A National Disgrace

[dolorous_ett]

OK, I know I have a vested interest here, but how the hell was this allowed to happen? 

A sad story: no more Asian Studies at Durham

This is not old news, but I still can't believe they went through with it. Bastards.

Comments

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

*is gobsmacked at the short-sightedness*

I still don't understand why it had to go.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I don't understand either. Asian Studies is a growing field. But what do I know? I just work in it.

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

Oh, this annoys me. It's woeful the lack of funding and interest in the humanities in general. Universities should be about intellectual rigour and scholarship, not just raking in the corporate sponsorship for scientific based research.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree more. It's not even like it was a failing department.

And, given the way China is becoming a serious moneyspinner, they will really live to regret it.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It's ridiculous. I understand why Durham might feel they have to do it, as I understand why other universities have closed Chemistry departments (although East Asian studies depts. are presumably less prone to burn down every few years), but it is dreadful that there seems to be no national strategy/understanding that if you want universities to teach costly, but necessary subjects, you have to give them money to do it with. No minority language support = no minority languages, which seems a little silly in a global context when one of them is Chinese.

[snorkackcatcher]

You'd think that would be common sense, wouldn't you? Unfortunately that would require rehabilitating the totally radical concept of using the public purse to fund things of national importance, rather than relying on a narrow 'does it make money now' approach. Penny wise pound foolish and all that.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Argh. All too true. *gibbers and grinds teeth to stumps*

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I think at a national level there was actually quite a lot of support for keeping the department open. I know that places like the Foreign Office and I think even Tony Blair weighed in on their behalf. However, the heads of the university had already made up their minds...

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It does look as if in this case Durham had an Agenda that was basically along the lines of "we don't want East Asian studies anymore, nee nah", and it does not look like they actually _needed_ to close it (though I am not tremendously impressed with a "we'll give you half the money for extra posts" off from HEFCE because WTF is the rest going to come from, and it's happening more and more in various ways - science fellowships and the like - and being a growing problem).

Though personally I think that the universities dropped the ball on funding a good 30 years ago when they failed to fight the beginning of the slide, and didn't realise what was happening until the slope got so steep and slippy they could not longer hold onto the side.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much what I heard.

Agree with you about funding also. *kicks various bodies and policy makers*

[lazy-neutrino.livejournal.com]

I have a friend on the staff at Durham (not the guy named in the article, I should add) who says the university has got Shiny New Money for a centre for something else (I was told but have forgotten) and wants the building. It's nothing to do with the viability of the department, academically or financially.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

It's some sort of Vague Institute for Talking about Sports.

I haven't had the heart to enquire about whether they kept the Oriental Museum (a real gem of a little place), but given their apparent priorities... bastards.

[aerama.livejournal.com]

And...and...god. Just thinking of everybody who would have wanted to take those courses and now can't - just boggles.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I know... of course, the irony is that other places are opening such courses, and doing rather well, actually. Not to mention all the Confucius Institutes opening up all over the country to promote Chinese language and culture. So such students could probably find courses elsewhere - but Durham is going to miss out on all that. I just feel sorry for Don and his colleagues, who deserved better.

and that's not all

[onebadbint.livejournal.com]

Durham killed its linguistics department a couple years back too. And it was quite a respectable one.

Re: and that's not all

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Losing linguistics is just stupid - quite apart from anything else, it's a popular, mainstream subject. Though plainly, Earth logic doesn't apply in this case. *seethes*

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

Well, obviously the last sensible thing Durham's dons was when they did not want to pattern "Oxbridge" portmanteau with the combination of names of two second best universities DURham and EXeter...

On related news, soon they will close us...

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I laughed at the Durham/Exeter thing.

But please tell me the other is a joke!

[lyras.livejournal.com]

Such a shame about the Durham Asian Studies dept, although I'm glad to hear that Oriental Studies is doing well elsewhere in the UK. My Scandinavian Studies dept in Hull was shut down a few years ago (along with several others; of the six universities which offered degrees in Scandinavian languages when I graduated, I think only two are left) and Sunderland no longer does any modern languages at all, which I thought was a very worrying development.