History of the OU

Sustainability is an institutional goal at the OU. Nick Braithwaite became Executive sponsor and was charged with improving our ranking in People and Planet. Nick consulted to specify the OU Sustainability vision ‘to create and share learning and knowledge for social and environmental justice’ and the focus for Sustainability delivery in Learn and Live: developing and promoting the curriculum for sustainability; upskilling and reskilling staff so that ‘sustainability is everyone’s job’; and coordinating a pan-OU matrix team through the Sustainability Office. Accompanied by the establishment of the Sustainability Steering Group, Sustainability Coordination Group and School Sustainability Leads (thanks to Emma Dewberry in STEM) and the development of our Sustainability Planning, Action and Reporting Kit, all teams across the OU can now contribute to this institutional goal and become good ancestors for future generations.
This month the role of Executive sponsor for Sustainability passes once more, this time to Klaus-Dieter Rossade, Executive Dean of WELS. Nick leaves a legacy, including a new tradition, as he quite literally passes the baton in the form of the Wimpey shovel. This miniature metal shovel is symbolic of planting seeds for future generations and a great example of reuse. It’s origins date back to the early days on Walton Hall campus when teaching took place in Wimpey huts, before any buildings were finished. The Wimpey shovel was used as an award to schools in STEM in the 1980s and is now finding a new lease of life in the safe hands of the Executive sponsor for Sustainability.

Joyce McMillan, ‘Why the extraordinary Scot who created Open University can help us respond to Trump’s victory’. The Scotsman  7th Nov 2024

The values, principles and policies of the late Labour MP Jennie Lee, born in Lochgelly in 1904, should inform left-of-centre thinking about how to defeat politicians like Donald Trump

Saturday evening in Lochgelly, and the streets are quiet, here in what was once the heart of the Fife coalfield. Inside the Lochgelly Centre, though, there is a buzz and a sense of occasion, as an audience gathers to see a new play about the life of Lochgelly’s most famous daughter, the Labour politician Jennie Lee. Born in the town 120 years ago this week, in 1904, Jennie Lee grew up in neighbouring Cowdenbeath, as a coalminers’s daughter, and a passionate socialist.
She was a brilliant girl, sent to Edinburgh University on a raft of local bursaries; and in 1929, aged only 24, she became the youngest woman ever to sit in parliament, when she was elected the Independent Labour Party MP for North Lanarkshire. Jennie married her Westminster comrade Nye Bevan, from the Welsh valleys; and became his mainstay through the Second World War, until the moment in 1948 when, as health minister, Nye Bevan became the founding father of the UK’s National Health Service.
Then after Nye’s death in 1960, Jennie Lee was appointed to Harold Wilson’s 1964 Labour government as Britain’s first-ever arts minister; a role in which she tripled cultural spending, campaigned passionately for wider access to the arts, and presided over the founding of the Open University, perhaps her proudest single achievement.

Trump’s stunning victory
The story of Jennie Lee and Nye Bevan, in other words, is an extraordinary tale of successful progressive politics pursued against all the headwinds of 20th century history, including a global war against fascism, and a brutally hostile UK media. 
So when the news broke, on Wednesday, of Donald Trump’s stunning victory in the US presidential election, one of my first thoughts was to try to imagine how Jennie Lee would have reacted to such a crushing defeat for all the values, principles and policies she held dear, including her passionate belief in the equal rights and dignity of women. And it struck me that despite a century of profound change, there were at least three aspects of their politics that might still help us to respond effectively to the rise of the far-right.

Vital reality-check
The first is to remember how strongly their politics was grounded in grassroots, working-class political organisation, and in the labour movement. Today, of course, trade unions are less powerful than they once were. Yet the focus of trade unions and other grassroots organisations on the real material circumstances of people’s lives – on rates of pay, conditions of work, on what we need to live decently and safely, and on the human solidarity and exchange of ideas that enables people to band together in the fight for improvements – remains a vital reality-check in a world of lies and disinformation, and an indispensable source of strength in building political resistance to the lies and hate-mongering of the far-right.
The second thought is that alongside their constant, well-grounded focus on making actual improvements to the lives of working people, Jennie Lee’s generation of Labour politicians succeeded in evolving a legible plan for improvement which people could understand and support; so that in 1945, the Labour party was swept to power on a postwar tide of enthusiasm for the implementation of the wartime Beveridge Plan for a cradle to grave welfare state. In the neoliberal years since 1980, centre-left parties have gradually abandoned such clear-cut plans, preferring to compromise with the growing power of international capital, and relying on mood-music, marginal adjustments, and vague promises of “change”, to hint at their good intentions in terms of social justice.

