D-Day: silent protest as the Council make their final decision
28th November, 09:30 09:00 A.M. in The Square, UEA
On the 26th October, 2011, the Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, UK, announced the findings of a secretly-held, internal and non-specialist review: that the University should “not to invest further” in creative musical education.
The review neither involved nor informed the School. Its authors assert, for support, that their review is based on an external, subject-specialist review from 2002. Subsequently, the authors of the 2002 review have commented that references to their review are deliberately “selective” and “misleading”, and that, in their opinion, the “new review follows a familiar model where a department is set up to fail”, and that “the misuse of our report” is “very irritating”.
Over 10,000 senior academics, noted musicians and composers, parents, students and local residents have signed the petition and spoken out against the proposal.
The decision to accept or reject the findings will be taken on the 28th November.
The School currently operates at 25% over target, the largest number of students it has ever had.
The School is criticised for not producing enough funding from research, earning £363,780 in the 2008 RAE.
The School was, however, asked to prioritise teaching over research, which saw its National Student Survey score reach the 3rd highest in the UK.
The 2002 review’s final conclusion was that “The price of failure to invest … is, in our view, the loss of music as an academic subject at UEA, to the impoverishment of the University and the Nation”.
The School did not receive the extra staff it was recommended (and promised) to support its expansion with the new Music and Technology degree (now in its third year).
Despite this, the School has consistently out-ranked the University as a whole in The Guardian league table, reaching 5th in 2010 and 8th in 2011. The UEA is ranked 19th.
We ask that the University consider our defence and take the time to explore more enterprising solutions rather than simply close an entire School.
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Updates
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Brian Eno, Coldplay, Jools Holland, Factory Floor, Field Music, Tony Conrad, John Parish, Jon Hopkins, over 200 senior academics and 10,000 others…
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Please do not just ‘object’: we must present arguments.
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Press
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Concrete
UEA student paper
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Blog by Dan Pirozzolo, a UEA ECO student
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