Does Wales Deserve an 'Elite' University?
Cardiff University's VC doesn't seem to think so, and it begs the question: is this the right person to make decisions for Wales's capital city university?
Full disclosure: I’ve taken a lot of time to consider whether or not to write about this. At first, I was upset by the statement made by Cardiff University’s VC in The Times and did not want to produce a post from a place of ‘mindless rage typing’, so I waited a while. But the problem with waiting is that things become old news. So I held off again. However, I still found the VC’s comments concerning and couldn’t shake the feeling that someone needed to bring this up.
On February 9th, The Times published an interview with Cardiff University Vice-Chancellor Wendy Larner about her drastic plans to restructure the university. The goal, apparently, is to give the university more resources to focus on its ‘core and emerging strengths’. Prof. Larner is, essentially, sacrificing access to education in arts and humanities disciplines to save money for our STEM counterparts.
However, in her interview with The Times, Prof. Larner said something that I found particularly alarming:
“I believe in the humanities, and I’m very alive to the challenge of the humanities perhaps becoming a preserve of more elite institutions. But students are voting with their feet, and it’s a pipeline issue.”
Hidden beneath her promises that she does think humanities are important (hard to believe) is the insidious, underlying truth: Prof. Larner does not believe that Cardiff University, its staff and its students are ‘elite’ enough.
I don’t know whether this was missed due to the paywall in front of The Times’s articles or whether this was a small comment in a large media storm that has simply been missed. Still, in all the outrage and debates surrounding the issues at Cardiff, I’ve yet to hear anyone express how deeply offensive it is to suggest that Wales’s only Russel Group University is not ‘elite’ enough to keep a strong academic offering in the humanities.
As a humanities student at the university, I find the suggestion deeply hurtful. And I’m sure that Cardiff’s hardworking staff (faced with redundancies and intense job insecurity) would also find the VC’s comment insulting. Is the work we do not good enough? Are our grades not high enough, our research not prestigious enough, for Prof. Larner to consider our departments elite?
Or is this about a more profound cultural disrespect that the VC has openly displayed through her comment?
When VC Larner made her comment to The Times, she also insisted that universities could no longer afford to be ‘scaled-up versions of Oxbridge’ — a sentiment she has repeated to students in her consultations with us. A direct comparison between the university centred in Wales’s capital city and the elite institutions across the border in England suggests that, for Prof. Larner, the academic centre of the UK will continue to be English. Rather than working to transform Cardiff University into something that works with her picture of elitism, the VC has shoved our prospects aside in her restructuring plans.
However, Prof. Larner’s attacks on provisions for the arts and humanities in Cardiff doesn’t just show a willingness to play into oppressive views on Wales as a subordinate nation. But her actions also display a profound misunderstanding of Wales's history.
Let’s take Prof. Larner’s example of Oxbridge —two English medieval universities. Prof. Larner pointed out to students in her town hall meeting that because the concept of ‘university’ has been around since the medieval times, there are bound to be instances where evolution has been necessary for survival. Now, personally, I agree. I know that demonology and alchemy are not viable 21st-century academic disciplines like they were back in the day. I’m equally thankful that women can now achieve degree-level education, unlike back in the day. However, literature and languages, history, music and theology have been consistent academic offerings throughout history — whether or not you are an Oxbridge student.
Indeed, the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (Cardiff University’s original name) first opened in October 1883, offering tuition in a wide range of subjects. Alongside offerings in biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics and astronomy, courses in English, French, German, Greek, history, Latin, music, Welsh, logic and philosophy formed the foundation of academia at Cardiff University. But this doesn’t mean Wales was uneducated before 1883 — indeed, Wales has a fascinating intellectual history dating back to the medieval period (since Prof. Larner seems so interested in a medieval education).
Education in medieval Wales took several possible forms, the foremost being monastic (or religious) centres. The nature of Christian education in Great Britain is discussed relatively frequently, with the understanding that literacy was a standard requirement for those looking to hold a religious position. Evidence of monastic education in Wales can be gleaned from reading about the lives of saints. There are references to Welsh saints learning philosophy, grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic and metre as part of their monastic education in the early medieval period.
However, educational opportunities in Wales extended beyond the monastery as noble households were also known to take in young people to teach them manners and cultural accomplishments (likely including literacy skills). Furthermore, whilst there is little evidence of cathedral-based grammar schools in Wales until the mid-sixteenth century, there are records of schools associated with churches in Wales dating back to around 1165. Sure, these aren’t universities. However, the idea that because Wales doesn’t have a medieval university, it is therefore not elite enough to host humanities subjects is preposterous.
But, back to the universities — Oxbridge. We can trace the names of thirteen Welsh Dominican friars, nine Franciscans, two Augustinians and two Carmelites who sought an education at Oxford, and seven Welsh Dominicans at Cambridge in the medieval period. Notably, these names survive only by chance and are not as valuable statistics, but they were likely seeking university-level education in theology at English universities. Prof. Larner’s closure of the Religion and Theology course at Cardiff University risks once again sending Welsh students across the border to study theology — but she’s keen to keep Cardiff from festering in medieval academic habits.
Indeed, university-level education in Wales did not exist until the establishment of Aberystwyth University in 1872. And so, if age is the mark of elitism that Prof. Larner is looking for in her Oxbridge comparison, that doesn’t bode well for Wales’s academic future. Indeed, before the establishment of universities like Aberystwyth, Bangor and Cardiff in the 1870s and 1880s, it appears that those from Wales pursuing higher education would have no other choice but to travel outside of Wales to achieve their goals.