Far-right’s false solutions
Kamala Harris’s well-intentioned but failed presidential campaign, though, perhaps marks the bitter end of that road. It seems that in future, parties of the centre-left will need legible plans that directly addresses the economic concerns of voters, on pay, employment, prices, and housing – even where these involve a direct challenge to entrenched corporate interests – or they will risk driving voters in their millions towards the populist parties of the far-right, with their high awareness of voters’ angry concerns, and their false solutions to them.
Then finally, those who believe in progressive politics will have to learn – as Jennie Lee and Nye Bevan did – to build imperfect but effective alliances with anyone prepared to get on side for a defence of democratic institutions, and a broad commitment to freedom and justice.
During the war, for example, Jennie Lee accepted an invitation from Churchill’s munitions minister Lord Beaverbrook to work in the Aircraft Production Ministry, although she cordially detested the politics of both men; and in 1945, she abandoned her old dyed-in-the-wool loyalty to the Independent Labour Party to become a Labour MP. The title of Matthew Knights’ s new play about her is Jennie Lee – Tomorrow Is A New Day; and it captures both the hopeful nature of her politics, and her willingness to shrug off the loyalties and grudges of the past in the interests of getting things done, and moving on in a positive direction.

For Ukraine, for Gaza, for democracy
And what is clear is that there will be no “new day”, after the present dark moment in global politics, until the various shades of the left and centre re-learn the discipline that was so hard won in the 1930s, the discipline to turn their fire on the far-right enemy in plain sight, and to work together to defeat those forces.
History shows us that – like the building of strong, realistic grassroots movements closely linked to the political process, and the development of clear, progressive political plans that will attract hard-pressed voters – this can be done. And now, we had better set about the task of proving that we can do it again; for Ukraine, for the people of Gaza and the Middle East, for democracy, for freedom, and for all of our futures, on this good Earth.

Jennie Lee: Tomorrow Is A New Day will be at the Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline, 12-13 November.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/extraordinary-scot-who-created-open-university-jennie-lee-can-help-us-respond-donald-trump-us-election-victory-4856694

Sir Evelyn Robert Adrian de Rothschild FKC (1931 –2022) was a British financier. In 1967, de Rothschild created the Eranda Foundation to support social welfare, promote the arts and to encourage research into medicine and education. The Eranda Rothschild Foundation gave 2010 17K and 2012 50K to the OU. Sir Evelyn also paid for a plaque to be placed in the Legacy Garden in memory of an ancestor who fought in the First World War.

After his death there were reports about an investigation into sexual misconduct in 2003. An internal memo (circulated in response to a Guardian article accusing him of sexual assault and harassment against women working in the bank in the 1990s) was published by the Daily Telegraph. It said that “no evidence’ had been found to support those allegations. Source: https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Farticles%2Fc78wlx1lvqqo&data=05%7C02%7Cdaniel.weinbren%40open.ac.uk%7C253cc6d6215a4e6ca9e208dd48541199%7C0e2ed45596af4100bed3a8e5fd981685%7C0%7C0%7C638746248081066035%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=y4u3uz8RJAKZaqERVWVzW8Iuofd9P9%2BJFpfO0hyAjLo%3D&reserved=0

The Guardian https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2025%2Ffeb%2F05%2Fevelyn-de-rothschild-left-bank-in-2004-after-sexual-misconduct-complaint&data=05%7C02%7Cdaniel.weinbren%40open.ac.uk%7C253cc6d6215a4e6ca9e208dd48541199%7C0e2ed45596af4100bed3a8e5fd981685%7C0%7C0%7C638746248081087784%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ewhah9sQqgSZR7cBTLbpizmZdHzSz1%2BvLKwhaGf3cWs%3D&reserved=0 reported that at least eight sources had alleged that Sir Evelyn used his position at the bank to abuse women who worked with him.

Coventry Evening Telegraph 20 December 1966 p11 reported that with pirate radio banned the BBC was looking to set up its own ‘pop’ radio. The plan was to run nine local radio services to be available via VHP sets in about a year. There was to be no advertising and some of the costs could be borne by the rates. It was also suggested that the OU could use these stations

In her book, ‘Bloody Brilliant Women: the Pioneers, Revolutionaries and Geniuses Your History Teacher Forgot to Mention’, Cathy Newman records of Jennie Lee that she was “So much loved by the public that when she attended a play, the audience would applaud as she took her seat,” Jennie Lee, she adds, “beefed up the Arts Council and saved the National Youth Orchestra”.

The publisher claims: Bloody Brilliant Women uses the stories of some extraordinary lives to tell the tale of 20th and 21st century Britain. It is a history for women and men. A history for our times.

Review

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/22/bloody-brilliant-women-cathy-newman-review

Further Guardian comment:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/25/britain-culture-minister-arts-jeremy-wright

Letters:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/nov/26/in-praise-of-jennie-lees-arts-legacy

The below is part of a posting written on an OU blog by Linda Anderson in 2018.

