This week the Dean of the School of Arts and Education at Middlesex University announced, point blank, that the University is to close all of its philosophy programmes. In an email sent to staff, the reason given was “simply financial”. The decision — described by one academic blogger as “venal idiocy” — has generated a growing online campaign, as did earlier efforts to cut into the intellectual fabric of UK universities at Kings College London and at Liverpool.
Given that this election campaign has been notable for a dearth of meaningful ideas, the timing of these latest cuts is as ironic as the act itself is cynical. British universities and our world-renowned arts and humanities departments in particular, are fundamental to a vibrant polity and society, and to the quality of debate within them. And yet they are increasingly under threat.
The philosophy department at Middlesex is a case in point. This is one of the leading lights of continental philosophy in this country, with an international reputation for furthering our understanding of the classics of European thought — be it Kant or Hegel, Sartre or Badiou — alongside a concern to re-appraise those works in light of present day political and ethical dilemmas.
It is, moreover, the highest Research Assessment Exercise-rated subject at Middlesex. Which means that even by the increasingly ridiculous standards used to measure and to monitor academic work in this country, the department is about as “relevant” as you could want philosophy to be. And as a former polytechnic that was holding its own alongside the Russell group of top twenty universities, one wonders quite what else such a department might have been expected to do.
There are some, of course, who think that academic departments ought primarily to be income-generating cash cows. I see no reason why this should be the case. But even so, Middlesex’s philosophy department could hardly be said to have been slacking: of late, it appears to have been handing over more than half its own income, generated through teaching and research activity, to the university. Perhaps this is why the university’s website trumpets the department’s “lively and active research culture, with staff producing important and groundbreaking research, much of which features in the undergraduate course”.
Was this just doublespeak? If Middlesex University really stands by what it says on their website, then they have no business closing such a department at all. They are strongly advised to reconsider.
As they do so, the rest of us have something to think about too: is such narrow-mindedness what the future holds for academic life in this country?
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