Save Middlesex Philosophy

TO: Vice-Chancellor of the University, Michael Driscoll, m.driscoll@mdx.ac.uk

I am a professor at the University of Oregon in the U.S.  I am also currently a Senior Advisor to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Labor.

Over many years, Middlesex’s philosophy department has earned a well-deserved reputations as a world-class department.

Your attempts to eliminate the department appear to reflect an abandonment of the very fundamental principles that have underpinned academic life for centuries — a commitment to intellectual integrity that is not subordinated to financial goals.  It is difficult to see any rationale for closing this department other than a decision to treat the university not as a university but as a series of profit centers that must be held to the highest possible rate of return.  While every school obviously needs enough money to keep operating, this attitude applied to such an internationally renowned department is disgraceful.

Furthermore, your treatment of the students and faculty who engaged in a peaceful library sit-in to protest the treatment of the philosophy department, again, undermines the very values that universities are supposed to embody.  The cynicism of these reprisals — banning protesting faculty from any communication with students or staff — conveys a very simple message to students: the ideas we teach you in class about truth and justice and history — those aren’t serious; in the real world, it’s might makes right.

I urge you to reconsider your decision, both because it’s the right thing to do and because anything else will undermine the quality and reputation of your university.

Sincerely,

Prof. Gordon Lafer

University of Oregon

CounterMapping QMary project

5 May 2010

Dear Colleagues,

As an organization from a third world country, we could only look in dismay, that a country that has inspired the world for its cultural and philosophical contribution to the human intellectual history and research, should face this most untimely move to have its philosophy program closed.

The UK could not assert more of power supremacy, but it certainly could continue to inspire the world with its intellectual presence by continuing its philosophy program that cannot be taken away by any country of whatever economic might.

UK must stand equal to a great civilization – Middlesex University Philosophy tradition is one such institution in that country that would asert its strong cultural presence in the 21st century intellectual world order.  PUT THE INSTITUTION BACK and redeem your pride as a civilization that prides itself with the supremacy of the mind over wealth.

Prof. Dr. Alfredo P. Co
President, Philippine Academy of Philosophical Research

20th May 2010

To whom it may concern

I write in despair at the news of the planned closure of Philosophy in Middlesex. It is not an understatement to say that this decision has sent shockwaves through the academic community more generally, given the calibre of the department and the niche that it served in terms of Continental Philosophy. I have been following with interest the actions taken by the student body, which is testament to the high quality of the student experience in Philosophy, and their sense of loyalty to their subject and academic staff. Moreover, the reaction more broadly in the media testifies to the importance of the unit both nationally and internationally.

As an academic working in Queen’s University Belfast, a university which has itself taken fairly brutal measures over recent years in terms of departmental closures, I am horribly familiar with the agenda of management in Higher Education, and of its incompatibility with the needs of students and lecturing staff. However, even in the current climate, the decision to close Philosophy appears particularly egregious, given the exceptional research profile of academics in the department, and the healthy postgraduate numbers. In my own university, brutal intervention is frequently justified on the grounds of perceived weakness in either student numbers, research performance or grant income. In some cases, to the delight of the powers that be, these factors coincide. That this is so strikingly not the case for Philosophy, a stellar unit in research terms, and one with extremely healthy postgraduate numbers and income, begs the question, what does such a department have to do to ensure its own survival? If this is considered an unviable unit, then these are indeed worrying times to be involved in the Arts and Humanities.

I would urge you to reconsider this decision.

Maeve McCusker
Dr Maeve McCusker

Senior Lecturer, French Studies

School of Languages Literatures and Performing Arts

Queen’s University Belfast

Belfast BT7 1NN

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb

Ivana Lučića 3, HR–10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Phone:    +385 (0)1 6111 808

Fax:         +385 (0)1 6170 682

e-mail:     filozofska-istrazivanja@zg.t-com.hr

Letter in support of Philosophy at Middlesex University

I have received worrying news that the Middlesex University executive are to close all Philosophy programmes and to shut down the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, which is well known as the main centre for European or ‘continental’ philosophy in the UK, with an established international reputation, frequent visiting speakers from abroad and increasing numbers of postgraduate students. Moreover, the Middlesex Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy is widely recognised as one of the most important centres for the study of modern European philosophy anywhere in the English-speaking world. However, the abrupt closure of all Philosophy programmes at Middlesex University is not only a matter of national but above all of international concern.

