I write in response to your article entitled 'Maidstone - Another Merger Victim' (Artnotes, AM317) which mentions me by name.
First of all I was delighted to learn that the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester has gained university title at last.
I was less delighted to see in a document entitled 'Questions and Answers Summary from Executive Roadshow, Maidstone, 15 May', that UCA 'cannot sustain five campuses' (read colleges) and that 'last year, only one of our campuses, Epsom, hit its student numbers'. UCA's first remedy has been to announce the likely closure of Maidstone, a distinguished art college founded in the county town in 1868. Its courses and students will be transferred, over two or three years, to the other colleges. A 'Sustainability Plan' maintains that between 2010 and 2012 UCA's estate will further be rationalised to 'four campuses; two in Kent and two in Surrey'. That gives a rather misleading impression of equality of treatment. There are only two colleges in Surrey - Epsom and Farnham. Be that as it may, this plan then goes on to say that by 2012-17 UCA intends to be down to only one campus in Kent.
Then with great fanfare, a 'new £75m campus in Kent' was announced, although the location 'is still to be decided' and there is no indication whether the £75m needed has been raised or allocated.
So the pressing questions arising are firstly, why announce the closure of a college and its replacement simultaneously when neither the funding nor the design are in place, and secondly what happens in the meantime? Surely the risk is that incoming students at Maidstone may transfer their places to other universities and even existing students may do the same. Student enrolment at UCA may tumble even faster. Finally, who would give or loan that sort of money to an institution with falling rolls and income particularly at a time of economic downturn?
According to the Sustainability Plan, c£30m has been identified to expand Farnham, one of the two Surrey colleges, to take student growth there to around 3,000 students. It is furthermore maintained that Farnham 'is the closest to a university campus feel'. Those with a cynical turn of mind may see all this as the beginning of an asset-stripping exercise. However the Merger Agreement signed by the Kent Institute of Arts & Design (KIAD) and the Surrey Institute of Art & Design (SIAD) states that it is the intention of the parties as at completion that for the foreseeable future the merged institution will operate primarily from sites in Surrey, Kent and Medway. So I don't see UCA pulling out of Kent anytime soon.
When Elaine Thomas, then director of SIAD and I set up the university we also knew that it would be vital to retain student recruitment, since running a five-college university spread across the south-east would not be the cheapest way of doing things. This challenge would fall to me as chief executive for the first two years, ie until 2007. At KIAD, I had nine years' experience of doing just that. Our application and retention rates were excellent, as were academic standards with top grades in all our HE and FE courses. Such a division of responsibility between myself and Elaine would allow her, as rector, to concentrate on academic excellence such as shaping the academic components of the institution, achieving the university title and working up a good RAE submission.
Which brings me to my own departure. Your article suggests that there was something odd about it. All I wish to say is that there was a dispute which I decided to settle amicably. I thought it would not be in the interests of the new institution to have a fight at the moment the new institution was being launched. In any case, I had felt quite frustrated for some time that the merger had entirely pushed aside my own work. That was intolerable.
What should UCA do now? Well, in my view it should withdraw its Maidstone closure plans* and others immediately, withdraw £75m building plans and focus instead on getting those recruitment and retention figures back up across all its colleges. Only when two or three years of robust figures have been demonstrated should grand plans be 'unveiled'.
I wish UCA well in its endeavours, particularly its famous art colleges at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester. For each one it should be proud.
* At time of going to press the governors have delayed closing Maidstone for one more year.
Vaughan Grylls was director of KIAD 1996-2005 London WC1, reproduced from the letters page, Art Monthly, September 2008.Go back to the debate about art education
