3:01pm Wednesday 10th March 2010
The University of Sussex is in the news again over its proposals to cut 115 jobs (The Argus March 10), which includes plans to also drop virtually all history courses focusing on periods before the 17th century.
As one of the first Sussex undergraduates, known as the Foundation Year, back in 1961, I have an interest in the fate of my old university. We were the pioneers in a surge of academic expansion. Stanmer and Falmer were to be the building site of the Brave New World.
Curriculums were specially planned to give us a broad perspective. The whole sweep of civilisation was to be ours, with individual periods and topics sharply in focus.
The ambition of our tutors was to create a modern version of Renaissance Man. We were to be 20th-century Leonardo da Vincis. What has happened to this vision?
The spirit of enquiry has wilted rather than flourished and the spectrum of acceptable views and studies has shrunk rather than expanded.
The study of languages is declining. The past and contact with other cultures are being closed off. There are more students crushed into a narrower mindset, with heavy debts and diminishing chances of employment.
A Sussex degree in media studies has survived the cuts, but might not get its holder a MacJob. Renaissance Man has turned out to be a mirage. The reality is now Politically Correct Person.
It is sad to see a great ideal crumble and collapse under the pressures of fashion and economic resources.
Still, nothing can take away the memory of being 18 in Brighton and eating fish and chips on the pier!
Margaret Brown
St David’s, Pembrokeshire
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.theargus.co.uk/trade_directory/