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‘The New Universities’ in The Architectural Review Vol. CXL VII

‘The New Universities’ in The Architectural Review Vol. CXL VIIIssue no. 878, April 1970

MRC reference UWA/B/14 (Hannah has a photocopy of some articles)

 

This issue follows a special issue (October 1963) looking at university architecture.

 

The new universities covered include the Universities of; Sussex, York, East Anglia, Essex, Kent at Canterbury, Warwick, Lancaster, Tech at Loughborough and Surrey, Brunel University and New Bath University of Technology.

 

The pictures of the universities all look very similar to one another- most likely due to economic reasons (buying materials in bulk etc.) and following the trend in design. Amongst the wide range of educational and architectural ideas- future growth is common.  

 

In relation to Warwick (p.277):

Architects- YRM

Quantity surveyors- Northcroft Neighbour and Nicholson

Main contractors- Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons Ltd

Plumbing and electrical services- Matthew Hall Mechanical Service Ltd

 

‘Community’ p.295: fostering communality and social learning outside the class room- reference to the kitchen and common rooms in Warwick departments.

 

‘University of Warwick Yorke Rosenburg Mardall EAST SITE Grey, Goodman & Partners’ p.273-4:

 

April 1970

 

Full-time students: 1,850

Floor area built: 770,102 sq ft

Existing floor area converted or renovated: nil

UGC grants for building: £4,884,169

Non- UGC funds spent on building: £943,616

 

First development plan for Warwick was published in 1964 by Arthur Ling and A. Goodman, the second was in 1966.

Both the early and later plans assumed that the campus might in the future grow to the size of an American state university- between 15,000 and 20,000 students.

[Today there are 16,734 full-time students and 5,075 members of staff]

Tags
1960s

Annual Conference, HES, Sheffield

Annual Conference, HES, Sheffield. 4-6/12/09 (HL notes)

‘Putting Education in its Place’ Space, place and materialities in the History of Education  

Friday: Keynote lecture 1: Andrew Saint  

1920 had 70 open air schools (TB, antibiotics. Battersea Park 1917). Post 1945 primary schools became lighter and airier

The sense of community stops at primary school. When there is a commute to school there is no sense of community.

Session D. Pedagogic Spaces 

Roy Kozlovsky: Rhythmic self-regulation: Alfred North Whitehead’s Philosophy of Education and the Architecture of the Post-War School  

Education, its origin

- Nurture/ maternal definition. Physical and emotional growth

- debate, ‘Educare’ Latin

Whitehead: Learning has a rhythm and is cyclic

David Medd: Circulation spaces- vibrant and contrasting colours.

Long corridors are ‘institutional’

Roberta Lucente and Ida Recchia: The role of ‘core-space’ in early years education architecture through the Italian modern and contemporary heritage  

‘Core-space’- common, collective open space can be interpreted as a reiteration of the tradition Italian Piazza (Warwick has exactly this)

A place for educational experimentation, symbolic meaning, exercise, ceremony, celebration and political values

Sensorial qualities- a communicative and narrative capacity of architecture

 Val Wood

- Children’s voices absent from nurseries. Should we have some student stories? 

Saturday:  Session C. Reading School Buildings  Peter Blundell Jones: Learning to read the organisation of buildings, and the dream of ‘architecture parlante’  

The rules and rituals of rooms change. Buildings do not dictate patterns of use- the use differs from the architect’s intentions.

There are layers of use- can compare to other rooms

Buildings carry memories of former use- personal memories evoked when revisit old school- the memories are of/ in buildings and layered.

Buildings mark out territory and are autonomous- bring together or divide

More influenced by buildings at the unconscious level

The ‘architecture and ritual’ view- the need to consider the beliefs and presumptions of the user… set the field for engaging the building in the long term because buildings carry memories and suggest a course of action, setting and maintaining precedent.  

Peter Cunningham: a note on oral histories: buildings provide a common core experience. They trigger memories, although memory can be unreliable. The curriculum changes and the more eccentric are remembered.

Jeremy Howard: Picture School: Decorated School Surfaces as Lessons  

Decorates surface = display in schools and how they impact on psychology of the school experience

Official and unofficial display- graffiti

Are pupils asked what theme of art should be in school?

Learn through decoration of school- what you are there for. Identity- emblems and narratives of…

- What you will learn

- Physical education

- Knowledge is power

- Acknowledge it is hard to learn 

Pupils participate in decoration of their own schools and playgrounds post WW2

Class photos- Where? How operates?

Contacts: Nancy G. Rosoff, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA. nrosoff@camden.rutgers.edu

Tags
schools, Conference

Architecture/Affect/Inhabitation

Peter Kraftl and Peter Adley (2008) Archtecture/Affect/Inhabitation: Geographies of Being-In Buildings, in Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 98: 1 (213-231)

notes CL

In this article the authors explore, 'how individual buildings and their architects preconfigure, limit and engender particualr affects to accomplish very particular goals' (p 213). We are doing something similar.

Discussion of what AFFECT is, drawing on cultural geographical literature. Thrift and 'the affective register'.

