News

Reinvestment programme and East Asia

(9 July 2003)

The Vice-Chancellor has responded to reports and letters in the Daily Telegraph with a letter published in the newspaper to correct claims that the University is breaking its links with East Asia.

07 July 2003

The Editor
Daily Telegraph

From Sir Kenneth Calman, Vice-Chancellor & Warden, University of Durham

Dear Sir

Your reports (4 and 5 July) about proposed changes at the University of Durham helpfully highlighted important issues in universities in general – but it is clear from the letters page (7 July) that there are some misunderstandings about Durham which I seek to correct.

Regarding the proposed closure of the Department of East Asian Studies, and the claim that Durham regards that part of the world “peripheral”, it needs to be pointed out that in our Strategic Improvement Programme we intend to continue language teaching for Japanese and Chinese. We also have substantial engagement with East Asia in 20 of our other departments through staff on collaborative projects and more than 550 students coming from East Asia to study the full range of our courses.

We welcome viable proposals to support this wider involvement in the East Asian region. In fact, letters to us from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and others, support our proposal that the languages remain.

The proposed change lies in the departmental structure for the delivery of teaching, and that relates directly to the prime reason why all universities are engaged in reviews and restructuring at the moment.

Changes in the funding regime by the government and the Higher Education Funding Council for England have affected many universities. At Durham we learned in March that £2 million had been removed from our budget for 2003-04 in spite of our academic excellence. It is not clear what the public funding base will be for coming years in all universities, and that is why our Strategic Improvement Programme includes plans to generate significant income from non-public sources and a fundraising campaign leading up to our 175th anniversary in 2007.

Durham is determined to remain a world-class university with excellent teaching and research. It will admit students from a wide range of backgrounds, based solely on quality, and will actively engage in reach-out work in the region and with national and international networks.

Anticipating funding climate changes, we last year restructured and strengthened our academic leadership at faculty and department level, and over the past 18 months engaged all departments to look at what they do and how they can adapt. My academic colleagues took this up enthusiastically and have produced real improvements.

As a result we will be able to re-invest £8.7 million in academic departments. Senate approved the proposals on 24 June by a substantial majority. Durham remains a great university. The changes we propose mean we can maintain the quality while being less reliant on state funding.

Yours sincerely

Kenneth C Calman
Vice-Chancellor and Warden