Episode 14: From medieval employability to a new intellectual start up

This episode of My Imaginary University is rather longer than usual and follows a slightly different course to previous editions. My guest this time is Professor Sir David Eastwood, most recently, until his retirement, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham but someone with over 25 years of senior leadership in the sector.

David explores some of the history of higher education, starting with medieval universities and their surprising employability focus before moving on to the development of the University of Birmingham and subsequent civic institutions. Noting that many universities now are looking to rediscover a civic mission, recognising that this is not at odds with sustaining an international outlook, we also explore the changes in university governance which used to have a much greater civic input. 

We explore the pioneering interdisciplinary approach of Keele from 1950 and the distinctive success enjoyed by the University of Warwick following its very different approach to dealing with the 1981 university cuts. Noting the importance of scale for university success David observes that creating a substantial challenger university is always going to be difficult. Nevertheless, he is prepared to try and moves on to outline his imaginary university which he is confident he can make succeed within the current UK HE environment (assuming a massively generous endowment). Whilst he loves the undergraduate offer this would be an exclusively graduate university with a strong research base. 

The university will offer some big set piece events including major presentations by visiting lecturers with the aim of elevating public debate. And it is going to offer some distinctive musical choices from Beethoven to Mahler. It's a great long view of universities through the ages and a novel idea for an extremely well funded imaginary graduate institution from someone with the experience to deliver.