AFFECT as something that is 'pushing, pulling, or lifting us to feel, think, or act' (215).

'.. affect can be understood as teh property of relations, of interactions, of events: It is not purely the property of a single (human) being' (215). Affect 'emergent from relations between bodies'

Looks again at the Steiner school to see how it 'wecomes' through design and material shaping - gestural efects of buidling.

p 220 something intersting about the fact that not just the buildings themselves that have affective impact but the wasy in which people labour within them to create affect - eg cleaners, teachers preparing things, and so on. Are we attentive to this where relevant?

Decisions/ interntions to creatie affect are political, cultural, ethical. 

'the organisation and choreography of materials and bodies creates a stuborness or persistance of affect, to invoke simultaneously repetitive ... and iterative senses of space ... simultaneously to create senses of stability and safety'. ( 227)Cath this v tru in eduactional contexts - iteration of desks in rows, etc, creates sense of permanence over time and incribes powerful affects.

 

'For architects adn their buildings to be taken seriously, buildings must be imbied with the power to make a difference to their inhabitants' (213)

attention to buildings' affective, tactile, sensual effects.

 

Date
Tuesday, 02 March 2010
Tags
Affect, architecture

A walking interview with Hugh Gaston Hall (Emeritus Reader)

Unfinished but the best overview I can manage.  

Conducted by: Hannah and Laura M on 11/11/09

Location: campus- from the Arts Centre to the Reinvention Centre with a tour of the Learning Grid from Fran Kauzlaric (Student Advisor) en route.

Notes on methodology: The interview for the most part was structured via our moving around the campus and particular buildings/ rooms.  An example of collaborative research- exchange of details/ information between Gaston and the Learning grid  

Transcribed notes from walking part of interview: ‘Opinions and memories of gossip rather than necessarily authentic history’

Gaston was appointed to Warwick in 1964 (in between then and teaching at Warwick he spent a year in Melbourne). First taught at Warwick in January 1966 but was involved with organising of new course prior to teaching. Retired in 1989 (last taught in 1990). Made an Emeritus Reader when position was created.

....

 Loss of staff rights, restrictions needed when 20,000 students. ID cards- when introduced and for who? For staff initially c.1968? Security- computers stolen from Arts building one afternoon when they were new

First university intake was of a graduate student in maths 1964. He came with Professor Zeeman and [in audible]…‘stein from Cambridge. First undergraduates came to Warwick in October 1965

1963 1st librarian appointed (full-time), some professors (part time)  

At a time, c.1965-66, all the university was on the other site (east site?) and then once some departments had moved staff still went back to the other site for lunch. There was a lunch hour. All staff and student ate in their own groups separately. Hierarchical- faculty club or general club- university divide. 

Noted the numerous cafes on campus today- required with the student population in the thousands.

1967-68 Humanities moved into the top 2 floors of the library from the East site. It was still a building site.

Falling tiles of the library and other buildings

Jack Butterworth 1st VC wanted Warwick to imitate Oxford Colleges and Berkeley’s big modern university, big research base, international reputation. Gaston has experience of both - student at Oxford and taught at Berkeley.

Students thought that having colleges was the university trying of dividing and rule- separate the students into colleges so that they wouldn’t have a strong student voice. C.1968 Student vetoed the colleges.Check student newspaper records for documentation.

Gaston thinks great pity due to the number of students today- would feel cosier.

Mentioned Spring 1968 Prague Kafuffle and the colleges of Durham, Kent at Canterbury, Yale and Harvard

...

University parking- students against the multi storey by the sports centre. University had ‘wrong priorities’ ‘waste of money’ ‘shouldn’t be catering for cars’

After 1968 students continued to be stroppy for a few years… turned to say that the university wasn’t providing enough parking. 1st major complaint of students was the car park.

Learning Grid:

Why it doesn’t get destroyed is due to its ownership. Students own it and so why would they destroy something they own?  

Fran Kauzlaric had some interesting things to say about finding space to work and resources and their delivery at Warwick. Student story?  

Gaston impressed with the metro-nap pod- the need to nap.

1960’s Warwick pioneered student accommodation in terms of letting it out for the vacation. Has been done since the first year which coincided with the Royal Show

Built to attract people in the vacation and gave students better accommodation.

Highlighted the importance of conferences for universities 

Inside the Reinvention Centre: (described how the room can be used, by who and the different facilities)

[Gaston took the black reclining chair and Laura and I a bean-bag sat towards the corner of the room]

 “It is just such a different… more like Berkeley than it is like Warwick when I retired”  Starting to get overseas students but not the large numbers of overseas students like today- it is a big international business …. 

The biggest change happened in the last few years of teaching- writing a paper/ lecture and the organising of it. Rearranging of material via scissors and tape- photocopies

 Lectures usually small because 30-45 students per year, 1st years in groups of 6, seminar groups c.12- got to know students quickly, tutorials 2-4 and when money began running out sizes increased

Nearest could come to an Oxbridge style tutorial group- English core lectures- much bigger.  

