\n<\/p>\n
Nottingham will be the only Russell Group university not to teach modern foreign languages degrees if it approves plans to close a swath of courses including Spanish and French as well as music and dozens of others.<\/p>\n
The University of Nottingham\u2019s council will next week decide the fate of 48 degree courses currently on offer but many staff fear the worst after the university said it would not accept applications for places next year.<\/p>\n
Supporters say the closure of Nottingham\u2019s languages centre would leave the East Midlands as a \u201clinguistic desert\u201d after earlier closures by Leicester and Nottingham Trent universities.<\/p>\n
More than 15,000 students, staff, alumni and leading academics have signed a petition warning against making \u201creckless\u201d cuts to modern foreign languages that would damage Nottingham\u2019s reputation as well as closing one of the UK\u2019s most prestigious language centres offering German, Chinese and others.<\/p>\n
Prof Cecilia Gloria, the director of the languages school, said: \u201cAn entire generation of aspiring linguists, translators and cultural mediators will find themselves geographically excluded from higher education in their chosen field.\u201d<\/p>\n
The university has been hit by industrial action by members of the University and College Union (UCU) over threats of job losses but the strikes have been suspended after the administration agreed to avoid redundancies until October next year.<\/p>\n
Prof Lopa Leach, the Nottingham University and College Union branch president, said the union was holding talks with the university over the course closures but \u2013 with only a few days until the crucial council meeting \u2013 there remained little time to affect the outcome.<\/p>\n
Leach said: \u201cThey are suspending or closing degrees that they incorrectly believe are no longer affordable. But a Russell Group university without modern languages or music, I mean, come on. One of my colleagues says we will become known as the University of Little England.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not simply fiscally driven, it is a change of ideology by university leaders \u2013 they are worried about overseas students not coming to UK, given the hostile environment, although our PhD applications were still excellent this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdd to that the dialogue of undergraduates wanting more \u2018useful\u2019 degrees \u2013 our executive board are unfortunately buying into that. But it is an error to think that modern languages or music are not important or useful, given they are very highly regarded.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Nottingham said that, like other universities, it had been hit by falling revenues and rising costs, forcing it to look closely at its finances.<\/p>\n
While it welcomed the government\u2019s decision to increase domestic tuition fees, the spokesperson said any gains were likely to be wiped out by the proposed levy on international student fees.<\/p>\n
\u201cA societal shift has significantly affected student demand for music and modern languages degrees over recent years, with the downward trend in recruitment reflecting changing demographics and educational and career preferences,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recognise the important place that music and modern languages have among our university community and are developing plans for skills provision separately from degree courses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prof Lon\u00e1n \u00d3 Briain, Nottingham\u2019s head of music, said: \u201cThe department has educated thousands of composers, researchers, performers, educators and other creative professionals.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur graduates have taken up leadership roles within the country\u2019s leading arts organisations. We remain a world-leading centre for music research, ranking second out of all units in the university during the last national research assessment. We are also deeply embedded in the local community, working with schools, music hubs, community groups, venues and professional ensembles.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe closure of the department would not only dismantle a thriving academic and cultural institution but also severely diminish musical life and future opportunities across Nottingham, the wider East Midlands and the nation as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nottingham said it currently offered about 1,000 taught courses, with the courses affected accounting for less than 5% of the total.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nottingham will be the only Russell Group university not to teach modern foreign languages degrees if it approves plans to close a swath of courses including Spanish and French as well as music and dozens of others. The University of Nottingham\u2019s council will next week decide the fate of 48 degree courses currently on offer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[12606,1802,16766,7319,686,5065,781],"class_list":{"0":"post-34343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-axing","9":"tag-considers","10":"tag-degrees","11":"tag-language","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-nottingham","14":"tag-university"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}