In a surprisingly conservative Press article, "Cutting to the Core" (Saturday, February 2), it's revealed that the University of Canterbury is planning a "back to basics" initiative, by axing American Studies and Film and Theatre Studies, in a bid to make the college more financially and academically viable.
As well, as cutting some of its academically light-weight "studies" departments, the college is also breaking up its School of Culture, Literature and Society, with Gender Studies being folded into the school of Sociology and Anthropology.
According to the article, Canterbury's Vice Chancellor Roy Sharp says:
"The Government's "bums on seats" policy, along with a general academic vogue for cross-disciplinary programmes has led to a proliferation of fringe - even "faddy" - study subjects ... "the college will go back to a more traditional look, promoting the central disciplines of "history, philosophy language, literature, the classics."
Pro-Vice Chancellor College of Arts Ken Strongman says, "American studies is going because student demand has dropped, it mixed too many disciplines like history, literature and sociology, and its research quality was not good enough to save it."
Although the College appears to have backed away from ditching Gender Studies, its back-to-basics policy is long overdue and sets a positive example for other universities.
Faddish subjects may have a place in a rapidly-changing field like technology, but they have no place in a funding starved arts faculty. The human condition does not change to the extent that science and technology does, so there is no need to offer dubious courses about pop culture, or films that may be forgotten in 30 years, when a lot more can be learned from studying time-honoured geniuses like Shakespeare and Aristotle.
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2 comments:
Hello from across the ideological divide. I'm a leftie pinko collectivist unionist etc. I hope for the restoration of old fashioned universities. I hope the po mo stuff goes, I would also love to see all commerce slash business related courses sent back to the technical institutes where they belong. Not with you on gender studies though pal. University should teach people to question assumptions.
Excellent blog, keep it up.
Thanks for the comment, I agree that some commerce courses might be better off in technical colleges, as management is more a hands on subject than a science in my view.
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