Would sometimes have to give the same lecture twice to large numbers at Glasgow when taught there

Everything has become more impersonal. Philistine government- putting Oxbridge under pressure now not increase class sizes  

Oxford and Warwick (as it was)- students taught by fully accredited permanent staff. Big American Uni students did not get the same experience as rarely see their professors- situation today? Today PhD students teach- pros cons of being taught by professors and PhD students.

No good going into a first year class and asking how would you like to be taught. Need to go in with an idea. Some groups gel well together etc. Some end up with cliques.

Space- what is conducive to teaching and learning and anything which prohibits?  A good group can make the best of space available. Crowded or too big a room doesn’t work

...

Warwick generally lacks, not entirely now but before, kind of historical architectural centre

Campus- Have put in works of art and is attractive in lots of way but not one of great architectural distinction.

One of the advantages Oxford architectural heritage and for Gaston it really mattered when spending days and nights in fine architectural heritage

Berkeley- campanile (Sather Tower) 

Birmingham – Victorian, red brick, campanile (clock), great hall, feel entered privileged place where learning is valued and apart of something different and big. Feels established

Social studies (red brick!) much cosier

Warwick needs to work hard to create established feel

At the time when Warwick was built there was an Egalitarian view towards architecture. In Eastern Europe or Cuba bourgeois buildings were being allowed to fall down and post war Britain building flats etc. to house people cheaply. As a part historical heritage of not wanting to spend money on big facades or ornaments.  

But something about having an architectural centre whose utility really is to uplift your spirits and to give you a focus and to be an Emblem of your identity and I have always thought that Warwick could do with a bit more of that […] makes people walk with more of a swagger […] in your hands, you students must go and out and do that. Find, the state will never do it, some wealthy patriot among the alumni who have made fortunes and get them to endow some wonderful […] Warwick deserves it… well on the other hand you can’t be sorry that Warwick hasn’t spent the money on that kind of thing when we have the Learning Grid etc.

Tags
Interviews

Burke, C. (2005) ‘“The School Without Tears”: E. F. O’Neill of Prestolee’, History of Education, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 263-275

ABSTRACT: Using archival research and content analysis of photos, Burke examines how the head teacher at Prestolee Elementary school in Lancashire - E. F. O’Neil - used both pedagogy and school building design to promote a positive learning experience based on ‘freedom’ and ‘learning through doing’

Page 264:1. O’Neill’s aim was to develop the innate characteristics of children at play in order to maximise their educational potential. Thus, rather than pedagogy and the built environment imposing their conception of learning upon children, O’Neill’s vision was to harness pupils’ in-built skills by catering to their needs.L.E: This is similar to the ‘user-centred’ design principles of David and Mary Medd. 

Page 265: ‘The Thrill of the Classroom’2. O’Neill – no college qualifications, refused to physically punish children, adopted the philosophy of ‘learning through doing’. However, this practical approach to education was not permitted during the formal school day by the government at this time (1910-20), and so O’Neill had to practice his experimental teaching methodology after school.

3. Early 20th Century pedagogy – focus on the material and physical conditions of teaching spaces. Dewey (1897) My Pedagogic Creed; ‘[…] education as a process of living rather than a preparation for life […]’ – the argument that the formalism of education system stifled children’s creativity and educational potential.

4. Other key names in 20th Century pedagogy – Maria Montessori, Holmes and Hawker – 1914 British Montessori Society, set up first conference on ‘New Ideals in Education’ which supported the ideal of the built environment promoting freedom. 

Page 266: ‘Challenging the Classroom’ 5. ‘The classroom predicates the arrangement of bodies in space around notions of authority and deference.’ O’Neill wanted to break free of these artificial distinctions of power through active, practical learning.L.E: This is obviously still a popular principle today, with great emphasis being placed on undergraduate research to support the ‘learning through doing’ approach, rather than relying on the ‘spoonfeeding’ method employed by some tutors.

6. Evidence for an official challenge against the classroom made by the Board of Education in 1898, arguing the classroom was not conducive to the modern industrial world and should therefore be replaced by workshops where student interaction was encouraged. Dewey and Parkhurst described this as ‘active learning’.L.E: Doesn’t this sound a lot like the ‘social learning’ environments that Oxford Brookes and Warwick are attempting to create today??? 

Page 267: 7. ‘Active learning’ promoted through freedom. Restrictive classroom emblematic of hierarchical education system e.g O’Neill outlines the ‘Punch and Judy’ and ‘Chalk and Talk’ teaching styles that render children passive ‘absorbers’.

8. Restrictive classroom also representative of social hierarchy of outside world e.g w/c children receive orders from m/c teachers. This is an example of social reproduction for a capitalist society – shouldn’t education challenge this and promote social mobility? Has this successfully been confronted by modern pedagogy?

9. Classroom environment characterised materially by the physical division of children from the teacher and the separation of different stages of the learning process; and atmospherically with classroom activities based on fear and humiliation, with the tutor as dictator. 

