Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Is it a good sign if the university one attended finds itself on eBay?
Thought not. Apparently, the new [to me at least] VC at Exeter has bollocksed up quite a lot of stuff, and so in his wisdom has decided to close the departments of Chemistry, Music, and Italian. Which given they merged the Schools of Biology and Chemistry a couple of years ago, does not sound good. It sounds even less good as I still know people studying and working in both the biology and the chemistry departments.
Just thinking of the impact on my own course [for I studied BS. No, really, I did Biological Sciences]. A heck of a lot of the first year was taught by chemists. A lot of the second and third years could have been, had I chosen so. The notion of trying to teach biology whilst skimming round the concept of chemistry, would just be futile. Biologists might not like to admit it [possibly the "stamp collecting" jibe created this attitude], but it relies heavily on the other sciences, and is most interwoven with chemistry.
So removing one damages the other. I think there are quite a few other departments which would get damaged by the absence of a chemistry department. Physics obviously, medicine, geography, engineering, psychology, if I name the standard examples. Each of these uses chemistry in some part. Take out one science and the rest struggle.
To improve matters the university appears to be sulking that the news was leaked, and is spending its time getting cross about the leak, rather than explaining the finer details of the moves, and demonstrating the need for the closures. They have yet to explain quite why the deficit increased by a fair chunk over £3 million in a year, or exactly what happen to the their former surplus.
To me it seems as if taking out the chemistry department will not cure the losses, especially as the three threatened departments caused a loss of about £1 million. So where did the rest of the overrun go? I think removing chemistry will impact upon the other schools. So what happens if the upheaval knocks off one of a department's precious 5 stars? Funding drops for that, and so that hits unprofitability. So should that get axed too? How does the chain stop?
And this is only examining the impact of one department closing. Music and Italian will also go, although they've been trying to close music for years. I am of course being very biased, as I have had much more experience with the chemistry department over the others, and so care about it more. Honestly I think it can never be a good thing if a university seeks to remove part of its offerings, especially if that part is so integral to a large proportion of the rest of the university.
I hope it doesn't happen, but I don't know enough to see a way round it.
Anyhoo,
PS. Strangely the university remains quiet on the subject, whilst continuing to put out news stories about Lord Sainsbury praising the chemistry department. They are also offering Chemistry degrees as part of the 2005 prospectus. This is despite departmental staff jumping ship at the news [which presumably has been around long enough the staff had time to arrange to jump ship]. Most, most odd.
PPS. MS Word claims "bollocksed" should read "bollixed". As I've never heard of the word before, I haven't added it, and I can't think of anyone else who might have done. Which means it exists in the default dictionary that came with Word, but strangely isn't on the "do not suggest" list unlike other impolite words. I can accept that cks could become x, but why the vowel shift? Presumably it's an Americanism.
And what is it with Word and the word which? Every time I use the word, it suggests change the sentence to xxx, which xxx or xxx that xxx. Am I the only person in the world who doesn't understand this and usually finds that using "that" doesn't sound right? (Well I know I'm not, as I've heard my brother complaining about the same thing, but he doesn't count).
