DEGREES in philosophy and non secular studies are to be “phased out” on the University of Kent, it was announced last week.
Courses in anthropology, art history, health and social care, journalism, music, and audio technology are also to be dropped, partly since the university believes that it could possibly not compete in these specialisms, but more generally due to recent “financial challenges including the fixed tuition fee, rising costs, and changes in student behaviour”.
The changes are a part of its Kent 2030 plan, “which brings together a spread of improvements based on suggestions from our students”, a press release circulated last week says. Students on the courses to be phased out will probably be taught and supervised until the tip of their degrees.
“Like many within the sector, we’re responding to quite a lot of financial challenges including the fixed tuition fee, rising costs and changes in student behaviour,” the discharge says. “This programme of labor is to make sure we get ahead of this, adjusting what we do to match changes in demographics while meeting the ambition of scholars and what they will study at Kent and the ways we support them in doing that.”
Religious studies not appears on the list of courses for the following academic 12 months. The undergraduate course was previously outlined as “Exploring global religions and philosophies, in addition to secular world views and approaches. We make connections between systems and beliefs to foster an understanding of various practices, cultures and worldviews.” Postgraduate study was described as going down in “a thriving, research-active department”.
Canon Robin Gill, Emeritus Professor of Theology at Kent, where he taught from 1992 to 2013, reflected on Monday that the closure was a results of each national and native aspects. “Nationally, all universities face a serious funding problem,” he said.
“Fees for UK students have long been frozen by the Government, and universities have coped mainly by recruiting more overseas students (who typically pay triple fees). Obviously, this favours subjects (akin to business studies, economics and law) that favour the rich. Most arts subjects, consequently, have been badly affected.”
The small department at Kent had latterly focused on research excellence, he said. Staff had achieved this only by cutting two well-subscribed MA programmes — applied theology and mysticism/religious experience — that did recruit home and overseas students, but didn’t fit current staff research interests; by hiring three extra senior staff with similar research interests; and by narrowing recruitment of postgraduate students mainly to those with these interests.
“Sadly, what my successors were unable to attain was recruiting a sufficient number of scholars to maintain the department viable,” he said. “The economically gifted late Professor Ronald Preston warned me 40 years ago that, for theology to survive in a secular university, an economically viable staff-student ratio is important. Wisdom forgotten.”
The University of Chester, an Anglican foundation, provoked an outcry in 2021 when it announced compulsory redundancies in its Department of Theology and Religious Studies. More than 800 religious leaders and academics protested, emphasising the crucial part it played in meeting the urgent need for religious literacy within the UK, and decrying the move as “an unnecessary act of vandalism” (News, 23 April 2021).
The department continued to thrive, nevertheless. It now boasts “the most effective employability rates within the UK in our discipline. Our courses develop subject-specific skills in empathy, cultural sensitivity and non secular literacy — all valued by employers.”