Page 268 – ‘Let Teachers be Spacious’ 10. ‘Let teachers be spacious’- i.e allow tutors to reorganise the built environment to challenge and ‘emancipate’ children from the established dictatorial pedagogy of the classroom.

11. E.g O’Neill used the school hall in Prestolee as an open plan learning space, with subjects and their resources placed on different tables. This allowed children access to their own method of learning in an environment where subjects were not separated, thus promoting interdisciplinary and interaction based ‘active learning’.L.E: Using Allen’s (2003) definition of power being a mobilisation of resources, O’Neill clearly recognised the importance of giving students ownership of their own learning via open access to resources such as books, and therefore moving away from teachers as all powerful dictators, to tutors as facilitators/providers of resources, empowering children to use them and learn as they see fit. 

Page 270 – ‘The Experiment in Practice’12. At Prestolee, there was emphasis on the responsibility of children for their own learning and the maintenance of the built environment, shown by a loose and fluid timetable that students could negotiate with tutors.

13. Also emphasis on the building of practical objects which children could actually use; students encouraged to disassemble school furniture to create an environment which they had built themselves according to their own needs. This established a sense of ownership for their learning space.

14. Teacher and pupil division at Prestolee became blurred as the focus was on communal responsibility. 

Page 272 – ‘The Evolution of a New System over Time’15. Prestolee prided itself on the freedom of time, space, and learning, with children in control of their own education. E.g interview with 13 year old Muriel Kidd, a pupil at Prestolee, illustrates how students were encouraged to independently research what they didn’t understand, and were given the opportunity to study for up to 12 hours a day if they so wished.

16. This system was criticised by the LEA, meaning the school had to introduce some formal teaching of key subjects. However, pupils were permitted to interact and help one another in a non-classroom setting. 

Page 273 – ‘The Outdoor Environment’17. At Prestolee there was no division between inside and outside, work and play, boys and girls. This fluidity was designed to promote freedom and research based learning e.g Sawyer (1944) ‘Do things, make things, notice things, arrange things, and only then reason about things.’L.E: Therefore, the built environment of the institution should make this research driven learning possible. For example, the Reinvention Centre at Warwick provides the floor space, computer technology, and presentation resources to make Sawyer’s vision a reality.

18. As a result of this open spaces approach, O’Neill challenged the idea that the LEA and Board of Education should define the curriculum. Prestolee illustrated that it could be shaped by the children’s own activities and interests.L.E: This is very similar to the ‘reflexive learning’ pedagogy of today. 

Page 274: Conclusion - 19. Pedagogy of freedom and active learning embedded in a flexible built environment based on minimal supervision.

20. Prestolee experiment ended with the Education Reform Act of 1944 which abolished elementary schools.

21. Excellent summarising quote to illustrate how architecture and pedagogy are inexplicably interlinked; ‘[…] one teacher’s (O’Neill) appreciation of the significance of the built environment and the material context of the school, combined with a view of the child as innovator, constructor and researcher of his/her own world, could act as a powerful pedagogical instrument.’ Research Leads – look into:Dewey (1897) – My Pedagogic Creed.British Montessori Society.‘New Ideals in Education’ conference and its history.Education legislation from 1900s to present today which may have influenced the built school environment.     

Laura Evans

Date
Wednesday, 05 August 2009
Tags
Pedagogy, 1920s, Prestolee Elementary, Schools, Catherine Burke, E.F O'Neill

Burke, C. (2005) ‘Containing the School Child: Architectures and Pedagogies’, Paedogogica Historica, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 489-494

ABSTRACT: Introduction to the journal of the European Education Research Association (EERA), which focuses on the visual history of education in order to open up research opportunities exploring how the material environment has influenced educational experience. 

Page 490: 1. EERA’s key belief is that pedagogy and the design of indoor and outdoor learning spaces (including aesthetics, materials and function) are interlinked and central to a positive educational experience. 

Page 491: 2. Although it is agreed the built environment can be used as a key pedagogical tool, in what way should it be used? How does the built environment facilitate the study of children’s behaviour? How does design education and the use of the school environment create future consumers? 

Page 492: 3. ‘Walls, canteens, corridors, desks and doors do not only act as containers of the school child; they act also as spaces for resistance and sites of contested desires.’ L.E: Therefore, it is not only specifically classroom space within an institution which needs to be considered. Moreover, pupil perception of the built environment must also be researched. 

Page 493: 4. 1937 Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools. L.E: What influence did this have on the furniture of the classroom?

5. Educational institutions based on the ‘inverse panopticon’, or a ‘two way visualisation device of discipline and control’. This means the needs and desires of teachers and students are always in opposition with each other i.e surveillance vs. freedom. L.E: See Paechter (2004) notes for more information on the architecture of the school as ‘panoptic’. 

Page 494: 6. Must note the importance of colour, symbols, and school emblems in the ‘visual landscape’ of the school. 

Research Leads - look into: EERA work on learning spaces and pedagogy. 1937 Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools.  