Henceforth, the termination of Philosophy at Middlesex University would represent significant loss not just for British but also for the entire international philosophical scene. With deep expression of professional and humane solidarity with my colleagues philosophers from Middlesex University, I am urging the appropriate instances of the University authorities to cast aside the termination of Philosophy at Middlesex University thus preventing one tremendous cultural disgrace both for British and the  world academic community.

Professor Mislav Kukoc, Ph.D.

Faculty of Philosophy, University of Split,

President of the Committee on International Cooperation of the Croatian Philosophical Society

Member of the FISP Steering Committee

Split, May 5, 2010

Hediger (Bochum)

Dear Professor Driscoll and Professor Esche,

The range and level of support for the philosophy department at Middlesex has been outstanding, but not at all surprising. In the context of philosophy in the UK, the Middlesex department has a unique and important position. While teaching and research in Europan philosophy remains marginal to all but a handful of philosophy departments in the UK, Middlesex has made European philosophy central to its work.

As somebody who read philosophy at University, but who now teaches in the social sciences Department, the work of the philosophers at Middlesex is critical. As you may know, European philosophy has had a pervasive impact on research and teaching across the social sciences and humanities over the last thirty years, and continues to do so. In this context, many scholars and social scientists, including myself, depend on the existence of a strong base of teaching and research in European philosophy in the UK. If the department at Middlesex were to close this would considerably weaken this base, with a detrimental impact on research and teaching beyond the discipline of philosophy.

I understand very well that the current funding environment makes it difficult to sustain a substantial programme of undergraduate teaching in some humanities disciplines. But given the international reputation and quality of philosophy at Middlesex, the department clearly has a sustainable future based on graduate teaching, for which it has a justifiably high reputation. Indeed, given that many of the Middlesex Philosophy graduate students are likely to be self-funded,  the financial future of the Department is less likely to depend upon government funding than most. The intellectual case for maintaining the Department at Middlesex is absolutely clear, in my view, but there is, I suspect, a very strong business case too.

I urge you to reconsider this damaging decision, and to think creatively about how to develop the Philosophy Department at Middlesex for the future.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew Barry

Dr Andrew Barry, Reader in Geography
School of Geography and the Environment, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY

Fellow in Human Geography
St Catherine’s College, Oxford OX1 3UJ
tel: 01865 271713 mobile: 07970 694712

17 May 2010

Dear Members of the Board,

I am writing in reference to the decision to close the Middlesex philosophy department. I coordinate a small undergraduate philosophy program at the American University of Paris so I am familiar with the challenges of low student numbers. We have a very successful Communications department with astronomical student numbers, and when they are feeling hard done by, communications professors occasionally suggest that their oversized classes are subsidising the smaller classes in philosophy or Comparative Literature. Their frustration is understandable given how long it takes the administration to approve their requests for new hires to meet student demand.

However, it would be a terrible mistake to base a management policy on the sentiments that emerge during moments of duress. Universities are naturally institutions in which not every sector or department produces the same cost/benefit ratio, and it is often those departments which are not as traditionally profitable which contribute to the prestige and name of the university. One cannot run a university as if it were a hard-discount supermarket; one cannot simply close down departments without adulterating the nature of the institution. The word university derives from the Latin universitas, whole or totality.  If one closes down a department, one closes down a branch of knowledge, and so, on however little a scale, one quite simply kills part of the future of knowledge, allows a small part of the universe of the known to disappear. This is why professors find such decisions ‘barbaric’. A university is a national symbol of knowledge.  To close departments on grounds of minor revenue problems is to betray the university’s mission of advancing both the nation and humanity as a whole.  If management at Middlesex continues on such a path, probity dictates that the institution should no longer be granted the proud right of proclaiming itself a university.

