I hope this is not too parochial...
I'm no longer a member of the RGS-IBG, but, perhaps for the first time I
can see that there is a benefit to be had in making an (unholy) alliance
with the 'spooks'. The current disaster that Brian Fender at HEFCE has
dished up for Geography is surely an issue that Jellicoe etc should be
mobilising around. For those that don't know, there is a suggestion that
HEFCE are about to change Geography's status to a classroom subject -
so starving the discipline of part of its funding base.
Incidentally, as Fender was until last year the VC at Keele, people at
Keele see this as simply a further extension of this man's vitriolic
distaste for the discipline - he is an obsessed man who regards
Geography as a dead subject and who did his best to close it down at
Keele. Without wanting to turn this into a loves/ hates list, there is no
doubt that Fender has fallen for Geology and Earth Sciences (a subject
he fought hard to defend at a national level in the 1980s). He thinks
'environmental science' does the business as well. The point of all this
is that these shifts in discipline designations are clearly cost-cutting
exercises, but may also have the knock-on effect of causing physical
colleagues, technician colleagues and maybe everyone to move to
Environmental and Earth Science Departments.
With such a threat to the discipline as a whole, from a man who, I
guarantee, is part-possessed, needs a strong reply (as people on the
Geography Discipline Network have been suggesting). Is anyone doing
anything at the RGS?
Steve H.
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Steve Hinchliffe, Department of Geography,
University of Keele, Keele, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG
Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: 01782 583166
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