FINDING MORE time on his hands than was usual, Mister Chatterbox recently took up a hobby. However, seeing himself pirouetting and dressed in a tutu at his weekly ballet class, Mister Chatterbox, who is, his friends will admit, a man of varied and remarkable talents, decided that he had perhaps overstretched himself and should return to his natural milieu. And this is my advice to the editorial team of Pi: stick to those things at which you excel.
Whatever they might be.
Mouth of the Provost
It was without irony that Pi Squared, the new grubby mouthpiece of our ne’er-do-well Provost, asked the question ‘what has the University of London ever done for you?’ Perhaps they were unaware that, when Monty Python posed a similar one of the Romans, the answer they came up with was er… quite a lot actually. Pi Squared, through their editorial comment (“The University of London must disband”) and a series of vox pop interviews, exposed the general ignorance about the University of London amongst the student population at UCL. If the four people interviewed were the voice of God (vox populi, vox dei), then I’d advise the Archbishop of Canterbury to give up the day job. Mister Chatterbox reliably informed that one of the people whom Pi interviewed was in the Union bar and was “doing a Yeltsin”.
When faced with the choice of starting an informed debate or following their unscrupulous Master’s party line, they chose the latter. So it once again falls to The Cheese Grater, Mis ter Chatterbox and his trusted goon go in search of the truth.
There has been a lot of rubbish written and said about the University of London in the last year or so. The QAA assessment in December 2005 is often raised as a criticism of the UL but this is to take it out of context (see CG 7) . That UCL is the largest net donor to the federal university is not true, we subscribe to central services of which we are the largest single user. Senate House is currently undergoing a £43 million renovation in preparation for the UL moving more facilities into it. Criticisms of its supposedly shoddy state are unfounded and the building work is to be paid through savings and the selling of the 99 year leases of certain Bloomsbury buildings to colleges, such as UCL and Birkbeck. The prospect of Professor Grant launching a Philip Green-style takeover of the smaller institutes and colleges within the University of London is highly unlikely too. One might almost suspect that it is in someone’s interests to do down the University of London, but I am not of a suspicious or conspiratorial mind, as you know by now.
Grant changes tune...
The prospect of a takeover has been greeted by those colleges, such as the internationally respected SOAS, with grim defiance. They value the independence and academic freedom, which the University enables and from which UCL itself benefits. When Imperial College announced its decision to leave the federal university in 2005, Professor Grant said, “UCL deeply regrets Imperial’s decision to leave the federal university because it can do harm to have one of the UK’s world-class research institutions depart.” Indeed at at the meeting to ratify Imperial’s decision, Grant led the expressions of regret. His tone and stance in Pi Squared appears at odds with that. One can only assume of his previous remarks that, like Don Giovanni, he meant them at the time.
In 1836, alongside King’s College, University College became a founding member of the UL. Professor Grant is right to say that the University has had great days, but he is wrong to claim those days have passed. The fact is, and it may be uncomfortable for some to admit, that UCL benefits from the common currency which a University of London degree grants. It is a universal standard which is recognised across the world. Since 1858, the External System has allowed the University of London to offer distance learning in 180 countries and led to the creation of a significant number of universities in Africa, the Carribean and provincial England. Those are international credentials and a history not to be sneezed at.
When Imperial College started the process of leaving the federation, the rector Sir Richard Sykes allegedly said to Felix, the college’s newspaper, “Do we want to be badged as London University along with some less prestigious institutions?” The point is one which might worry a lot of UCL students. There might not be a an direct equivalence of standard between an Economics degree from UCL and one at the LSE, but is any differentiation made between the quality of an Economics degree at UCL, a department ranked 3rd by The Times University Guide, and Mechanical Engineering degree from a department ranked 18th? Through the collective responsibility of to maintain academic standards the federal university does not devalue our degrees. External marking and an obligation to seek inter-collegiate marking, where possible, ensures that all University of London degrees are of an acceptable standard. Various colleges are applying to award their own degrees but only as insurance because the process of acquiring degree awarding powers is complicated and rests with Her Majesty’s Privy Council. None of this means that the University of London is losing its purpose as an academic institution.
