The following is a transcript of an interview with Danielle Hampson on The Author's Show, about my novel, University Shambles.
There will be a link available shortly.
DH:
In just a few sentences, how would you summarize your book?
CR:
It’s about one man’s naked ambition and hunger for recognition. This is probably
not an uncommon scenario in many walks of life, but the hero of this book,
Charles Rae, happens to be a lecturer working at a mid-ranking university whose
boss refuses to promote him on grounds of his youth. He’s 32. Almost as an
answer to some silent prayer, one day his phone rings and he is head-hunted
with the offer of a full-professorship at the Evergreen Epstein University, a
former polytechnic. So, in a spirit of elation, he moves up to the city of
Evergreen to take the post, but this proves to be a poisoned chalice and his
life steadily and completely unravels.
DH:
How true to life is the plot of University Shambles?
CR:
Oddly enough, someone who had read the book said to me: “I didn’t know you were
at “X” University.” I said, “I wasn’t.” “Oh,” she said, “it’s just that some of
the events and characters remind me of...” And this is the reaction I have had
from people working at universities across the spectrum – from the very top,
down to somewhere near the bottom of the league - so I guess it’s pretty true
to life across the board of modern universities.
DH:
How have universities changed over the years?
CR:
The major change is that in 1992, the British government decided to re-label
the polytechnics as universities and quadruple the number of students going to
somewhere called a “university”. So, when I went in the late 1970s the
proportion was about 10% going into higher education, now it’s around 45%.
DH:
Was the expansion of the British university system, in 1992, a good thing?
CR:
No, it wasn’t. The only reason the government did it was to cover-up the true
level of youth unemployment. So, many of those who would have been classified
as unemployed, instead ended up in education and training, which is far less
embarrassing for a government that wants to get re-elected.
DH:
20 years on from then, how has the scheme unfolded?
CR:
20 years on, good polytechnics, which dealt more with practical training, local
industry etc. have been destroyed and turned into “bottom league” universities.
But simultaneously, the more established universities have been infected by the
bureaucracy that did indeed beset the polytechnics, so both systems have
suffered.
DH:
You have written the novel in the style of a black comedy, but are you trying
to make some more serious points about higher education and where it is/should
be going?
CR:
Yes, it is a black comedy, or satire, but I am intending to reveal the
university system, to the unaware and the unwary, for what it has become, and
to show that it urgently needs overhauling to be of any use.
DH:
What is your opinion about the introduction of "tuition fees" for
British students?
CR:
Well, this was all part of the huge expansion in student numbers. Essentially
the system became so big that the government couldn’t afford to fund it, so the
costs of the expansion had to be borne by its “customers”, as students are now
called. So, now they all pay tuition fees, or at least bear the debt of them,
until they earn above... I think it’s about £23,000 a year. Now universities
are fined if they recruit too many students, in an effort to keep the
government’s own costs down.
DH:
You refer to "bums on seats" funding for universities - can you
explain what this means in practice?
CR:
“Bums on seats”. Well, in British slang a bum is a bottom – a posterior, rather
than the American term for a vagrant - and so the term refers to the number of
students sitting in lecture rooms in universities. The funding is given to
universities per student, and so the more bums on seats the more money they
get. A corollary to this is that little consideration is given to what subjects
are being studied. Clearly, with a majority studying subjects that are deemed
trendy or sexy, but of limited value in getting a job afterwards, like media
studies, forensics, sports science and so on, there will be many unemployed
graduates in the future.
DH:
You are a little scathing about science funding, almost implying that some very
expensive research is perhaps frivolous. Do you think that some of it is?
CR:
A massive proportion of the science budget is spent on things like particle
physics and astronomy. Now, while this is all cutting-edge stuff in terms of the
acquisition of human knowledge, the world is facing some considerable and
unprecedented challenges. For example, how we are to provide energy in the
future with a decline in fossil fuels; how are we going to feed a population
growing from 7 billion, and indeed to address a need to teach more practical
skills to the young, as civilization becomes necessarily less global and more
local, as cheap oil supplies decline? I think resources should be targeted
toward these matters. The rest is a luxury that we won’t have for much longer
if we don’t get our house in order to face the future in a sustainable way.
DH:
What do you feel are the main differences, if any, between British and American
universities?
CR:
In a way the two are becoming more similar. Traditionally in the U.S., more
students went to college – i.e. into higher education – and it was quite normal
to “work your way through college”, if your parents weren’t well off, to pay
tuition fees and to live. Maybe this is still the case. It also took longer,
and a BS is worth less than a British B.Sc. An American MS is closer in
standard to a U.K. degree. As I noted earlier, in 1992 the British university
system was vastly expanded so that around 45% of the young now go to a
“university” of some kind, and they pay tuition fees. When I went to university,
I got funding – a grant – from the local authority, but at that time only
around 10% went, so the system was affordable. Now it isn’t. So, we have moved
from an elitist system of higher education to a mass higher education system,
like the U.S. has.
DH:
There are now record numbers of unemployed university graduates. Do you think
it might have been better if some of them had not gone to university?