Laura Evans

Date
Wednesday, 05 August 2009
Tags
Pedagogy, EERA, Schools, Catherine Burke, 2000s

Burke, C. (2005) ‘Contested Desires: The Edible Landscapes of School’, Paedagogica Historica, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 571-587

ABSTRACT: Burke examines the significance of dining hall design and the control/delivery of school meals in the reinforcement of class division, pupil inferiority and indeed pedagogy in general. 

Page 571-2: 1. Description of the historical, hierarchical dining hall; all of the school ate together, and was based on the principle of ‘family service’, which involved the ideal domestic setting being recreated by a member of staff acting as ‘parent’ for each table of children. Food was used to structure the school day and was also associated with punishment and reward. 

Page 573: 2. The ‘edible landscapes of the school’ often forgotten as not seen as part of formal learning. But they are essential to the learning experience in the memories of present and past students. Thus, the symbolic and built environment is an important pedagogic device. 

Page 574: 3. The ‘edible landscape of the school’ has changed over time and been influenced by new legislation and the changing culture of schooling. For instance, the introduction of mass schooling promoted the shaping of children’s bodies and minds, and so food became a pedagogic concern, and emblematic of the hierarchy and power of a newly emerging bourgeoisie as seen in other institutions such as the prison and workhouse.

4. Other legislation includes the 1906 Education (Free School Meals) Act, which was taken on by some LEAs as a way to control pupil eating behaviour by replacing w/c bad habits of consumption with ‘correct’ m/c habits = social reproduction! Therefore, school food and the dining hall were synonymous with social control. 

Page 576: 5. The dining hall was constructed as a ‘social behaviour laboratory’ for social education encouraging responsibility and good health i.e not just provision of food but how to eat and what to eat; ‘[…] the edible landscape of the school can be seen to have been a territory of contested desires and intentions, a battleground between the perceived needs of the adult and the child and an exhibition space for the product of educational endeavour or experimentation.’ 

Page 577: 6. Dining halls were used as symbolic uses of space to illustrate ‘modernization, progress, and quality in education provision’. Use of the hall for all group activities suggests unity yet hierarchy; e.g the raised platforms for teachers to use is representative of the external social hierarchy. 

Page 578: 7. ‘But the content of the meal was not the sole concern. The social, aesthetic and educational opportunities offered by the edible landscape of school were subject to specific design objectives.’ What were these design objectives? To promote freedom and relaxation as well as good habits such as cleanliness.

8. Therefore, dining halls needed to be spaces with attractive and useful objects so children too ownership of them to engender responsibility, e.g at Prestolee Elementary school, a milk bar was designed, built, decorated and operated by the pupils themselves! 

Page 581: 9. 1944 Education Act – provision of dining halls compulsory in secondary schools and large primary schools. Yet, this legislation did not adhere to the ‘aesthetic ideal’ and was more regimented, with set tables and dinner rotas to encourage discipline using time and space. 

Page 584: 10. Changing foods = changing landscapes e.g the rise in frozen and pre-packed food meant gardening at home and at school was no longer necessary, but in the 1930s gardening was seen as essential to children’s education and health. Thus, with changing food, the curriculum and value of certain subjects changed, such as the devaluation of horticulture as a past time for those of low intelligence.

 Page 585: 11. Another change includes the privatisation of the school meals service in the 1980s, which led to fast food, and in turn the deskilling of children in cooking. This is known as the ‘McDonaldisation’ of the child.

12. Now the child and ‘edible landscape of school’ are treated as consumers and markets respectively, rather than as part of a social health education. 

Research Leads – look into: The design of non-classroom spaces in educational institutions and examine their effect on the overall educational experience, e.g Café Library at Warwick. Education legislation from 1900s to present today which may have influenced the built school environment.

Laura Evans

Date
Wednesday, 05 August 2009
Tags
Pedagogy, Prestolee Elementary, Catherine Burke

CVCP notes from MRC

Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom (CVCP): part of the Modern Records Centre's main collection(HL, LM, DW notes)  Photocopies filed in Reinvention Office R.3.09 

(HL) MSS.399/3/00HE/1July 1982-8405/5/3 Local and Regional coordination of HERegional cooperation and the RACs  

CVCP 4/09/84 Speech by Christopher Ball, Chair of National Advisory Board (NAB): ‘Planning HE: Is there a regional dimension?’

- Replacement of Robbins Report, 1985 Green Paper- ‘Long Term Strategy for HE’

- HE demand remains strong and should be available to all able to benefit

- HE and the needs of society

- Cooperation between neighbouring institutions- joint courses, exchange of staff, ‘cooperation in expensive capital terms’ such as IT and library resources

CVCP File C26/4 

Council for Validating Universities 9/09/82

June 1982, Alec Ross (Chairman of CVU) met with Professor John Andrew, Christopher Ball and John Bevan (notes)

Conclusion: “There can be no question that the relationship between governments and universities are being changed”. Aware of this because engaged in validation- central planning and regional coordination.

Page 2: The Robbins Report (RR) and Robbins Principle (Consideration of British Industry (CBI) publicly accepted) 

Much has occurred since the RR through the growth of the university system which the report stimulated and also through the development of the Polytechnics.

Growth in new subject areas is a response to need of industry and commerce.

