VC's Voice

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The University has been extraordinarily successful in bidding to the Joint Infrastructure Fund (JIF). Our four awards mean that, allowing for size, we have done better in the JIF competition than any other university. The money is welcome of course, but the importance of this success goes well beyond money. JIF awards have been made only to proposals coming from groups with an established record of excellence in research to the highest international standards. The successful groups, in Atomic Physics, in Neuroscience, in the Cell Mutation Unit, and in SPRU deserve our warm congratulations, as do all of those who have worked hard on the successful bids.

As an institution, this reaffirmation of our excellence in research should encourage us to build on strength, and in particular to ensure that prospective students, both undergraduate and graduate, are well informed about the attractions and strengths of the University of Sussex.

Having in mind the twin objectives of building on our research strengths and improving our attractiveness to students, I intend to make proposals to Senate this term for a major revision of the curriculum in the Arts Schools.

The interdisciplinarity of the undergraduate Arts curriculum is a distinctive and valued Sussex strength. We should re-affirm our commitment to interdisciplinarity, and seek ways to strengthen its reality. In particular, by introducing more flexibility into the curriculum structure, we could liberate forms of interdisciplinarity that are currently restricted by it; women's/gender studies and arts/science are two cases in point. The present curriculum is expensive to teach because it is excessively fragmented, with far too many separate courses being offered. This leads to heavy teaching loads on faculty, while at the same time offering to students on some programmes only a limited number of contact hours.

I propose a framework in which degree programmes could be created from two majors, from a major and an interdisciplinary programme, or from a major-minor combination. The number of programmes and the number of course options within programmes would be limited to ensure that most courses would have lectures as well as seminars. In this way, it will be possible to strengthen interdisciplinarity, increase curricular flexibility, reduce faculty teaching loads and increase student contact hours. I do not propose that we should semesterise the academic year.

Within the academic framework outlined above, Schools would continue to have a central role. Each School would have a distinctive set of programmes, though the relationship between Schools and programmes would be somewhat more flexible than at present. In time, as the syllabus structure evolves, some changes in the configuration of Schools might prove desirable.

I am committed to retaining the interdisciplinarity of the curriculum, and I do not want us to move to a departmental organisational structure. Equally, we should not let an excessively defensive attitude towards our present structures stand in the way of curriculum reform which is badly needed.