Even in business terms, one cannot run a large company with an eye to its long-term health by immediately closing any department that shows a loss over one quarter. Departments evolve and if they show signs of health – which Middlesex Philosophy does, given its RAE rating – then they will continue to contribute to the life and health of the university.  Philosophy is already doing so by teaching students from other departments: there are lifelines of collegiality as well as simply ideas joining one department to another. Moreover, the prestige of the scholars in one department affect the recruiting of talented faculty and students for other departments, so that the elimination of the philosophy department must indirectly impact upon the well-being of all of the departments in the humanities. If you simply cut one organ out of a body you could well end up damaging other organs.

This is not a debate over good management – making the ‘hard’ decisions – versus redundant academic nostalgia. This is a debate over short-term asset-stripping management versus clear-sighted and careful management: be wary of the life of your whole institution, it is far more complex and fragile than you think.

Yours sincerely,

Oliver Feltham PhD

Associate Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature;

Coordinator of the Philosophy Program

Department of Comparative Literature and English

Anne-Marie Picard-Drillien

Professor of Comparative Literature, French, and French Studies;

Department of Comparative Literature and English

Jula Wildberger PhD

Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature;

Coordinator of Classical Studies.

Department of Comparative Literature and English

Samuel Tabas PhD

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature

Department of Comparative Literature and English

The American University of Paris

31 Avenue Bosquet

Paris, 75007

De : Brian Massumi

Date : 14 mai 2010 17:49:37 HAEC

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

Objet : closure of Middlesex Philosophy

To the Board of Governors, Middlesex University

I feel compelled to add my voice to the growing indignation over your decision to close the Philosophy Department at Middlesex. It was with shock and incredulity that I first heard of the decision. The Philosophy Department at Middlesex enjoys a well-deserved reputation, not only in its home discipline but across the humanties, in England and abroad, as among the most dynamic and productive academic centres for theoretical inquiry worldwide. Its reputation is such that it hardly possible to utter the words “philosophy” and the “UK” in the same sentence without the next sentence starting with “Middlesex.” My shock at hearing of the decision registered my disbelief that a university possessed of such a resource could be so short-sighted as to deprive itself of the academic asset it represents for its own students, and for the international community of scholars. My growing indignation translates my disquiet over what a decision of this nature means for the direction of higher education generally. I can only interpret it as part of the continuing realignment of higher education according to narrow principles of efficiency and economic rationalization which betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of learning and research in a complex and rapidly evolving society facing challenges of historic proportions which have shaken the certainties of the past. Centres for innovative theoretical thinking such as the Middlesex Philosophy department are laboratories for new modes of thought for the challenges ahead. They are an essential element in the university research mix, without which students will be ill-prepared to understand and respond to the challenges — and opportunities — of the changing world in which they will live and work. I strongly urge you to reconsider this ill-conceived decision.

Sincerely,

Brian Massumi

Professor

Department of Communication

Université de Montréal

C.P. 6128, succursale Centre-ville

Montréal, QC H3C 3J7 Canada

fax: (+1) 514 343 2298

brian.massumi@umontreal.ca

Dear Members of the Middlesex University Board of Governors:
I am writing to urge you in the strongest possible terms to reverse the decision to close the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University.  As a scholar of Continental philosophy, I can assure you that the CRMEP is rightly and widely regarded as one of the world’s leading places for the study of French and German philosophy from the nineteenth century through the present.

I have the deepest respect and admiration for the faculty and students of this program.  Particularly thanks to the outstanding quality of its prolific and brilliant faculty, the CRMEP is internationally renowned as the top program for the study of Continental philosophy in all of the United Kingdom;  in fact, to repeat myself for the sake of appropriate emphasis, it’s one of the best departments in the world for work in this area.  Its size and success, as measured by a variety of factors (including the number of students there), testifies to its importance for teaching and research in this field.

Actually closing the CRMEP would be nothing less than horribly tragic.  It would be a terrible loss for the international intellectual community.  Moreover, it would amount to a gesture of irrational self-destructiveness, being a move that would severely (and pointlessly) damage the reputation of your institution.  For the sake of both Middlesex University and contemporary philosophical thought itself, I implore you to reconsider this ill-conceived closure of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy.

Sincerely,

Adrian Johnston

—————————————
Dr. Adrian Johnston
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
MSC 03 2140
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
Phone: 505-277-2405
Fax: 505-277-6362
E-mail:  aojohnston@yahoo.com