Yet, Prof. Larner boasted to students that Cardiff University has a longstanding progressive history. Indeed, she is the university’s first female VC, and the university was the first to give a woman a professor position. However, the concern with dismissing the intellectual history of Wales — which, in the medieval period focused on subjects we would now consider to be ‘humanities’ and in the university’s own history of offering humanities and sciences side by side — is that Prof. Larner is moving Cardiff University away from being the progressive institution that Wales deserves.
However, the real issue I have with Prof. Larner's surrender to the idea of academic elitism is the suggestion that Wales cannot offer an elite academic institution. Without arts and humanities courses at Cardiff University, those looking to achieve a Russell Group education will have to look at universities outside of Wales. This means most students will likely look to English universities, as twenty of the twenty-four universities in the Russell Group are based in England. Therefore, it also suggests that Prof. Larner is happy for students who could gain an enriching and valuable education in Wales to look for opportunities to study at high-performing universities in England instead.
Now, this is tricky. Prof. Larner made a great deal of fuss about living in a ‘profoundly postcolonial’ society to students at her town hall meeting — regarding the Cardiff University campus in Kazakhstan — but her comments about elite academia indicate that she has little understanding of the impact of imperialism still experienced in Wales today. As an English student studying in Wales, I tread lightly when bringing this element of my argument into the article. However, I do think it is essential to discuss the tensions between England and Wales here.
When arguing for an elite university in Wales, you must understand that Wales has a longstanding history of colonisation from the English. And this isn’t something from ancient times — I won’t talk more about the medieval period, don’t worry. Wales is a nation with a unique language, culture, history, and ideology that is partially governed by the English. In Wales, the sense of the postcolonial isn’t as profound as Prof. Larner seems to think.
The use of elite in her comment to The Times — a paywalled paper whose readers are predominantly white, middle-class and over the age of 35 — suggests that there is more than just financial power going into her thought process. Indeed, if the issue were just money, she would have used a word like wealthy. However, elite suggests a classist belief in the accessibility of humanities education. To be elite means to sit at the top of society, with the most money, power, and status. Removing humanities education from Wales’s Russell Group University and suggesting that the humanities will be the domain of only the upper class shows that Prof. Larner doesn’t believe in the potential of the Welsh — and that she doesn’t care about playing into the colonial perception of Wales as less valuable than England.
Welshness in Great Britain has been associated with stereotypes of being predominantly working class and uneducated, and Wales has been seen as generally more ‘outdated’ than England. Historically, this has led to efforts from the English to suppress Welsh culture. For example, in the 19th century, the British government deemed the Welsh language crass and saw it as the language of the uneducated. Subsequently, schools in Wales suppressed the speaking of the Welsh language by forcing Welsh-speaking pupils to wear the ‘Welsh Not’ — a piece of wood tied around a pupil’s neck to separate them as ‘different’ from their peers. Students wearing the Welsh Not were often punished, usually by beating. This practice was not official government policy, but it resulted from a sense of English cultural superiority that saw the Welshness as less elite.
Whilst the Welsh-Not is no longer practised, there remains strong evidence that Wales is considered second to England. Most notably, in 1965 — potentially within Prof. Larner’s lifetime — the Welsh village of Capel Celyn and the surrounding farmland was buried under 68 million tons of water to improve the water supply to the city of Liverpool. Within living memory, Welsh security and culture has been sacrificed to increase provisions for the English.
In taking an action that drives educational opportunity outside of Wales’s capital city, Prof. Larner has shown that she doesn’t care about the importance of allowing Welsh students to learn the arts and humanities in the capital city of their own country. It reduces opportunities for Welsh students to study in the Welsh language and shows a disregard for the colonial ideas that Wales is still forced to confront today.
I didn't know about the history of Capel Celyn or the history of the Welsh-Not until I came to study in Wales. Indeed, the history of injustices and biases faced by Welsh people isn’t often discussed outside of Wales. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that the new VC would come in like a wrecking ball and not consider the unique history and heritage of the new country she has moved to. After all, if I’ve not heard about the key issues affecting Wales’s national identity whilst living in England, how can we expect our New Zealander VC to have the appropriate level of tact? Maybe the assumption was that she would conduct a little research and develop a little understanding of where she was coming to work before Prof. Larner decided to take an axe to the academic provisions at Cardiff. As it stands, all she seems to care about is numbers.
I think it’s clear that Wales does deserve an elite university. Wales deserves a university in its capital city that provides academic excellence without sacrificing its arts and humanities departments.
But how do you achieve that? Well, I’m far from being the person to decide how to transform Cardiff University into something with the mystique of Oxbridge that our VC seems to require. But I would suggest that Cardiff University, its staff and students, deserve a leader who believes in us. The person steering our academic institution into the future should be someone who has faith that we are and can be an excellent university.
Professor Wendy Larner has shown that she believes that reducing the humanities offerings at Cardiff University will allow STEM subjects to push the university into the ‘Top 100’. Consequently, she seems unable to care for, support, and believe in us all.
For Cardiff to be the elite university Prof. Larner deems deserving of offering arts and humanities education, we could first try finding a VC who actually believes in the staff and students at Cardiff University. Then we can start dragging our reputation from the gutter into which she has dropped it and set our sights on great things.