There has been a change in demographic trends and economic climate of country since the RR and now there is urgent need for a new overall policy for HE this century. 

Maximum cost effectiveness

Page 6: Autonomy enjoyed by individual institutions 

6/10/82 VCC

CBI submission to the Leverhulme programme of study into the future of HE


MSS.399/3/00HE/105/5/2 Organisation of HENational and regional coordination of the HE (DES Working Party) 09/1978- 06/1982 

-          05/5/5 Letter  to Geoffrey Caston, Secretary General 26/05/82 from Michael Shattock, Academic Registrar at Warwick

‘anxious to ensure the discussion […] not academic and out of touch with the realities which you and I have to live with’  

- A letter/ response to Michael Shattock, Academic Registrar at Warwick from Geoffrey Caston, Secretary General 10/ 06/82

Leverhulme programme  

Views about the importance of the discussion on structure and governance taking a realistic and politically practical form (about universities’ divisions on these issues for good and understandable reasons).

-          Christopher Ball (prominent figure)

Warden of Keble College, Oxford

Chairman of the LAHE Board

Education Junior Minister 11/12/81

 Photocopy no. 1: Nov 1981Council for National Academic Awards (CNNA) Introduction toResponse to Government’s consultative doc. On HE in England outside the universities: policy, funding and management. Photocopy no. 2 ??  

-          Education 28/ 08/81

Page 170: ‘In Quotes’

“Education is the Cinderella of English politics and now and then it seems attempts are made to starve her”/ 

C. Mathew Arnold: A Life by Park H…

 -          NUS logo text:  Sixty years serving students, 1992, NUS, 1982, A Force for the Future.  

MSS. 399/3/EXP/1Correspondence with UGC- University Expansion  -          Photocopy no. 3

Department of Education and Science

Education Press Notice: Universities’ Building Programme

 -          Photocopy no.4

CVCP Press Statement – money from government available for university building programmes for 1966-69

 Photocopy no. 5 (Booklet)NUS, Memorandum to the University Grants Committee on the Expansion of University Education 1960-1970  -            

MSS.399/3/STM/1

-          1964- 1974

Student Matters

 Student participation documents of ’64- ‘71 -          Photocopy no. 7

Page 3: David Adelstein, Crisis in HE: The Roots of Revolt   

-          08/1968 Joint statement from the CVCP and NUS

Photocopy no. 8

Pages 3 and 4: Student Participation in University Decision- making

  MSS.399/3/ SRHE/1 Society for research into HE ’64- ‘87 

-          Leverhulme seminar on structure and governance in HE

Warwick, 13-15/ 09/82

M. Shattock- convenor

Binary and post- binary policy.  -          Photocopy no. 6 NUS, The Future of the Universities   

(DW) MSS.399/3/BDG/31966-1974NO3. BUILDING, UNIVCOSTS OF NEW BUILDINGS 

1968 Edition ‘New University Buildings: Costs and Erection Period’. Committee of Vice- Chancellors

 
YEAR BUILDING COST

1964-66

Library (Stage One)

£743, 889

1964-65

Arts- Warwick Arts building (interim), with interim science labs, dining and common rooms and library

£526, 940

1967-69

Physics (Stage One)

£626,939

1965-66

Rootes Hall (Common Room)

£489-973

 

(LM) CVCP mss 399/3/00HE/1 05/3 – Organisation of Higher Education – Regional Advising Machinery in higher and further education – CLEA Proposals (CLEA – Commonwealth legal education association??)GPC Report 27/06/75

·         Discusses proposals to create regional co-ordination of higher education. It considered the following;

1.       Developments in specific fields such as teacher training, adult education and liaison with health authorities.

2.       Co- ordination and planning for further education and higher education in the public sector.

(Background) White paper ‘Education: A framework for expansion’ 1972.

Concerned with the reorganisation of teacher education and training, main issues included ;

1.       Academic validation.

2.       Professional recognition.

3.       Co-ordination and higher education supply.

They wanted to establish new regional committees replacing area training organisations.

Developments:  In 1973 the advisory committee on the supply and training of teachers (under the chairmanship of the Vice Chancellor of Manchester University) advised the Secretary of State on the central responsibilities for teacher supply and training.

July 1975 – A summary of replies from UK Universities about the proposals. Co-operation with polytechnics.

·         There are informal arrangements for University and Poly staff, to teach at each other’s institutions in times of sickness, holiday ect.

·         At Oxford, poly students attend lectures, seminars at the university.

Joint courses.

·         Universities combining to run joint courses with each partner contributing.

Non academic – Joint Research.

·         At Newcastle, Durham and various other universities, there is shared computer access with polytechnics.

·         Many Universities shared careers and counselling services.

Health Services.·         Some universities ie Manchester have funding which allows Poly students from local areas to access their healthcare facilities.·         For some universities lack of polytechnic funds has blocked potential co-operation. Libraries

·         Universities limited in allowing universal access.

·         Some allow staff to use facilities but not students (i.e. Bristol).

