Flight from the Barricades
Or ‘where have all the intellectuals gone?’
It is widely known that higher education as we know it in the British
Isles is entering a period of destructive re-appraisal, largely
on financial grounds. Quite apart from the ramifications of the
Research Assessment Exercise, and the basic misconceptions that
University Boards (understandably) are carrying along like self-inflicted
wounds, a shift has occurred in the underlying criteria that underpin
the importance of institutions of HE. Across the spectrum, various
departments are in decline. Chemistry and physics are under threat,
even astrophysics. A swathe of chemistry departments have already
closed, as has agricultural sciences at Imperial College, London.
History of ideas is threatened at Kingston University. At Swansea,
anthropology, sociology, and philosophy have also fallen by the
wayside. When one feeds into the equation the quite different profile
of art education, one can foretell that the halcyon days are over.
A relatively small number of universities now contain art colleges
within their departmental structure, but there is now an element
of high-risk, spreading over from the already threatened humanities
areas. We should be warned by the plight of chemistry and physics
departments.