CR:
The level of graduate unemployment in Britain is a real scandal, and a
consequence of this poorly thought through bums on seats expansion of the
higher education sector. Put it this way, if you do a degree in something
sensible like chemistry, engineering, modern languages and so on, and study at
a good university, you will be in a much better position to get a job than if
you study something undemanding, but unmarketable, at somewhere like the
Evergreen Epstein University - the fictitious university described in my novel.
And the terrible thing is that these students will carry a debt of around
£30,000 ($50,000) for the privilege, at the end of it.
Indeed,
it would be far better if many young people, rather than going to “uni” as they
call it, went out and learned a trade, like being a plumber, carpenter,
electrician etc. Much better to be a trained plumber, in demand and earning a
good living, than an unemployed media studies graduate.
DH:
Do you think that in their present form, universities meet the needs of
society?
CR:
No, I don’t. It’s a complex problem, because the needs of society will change
profoundly, especially so in a world whose resources – particularly those of
crude oil - are unable to maintain a global economy as we know it now. As we
move back to more locally-based communities, because we won’t have cheap
transportation on the scale to which we’ve become accustomed, we’ll need far
fewer “universities”, and “academic” education, but much more in the way of practical
skills.
DH:
Do you think that we have seen the last of the major changes to universities,
or can you envisage a further overhaul of the system?
CR:
Not by a long chalk! The major driver for change - in British universities,
anyway - is the proposed cuts in their funding under the government’s
“austerity measures”, to try and cut the debt incurred through them having to
bail-out the banks, after the 2008 crash. In a nutshell, universities, and
consequently, individual courses and departments, will have to be financially
viable, or quite simply they will go to the wall. Now this may well tie-in with
the former polytechnics to some extent going back to their roots, and
delivering more practical skills and providing training for local industry.
Since it is teaching that is set to be cut hardest, and these are predominantly
teaching-institutions rather than research-based universities, this is the only
way real-life versions of the Evergreen Epstein University, of my novel,
formerly the Evergreen Polytechnic, will be able to survive.
DH:
What is the message or moral that you are trying to disseminate to the reader?
CR:
Well, the book is a work of fiction, but not really. I believe the term is a roman a clef, a novel with a key. So,
beyond giving a reader a good laugh - if a slightly hollow one because the kind
of things that happen in it are common to any badly managed corporate organisation,
not only universities - my intention is to point out that the university system
is largely not fit for purpose and that rather than continuing on this bums on
seats path, where “graduates” are produced in great number, irrespective of
whether they are going to be of any use or not, the government needs to act to
say, “OK, how many media studies graduates do we need, how many pharmacists,
psychologists and so on, in terms of the future that we envisage for the
nation?”
DH:
Other than of course selling your book, what do you hope to accomplish with it?
CR:
To illustrate the need for a complete overhaul of higher education - certainly
in Britain - to a properly functioning system that meets the needs of the
nation, rather than maintaining the pretence that every young person should be
a "graduate" and every academic a "full-professor"
irrespective of their talent or actual level of scholarship. There are plenty
of “professors” – that’s full-professor in US parlance – mostly in the
ex-polytechnics, with practically no published work. Sadly, this appears to be all
part of the same trend, leading to a high level of graduate unemployment, low
standards and a generation of young people with neither sufficient practical
nor academic skills to earn a living, and bearing a huge debt for the
"privilege". Rather than the government target of 50% of our young
becoming "graduates", we need more electricians, plumbers,
carpenters, mechanics, farmers, gardeners and bricklayers. Many of our
"universities" should become technical colleges again, to provide
practical training of exactly this kind.
DH:
How have readers responded so far to your book?
CR:
Actually, it’s been very well received. It has some excellent reviews on Amazon.
It seems to be the case that anyone working in, or familiar with, universities
enjoys the book as a black comedy, but its message of “be careful what you wish
for” and “those whom the gods wish to destroy they first grant their wishes”
applies equally to all ill-managed corporate organisations. The perilous
"greasy pole" is everywhere.
DH:
You’re an experienced writer, so is it safe to assume
there will be a next one?
CR:
Well, yes, you can assume that. I am working on a couple of themes, for example
what becomes of the hero of University Shambles, Charles Rae, and we find him
10 years later, in quite a different setting. In fact the Evergreen Epstein
University did Charles a favour by destroying his former career, and he is
doing well in a quite different sphere of life. So there’s no need for the
reader to worry about him! But I’m also working on another, more factual, book
about how we might adapt as a civilization in response to resources shortages,
and devolve back to a globe of local communities, from the present global
village. I have also published my first children’s picture book, Hippy the Happy Hippopotamus, which aims
to get environmental ideas over to kids – not in any kind of preachy way, but
to be a lot of fun! I’ve also written some poetry.
DH:
How can readers find your book?
CR:
The book “University Shambles” is available as a hard print copy (what we call
hardback in the UK) and also as an eBook/Kindle version. If you go to my
website, http://www.rba.co.uk/UniversityShambles/ there are links to get either printed
or Kindle versions, and you can even get a copy with a dedication and signed by
the author, if you so wish.