·         Others such as Manchester, Leeds and Keele have highly advanced co-operation.

Other example of co-operation.·         Sharing sports and union facilities.·         Open universities using polytechnics for study rooms and labs.  Secretary of State’s speech to CLEA

‘ I attach great importance to ending the differences between home and overseas students, and in separating tuition fees from maintenance grants for purposes of assessing the parental contribution and excluding the fees from assessment for students on mandatory and comparable awards’

Tags
MRC, Warwick University

David Medd Obituary; The Guardian, 14th April 2009 – Andrew Saint

· Medd was a leading primary school architect who argued that social progress, good educational practice and social behaviour could be shaped by the insightful building of learning spaces; primary schools in particular.

·  Key Principles of the Post War Classroom:

  • ·          Airy – not open plan, nor completely closed.

  • ·          Use of lightweight materials – modular furniture and as a result…

  • ·          Flexible.

  • ·          Teaching in the round.

  • ·          User centred – resources geared towards children’s size.

· Key influences:

  • ·          Stirrat Johnson–Marshall; leading architect on Medd’s design team.

  • ·          Mary Crowley; leader of Architectural Association and Medd’s wife, focused on the pedagogic aspects of school design.

·  Medd argued that school architecture must always be SUBORDINATE to teaching theory and practice. Therefore, pedagogy must shape the environment, rather than the environment shaping pedagogy. Is this really seen in new learning spaces today, or do educational settings still promote fixed power relations and methods of learning?

·  Examples of Medd’s work:
  • ·          Wokingham Secondary Modern – Berkshire.

  • ·          Finmere Primary – Oxfordshire.

    ·          Woodside Primary – Amersham.

  • ·          Eveline Lowe Primary – Southwark, London.

·  Research leads from this information:
  • ·          Look into the work of Stirrat Johnson-Marshall.

  • ·          Contact the Architectural Association regarding historical education space design. Possibly conduct interviews and content analysis.

  • ·          Find photos of/visit schools that Medd designed.

  • ·          Find out more on the pedagogic principles behind classroom layout. Could investigate work of Mary Crowley.

  • ·          Read more of Andrew Saint’s architectural reviews.

Laura Evans

 

  

 

Date
Friday, 17 July 2009
Tags
Pedagogy, test

Fisk, T. ‘Student Power’, The New Universities issue of The Architectural Review VOL CXL VII Issue no. 878 April 1970 pp.292-294

MRC Ref: UWA/B/14 (HL's notes and has a photocopy)  Fisk, T. ‘Student Power’, The New Universities issue of The Architectural Review VOL CXL VII Issue no. 878 April 1970 pp.292-294 

Trevor Fisk was president of the NUS 1969

 

Sorbonne student riots 1968 – due to overcrowded classrooms and libraries and the separation of professors and students.

 

Although British students do not revolt as French students, university planners should not ignore common problems and attitudes that both French and British students have.

Previous architects could have taken certain views for granted- they were designing a community, with a sense of fellowship, separated from society to allow for concentration on academia and that students accept that the staff have privileges and better facilities.

 

When writing in 1970 it was noted that there had been a shift in the notion of community and common academic fellowship. This was still welcomed by some (‘campus intimates’) but others find too claustrophobic.

Staff privileges etc. are questioned.

 

Oct. 1969- Parliamentary Select Committee on Education and Science presented a report on student relations to the House of Commons. The report argued that there is such thing as a ‘student view point’ (despite individual student opinion differing greatly on many issues).

 

Students well aware of the expansion of university intake in the 1960s and unhappy about the way in which it was being brought about and critical of the following report:

 

The Robbins Committee report 1963- scheme for meeting the expansion

1)      Upgrade Collages of Advanced Technology to new technological universities

2)      Create some new universities

New universities underway before the report

 

The NUS put forward an entirely different scheme.

Apposed brand new universities created from scratch; for these would be, as Warwick is, in rural/ outer urban settings deliberately at variance with the prevailing pattern of Redbricks.

The separate administration, financing and design was rejected as was the LEA colleges.

 

NUS plan was similar to the Government’s in 1966 for comprehensive schools. The NUS’ slogan was ‘towards comprehensive universities’ whereby existing universities ought to be integrated with neighbouring LEA colleges. It was also recommended that building should be designed to be used by others when not occupied by students.

 

During the creation of the new universities there was no student population to be involved with the planning or design where as universities and their architects must include students in the planning and designing of universities and students must ask to be involved.

 

Politics of space- ‘us’ and ‘them’ and territorial tensions inside universities and between the university and the local community

 

Students want integration and equality, they are uneasy about an ‘educational community’ (which can be isolated and single minded) and the place of the teacher. There is some concern when designs reinforce the comparative status of teacher and student.

 

Undergraduate thoughts on university design only stretch to their residential and recreational areas. There are no specific thoughts on academic buildings. However when it comes to undergraduate thoughts on national planning for higher education are set out in a proposal (NUS).

 

Warwick designed its campus with student facilities on one side and teaching and administration on the other, ‘in between are several hundred yards of ‘no man’s land’’ which seems to suggest there could be tension between the ‘two sides’.

