Students Interview Don Nutbeam?

Southampton Students for Education released a video on Monday, after Vice Chancellor Don Nutbeam’s failure to respond to demands from students and academics for a decisive statement of his opinion […]


Southampton Students for Education released a video on Monday, after Vice Chancellor Don Nutbeam’s failure to respond to demands from students and academics for a decisive statement of his opinion on higher education changes under the coalition government.

In an attempt to envisage and initiate a dialogue about higher education that has thus far failed to emerge between senior University staff and students, the campaign group produced an innovative animated video (below) depicting a student conversing with Don about higher education changes.

The dialogue pieces together fleeting public comments that the Vice Chancellor has made in the past, although the Youtube video description invites him to correct his position if he feels he’s been misrepresented.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNdwajIAigI]

Southampton Students for Education, established last year, outlines in its statement of principles and intent its belief that higher education: is a basic and vital means of personal and social development; a social good that can’t simply be reduced to financial costs and benefits; a crucial means for the development of critical thinking which enables individuals to flourish as thinkers and practitioners; and a public asset that must be protected from the Government’s damaging and ideological higher education policy.

Believing that UK Vice-Chancellors’ responses to the reforms has thus far “lacked co-ordination and purpose”, the group has led a concerted effort to pressure Don Nutbeam and other educational leaders to decisively outline their respective views.

Marshalling the signatures of academics in support of their campaign, Southampton Students for Education have called upon “all university Vice-Chancellors to issue a press release or statement, publicly clarifying their support for, or objection to a) the imposition of debts of over £40,000 for new undergraduates and v) the removal of public funding for undergraduate teaching”, in an open letter published in The Guardian last month.

Aiming to maintain an active political presence of campus, raise awareness of higher education changes and hold the University and Student’s Union to account for protecting students’ rights by presenting clear and public opposition to the HE white paper, the group are planning to hold several events this term which will be publicized on their Facebook page.