Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
MONDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2005
DANIELLE MILES,
IAN HUTTON,
AMY HUNTINGTON
AND STEPHEN
ROWLEY
Q80 Dr Turner: Do you think many
of your peers will want to pursue a career in science?
Mr Hutton: Yes, but I do not necessarily
think that a lot of people will want to go down the PhD route
now that way, but I can see a lot of other people on my course
staying within the field of biology, but not necessarily through
the PhD route.
Q81 Dr Turner: What do you feel about
the obvious prospect that you can have a situation whereby people
who reach the highest levels in a subject are actually going to
be disadvantaged in their careers. Do you think it is a disincentive
and a damaging thing to the whole subject?
Mr Hutton: That is one of the
things that is seriously making me evaluate whether or not I want
to go into postgraduate education.
Q82 Dr Turner: Uncertainty is a big
thing.
Mr Hutton: Yes.
Q83 Chairman: What about you, Amy?
There you are, you are doing it.
Ms Huntington: I am halfway through
my PhD and, no, I have not seen it as anything other than a plus
point, to be honest.
Dr Turner: Physicists are fairly scarce
animals, so maybe you will be all right.
Q84 Dr Iddon: Danielle, you have
given us an indication that you are going to Leeds, but could
you give us a feel for what is going to happen to the rest of
your people on your subject at Exeter? Is there a general feeling
or is it all over the place? Can you tell us the mood of the students?
Ms Miles: I think it is pretty
much all over the place. A lot of people I think have just given
up hope. There are a lot of people now left thinking, "What
am I going to do?" We put in an awful lot of effort—and
I am sure everyone else did as well—thinking about where
you wanted to go with your life, choosing a university, deciding
what degree to do—it was a big decision—and when you
finally reach it and you get there and you are happy and you feel
relaxed about it, and then to suddenly have it all ripped apart
underneath you and to say, "No, you cannot do that,"
and you then have to look again and then got to make new decisions,
I have taken that as maybe this is a good opportunity, maybe I
can go somewhere that I will enjoy more, or whatever.
Q85 Chairman: How did you hear about
it, Danielle?
Ms Miles: We heard about it through
the Press.
Q86 Chairman: Really? Nobody talked
to you at all?
Ms Miles: Nobody talked to us
at all.
Q87 Chairman: Which Press did you
read it in—the local Exeter Gazette, whatever?
Ms Miles: A lot of rumours were
going around and it was all flying around and one of the biggest
problems was the lack of communication. We were not told we were
going on. In fact I was there for six weeks when we finally got
told what had happened, and as far as I am concerned I am pretty
sure that they must have had thoughts about this happening before
I had even started in my first year, and I would have appreciated
it if I had been told when I got my A Levels what was going to
happen. They must have had some sort of information that they
had problems. We all got settled in, we were all happy, doing
well in our course and then suddenly for them to turn round and
say, "No." Some people are thinking of transferring,
some people are going to stay on because they do not know what
else to do, they are just lost, but for me, staying on—
Q88 Dr Iddon: When you say stay on,
do you mean stay on in another subject area?
Ms Miles: No. Our university is
saying that although they are closing the department and they
are making pretty much all of the lecturers redundant by 31 July,
we can finish our degrees in Exeter. I have turned round personally
and said, "How are you going to do that without lecturers,
without a department, without labs?" and they have said,
"We are not really sure at the moment, but it will be okay,
we will sort it for you." I said, "You need to put a
plan into place because that is going to be next September,"
and they are thinking of maybe bringing in temps, maybe buying
back people they have made redundant, which I cannot see happening;
maybe getting in retired staff or sending us to different universities
at different times of the week to do different modules.
Q89 Dr Iddon: How many people are
just going to say, "I have had enough, I am leaving university,
I am going to get a job"?
Ms Miles: I am not sure how many
will do that. I know that there are quite a few people who really
like Exeter and have decided to do law courses, or a few people
have decided to go on to geography or ancient history, which is
not their choice but it is the only other thing that they could
maybe see themselves doing, and they like Exeter, so that is why
they are staying, which has put them off doing science.
Q90 Dr Iddon: I just want to pursue
that hint that you have just put there that it is the university
perhaps that attracts more even than the subject. Stephen, if
your subject had not been available at your university would you
still have gone to the university and studied something else,
or would you have gone to another university to study what you
have chosen to study?
Mr Rowley: No, I would have gone
to another university to study civil engineering.
Q91 Dr Iddon: So civil engineering
or bust. What about Amy?
Ms Huntington: I think I would
have gone elsewhere as well.
Q92 Dr Iddon: Ian?
Mr Hutton: I would have gone elsewhere
as well.
Q93 Dr Iddon: You have made a great
play about Exeter, and it is a lovely city, I know Exeter well,
but if your subject had not been available there you would have
gone to Leeds or somewhere else?
Ms Miles: Yes, and I am pretty
sure a lot of my friends as well who started in the chemistry
course, if it was not available they would not have gone to that
university. But now because of what has happened and they are
unsure about their future, and whether it will happen elsewhere
and all the hassles, I think they just seem to think that it is
an easier option just to do something else.
Q94 Dr Iddon: Obviously the physics
undergraduate course at Newcastle is being run down. How is that
going to impact on your PhD, Amy?
Ms Huntington: We have not had
an actual physics department for a couple of years due to restructure
when it was put into a bigger school, so the department has not
been in place for about two years. There is no intake of undergraduates
on to a plain physics degree come September, that is true, but
the year after that I am led to believe that they are going to
start a natural sciences degree, obviously in all three sciences,
and I am led to believe you will be able to specialise in physics.
So in that sense physics is still going to be taught at Newcastle.
Q95 Dr Iddon: So your PhD is really
unharmed, that is what you are saying?
Ms Huntington: As far as I am
aware it should not really make a difference.
Q96 Chairman: Does it matter to you
that departments are closing? You are going to get smaller numbers
but they are going to be there, they are going to be bigger, better,
we hope, and so on. What do you feel about that? How do you look
at that, think about it? Say six chemistry departments closed
and the six that were left were wonderful, you would get in, would
you not?
Ms Huntington: There is no guarantee
of that, I suppose, is there? That is the thing. I understand
why departments are closing and I understand there are problems,
but . . .
Q97 Dr Iddon: What do you think the
main problems are? What do you think is causing these departments
to close? We are told a number of things, like there is a shortage
of people wanting to do chemistry or physics or engineering. What
do you think are they reasons they are closing?
Ms Huntington: Basically I believe
it is financial, fundamentally.
Dr Iddon: Whose fault is that? Is it
the universities, whose fault is it?
Q98 Chairman: Who do you blame?
Ms Huntington: Who do I blame?
Q99 Chairman: Nobody, everybody.
Ms Huntington: Everybody, yes.
I think that is the question, is it not?
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