m.driscoll@mdx.ac.uk,
w.ahmad@mdx.ac.uk,
m.house@mdx.ac.uk,
e.esche@mdx.ac.uk

Thu, Apr 29, 2010

News that you are closing the Philosophy Department at Middlesex has been met with shock and disbelief from colleagues around the world. It is truly a staggering decision. I won’t speak about standards of intellectual and educational excellence, as these appear to be irrelevant here. Even on financial grounds, however, the decision makes no sense. It seems the Philosophy Department has not been losing money and that any discrepancy with respect to ‘targets’ is well within margins that allow for additional measures to resolve the situation. Simply to close the operation down is crass in the extreme.

Do you not know what this will do to the reputation of Middlesex as a serious institution? And without a good reputation, a university has very little.

Yours

Dr David Webb

Senior Lecturer in Philosophy
Secretary of The British Society for Phenomenology

Faculty of Arts Media and Design
Staffordshire University
College Road
Stoke-on-Trent
Staffordshire
ST4 2XW