The School of Advanced Study (SAS) is one of the world’s leading centres for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. Its mission is to “encourage and support fundamental scholarship”. It does not compete with other universities for funding. Instead it recieves special indicated funding from the government. The colleges of UL pay nothing for the school yet it plays a vital role in sharing research knowledge and expertise from across the academic federal university. If UCL were to scoop up the SAS this would almost certainly cease, a fact the Provost seems unable to grasp.
An informed source suggests Professor Grant has been “in the thick of it” working with other members the University Council on plans to reform the University for the coming years and his present “bellicose” stance towards the university has been in various quarters described as “naïve and absurd” by some and “rather unhelpful” by other University sources. Rather unhelpful? That sounds like describing North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme as a little bit antagonistic. Such macho grandstanding is beneath the dignity of the office of Provost and unworthy of the man. It is certainly fair to say that of the members of University staff to whom Mister Chatterbox talked, none had heard of Professor Grant’s new ultimatum against the UL and most were opposed to this as a negotiating tactic, dismissing what he said as mere rhetoric. Rhetoric for which the editors of Pi Squared obviously fell. Hook, line and sinker.
Academic loss
Of the £2.2 million subscription to the University of London, £600,000 (also roughly the cost of a new corporate UCL logo) goes towards giving all University College students a free subscription to Senate House library, whatever their subject or level of study. Should UCL withdraw from the federal university, this would almost certainly be in jeopardy. As they stand today, UCL’s libraries would be unable to cope with the demand and the money saved certainly wouldn’t be used to make up for the lost resources.
Moreover, sources within the University of London denied that course sharing was a “bureaucratic nightmare”. The blame for any difficulties that students experienced lies with the colleges themselves, many of whom are reluctant to miss out on money they receive for individuals. In theory it would be possible for colleges to strike bilateral agreements without a federal university to guide them. However the problems encountered by students would be greater under such ad hoc arrangements with colleges determined to hold on to their cash.
One very senior source within the University claimed that “17 ½ colleges and schools out of the 19 (now that Imperial College have left) were in favour of the benefits of the federal university.” The half being the LSE, whose present policy is to increase fees, increase the number of overseas student and effectively privatise themselves. Very third way, as former LSE Director Professor Giddens would say, but not perhaps the best model for UCL.
Professor Grant has often been heard to claim that University College London has a branding issue and that the name confuses people. Especially those silly foreigners (I assume he means). However who ever heard University College Oxford make a similar complaint?
As the Provost cries “Londinium delenda est” he makes 15% cuts with one hand and distracts by attempting to fulfil that old lie of making UCL a ‘global university’. So is Malcolm Grant, a land lawyer by profession, playing a proactive rather than reactive game in undermining the federal university? By encouraging others to jump ship first, UCL will be free to hoover up the Bloomsbury colleges, their real estate and in the ultimate rebrand, rename itself... the University of London.
The fact is that today higher education has become dominated by competition for research grants and money, which is harming both academic freedom and our education. The University of London stands above such detrimental rivalry, offering choice and diversity for students which is not possible within individual colleges, not UCL. The sad fact is that it is with these ideals that the Uni versity of London has become the true heritor of Bentham’s vision of access for all in higher education – regardless of race, colour or creed. Meanwhile our Provost,‘an enemy of God and man’, and now, the University of London, is swimming frantically with the vain and vapid intellec tual tide with that has been the unfortunate mark of UCL Plc.
Whilst UCL may be the Coca-Cola College i.e. the original product, the University of London is the Heineken of universities – it reaches places others can’t. Yes, there are problems. Yes, it needs reform. Yes, they are reforming. No, it must not disband. No, threats and ultimata do not help. And no, Pi Squared, your homework wasn’t up to scratch. Try harder next time.