 

The article did note that Warwick had been ‘notably free of student unrest’ however there was some unrest in February 1970 (what was this?).

…………………..

 

‘The latest predictions point to some 750,000 students in higher education by 1980. If they enter colleges the design of which is totally inadequate to their needs and out of keeping with their aspirations, the blame will rest as much on today’s students for their silence, as on the college planners for interpreting that silence as consent’ 

 

CATH's notes on same article: taken for specific purposes of HES paper.

We can place the eachrly Warwick students' contestation of the spatial construction and organisation of their emerging university in the context of 1968 and the protests in Paris adn elsewhere. Trevor Fisk, NUS President in 1969 offers some possible reasons for student dissatisfaction: 'The democratic vacuum of Gaullism. The physical overcrowding of their classrooms and libraries had aroused them beyond endurance ... the students were alienated from their professors whom they rarly saw away from the academic lectern' (1970: 292). He contimues, 'Whatever the truth behind 'l'affarire de mai', there are perhaps two lessons for the university designer. At some level the physical environment was one stimuls to revolt. Some of the student's feelings were expressed as attitudes to the structure of their campus. The riot would have taken place, but it would not have arisen the same way in an other-wise designed environement ..The physical environement may not cause human actions, but it clearly shapes the form such actions take' (1970: 292).  

Although there was no equivalent rioting in the streets of Coventry or Leamington Spa from Warwick's students, there was certainly evidence of the ways in which the physical environment and the kinds of relations and hierarchies it supported, were at the heart of students' expereince of university and their subsequent dissatisfaction. In particular, there was concern with the divisions between students and teachers which were central to the design and building of the campus. Fisk comments that the innate superiority of staff (and the manifestation of these in exclusive staff only common rooms and facitilies) was largely accepted by previous generation of student and teachers, by the 1960s and 70s new expectations of academic comminity and knowledge exchange were emerging and architectures which failed to acknowledge this were rejected. This was true in the case of Warwick, perhaps heightened by the fact that the design and construction was not pre-existing but going on all around the campus' 'inmates' (as Fisk calls them). It is hardly surprising that studnets wanted some say in the design and organnisation of the future university, but as the architect's biographers note, consultation with users was a long way from the top-down, autocratic mode of working at that time (ref YRM book).

Nationally, students' generally strong opinions about university development, was noted by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education and Science (in October 1969 - see Fisk, 1970:293). Although the lack of one unified 'student view' was noted, Fisk draws out what he suggests were 'general beliefs' and 'consistent attitudes towards the type of question which affects unviersity planning' (1970:293). These can be summarised as anxieties around the significant expansion of universities and student numbers following the Robbins report of 1963. Significantly for Warwick, there has been opposition  from the NUS prior to Robbins to the creation of new univerisites from scratch. In aprt this was becasue these would 'be sited in rural, or outer-urban, settings, deliberately at variance with the city-centre university pattern which had prevailed for the past century with the Redbricks' (p 293). The NUS supported comprehensive universites via integration with LEA colleages rather than new independetn structures. This impulse needs of course to be seen in the context of the shift in the 1960s under Labour to comprehensive schooling. For universities such as Warwick, the NUS was concerned at the lack of a student population to contest and constribute to the design and construction of new-builds (as of course the students had not yet been recruited).

What emerges from all the evidence at this time on students' multifaceted concerns, two things stand out: 'Students are uneasy about the notion of educational community and about the place of the teacher. They are uncertain about the isolation and academic singlemindedness of their universities. They feel the siting and design of their campuses often aim at reinforcing this sense of separation and undivided purpose ...' p. 294 

'In campus ... they feel anxiety when confronted by designes which reinforce the comparative status of teacher and taught. Integration and equality - although the meaning of these terms is as fiercely disputed amongst students as anywhere else - these are the principle goals' (p 294).

Interesting comments by Fisk that the specifi architectural requests from students tend to be about housing and recreation and the academic buildings and design tend to be discussed at the 'level of social theory' -(ie Cath at the level of 'ideals').

'One new university, Warwick, has been designed with all the students' facilities on one side of the campus, all the teaching and administrative areas on the other. In between there are several hundred yards of 'no man's land'. The whole arrangement seems to have been laid out to facilitate trench warfare between staf and students; the scheme nmight have been expected to re-inforce feelings of 'them' and 'us' and an alternative layout, with buildings dispersed randomly, should in theory promote a sense of community .. Expereince confounds the seeming idiocy of the design' (p 294). Fist here footnotes the later '1970 February unrest' - which we need to find out about from Warwick's archives and SU publications.

 Overall, Fisk argues for importance of student participation in questions of design -  cn we link here to the LG?

'Of the many stduents due to enter HE in years following 1969, 'If they enter colleges the design of which is totally inadequate to their needs and out of keeping with their aspirations, the blame will rest as much on today's stduents for their silence, as on the collehe planers for interpresting that silence as consent' (p 294).      

     

Date
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Tags
Conference, Power Relations, architecture, 1960s, Higher Education