make money.’ That’s a thirst which I think has brought all of us here in one way or another.”
- Next mass meeting open to all students and staff: Arts A1 Lecture Theatre, Thursday 28th February 5pm-7pm
- LIFE SCIENCES student school meeting with management: 27 February: 0900-1030 JMS 4D13 & 4D14
- SOCCUL student school meeting: Wednesday 27 February 1400 - 1500: Bramber House Room 232