I fetched up at the OU in 2002, already a designer and deliverer of a successful distance learning writing course. Here’s what I knew. Distance learning widens participation in a dramatic way. It is a truly intimate form of shared learning. It empowers shyer people to have their say. Students benefit from a permanent record of feedback and discussions that they can return to as necessary. I also knew about the risk of quarrels that can blaze suddenly, leaving relationships in tatters. I knew on a deeply personal level about tutor burnout. I had been warned about it on the OU training course but had naively failed during the first couple of years to set limits to word counts or frequency of submissions to tutors. In the production of A215, I hope I kept in mind the tutors’ right to have a life.

I still remember how thrilled and challenged I felt by the job. At its core was a highly demanding form of teaching that had to be lucid and accessible as well as replete with lively, planned activities to both practise and test skills. But there was a cluster of other exciting elements: team management, peer review, editing, programme-making, interviewing famous writers, liaising with publishers internal and external, and ultimately, tutor training and supervision.

In the making of A215, what I wanted to import from the Lancaster model was the student-centred approach, to mix tutor-led online conferencing with occasional face-to-face day schools. I wanted students to try their hand at the three main genres of fiction, poetry, and life writing, finally being free to specialise in their chosen form or forms. The production team was a superb one, and despite our fair share of arguments and injured feelings, our work was relatively frictionless. The main authors were myself; Mary Hammond, an expert on publishing; Sara Haslam, a prime mover in the establishment of the ‘Start Writing’ series; W.N. Herbert, award-winning poet based at Newcastle University; and Derek Neale, who was steeped in the UEA writing culture both as an MA and PhD graduate and tutor for many years. Bob Owens, despite his workload as head of department and staff tutor in London, edited the Readings section of the Workbook. He and Shirley Coulson (course manager) contributed their extensive knowledge of how to navigate OU systems, a vital role in a team with so many new staff. Clare Spencer gave us an AL perspective.

I was surprised at how much teamwork kept us to a tight schedule while not curbing our creativity. Different colleagues often pushed the boundaries to create ambitious or unexpected elements, such as Sara Haslam’s recorded panel discussion by eminent biographers – Michael Holroyd, Blake Morrison, and Jackie Kay, chaired by Robert Fraser – a beautifully realised debate. Derek Neale included a range of innovative styles of biographical writing in the Workbook, showing how to mix fact and fiction. Within a couple of years we had an array of audio CDs, a study guide, and a 600 plus page book, Creative Writing: A Workbook with Readings, co-published with Routledge.

The course launched in 2006 with approximately 2500 students and gained the highest retention level in the University as well as high scores of student satisfaction. The Workbook was acclaimed and is still in wide use in other universities. Over a hundred ALs, most of them new to the OU, were trained and supported in online teaching. These successes remained consistent over eight years, so that 22,000 students had taken the course by the time I left in 2013. It was Maggie Butt, our first external examiner, who made what felt to me like the best tribute to the course: ‘You have managed the industrial scale without losing the personal touch.’

Creative Writing has gone from strength to strength. Derek Neale chaired A363: Advanced Creative Writing, which launched in 2008. Although I had some hand in the production, the course materials were largely written or produced by Derek Neale and Bill Greenwell. Derek designed a distinctive approach of experimenting with form. He aimed to deepen students’ engagement with fiction, poetry, and life writing while also introducing scriptwriting for various media. The core text A Creative Writing Handbook: Developing Dramatic Technique, Individual Style and Voice was co-published with A & C Black. When both courses were up and running, we were organising teaching and assessment of more than 3000 students annually with a very small course team.

Research developments

The PhD programme began in 2008. Of the four researchers I co-supervised with Derek Neale, two won internal scholarships against Faculty-wide competition and all gained their doctorates either shortly before or shortly after I retired. Three of their four novels have now been published and widely reviewed: The Longest Fight by Emily Bullock was named as ‘a fine addition to the canon of boxing literature’ in ‘The Independent’; Owl Song at Dawn by Emma Sweeney was shortlisted for the Amazon Rising Star Award in 2016; Heather Richardson’s Doubting Thomas was recently listed by ‘The Independent’ as one of the nine best Scottish fictions of 2017.

In the spring of 2012 I founded The Contemporary Cultures of Writing research group with my creative writing colleagues. I organised and chaired our first series of seminars at the Institute of English Studies, University of London on the theme of ‘The Rise of Creative Writing’ to coincide with just over forty years of Creative Writing in higher education in the UK. We explored the question of whether writing courses had a traceable and positive impact on literary culture. I found that eminent authors and academics like Maureen Freely, Andrew Cowan, and Alison MacLeod, were prepared to travel to London and speak for expenses only. (It’s a generosity that my colleagues have subsequently also been able to rely on.) The audiences were gratifyingly large, with about 25 people showing up to two events and a dozen for one on poetry. These series are still going strong and have given colleagues experience in event organisation and panel chairing as well as raising the public profile of the OU.

Linda Anderson worked as Reader in Creative Writing at The Open University from 2002 – 2013. She is a contributor to the short story anthology The Glass Shore, ed. Sinead Gleeson, which won the 2016 Irish Book of the Year Award. She is co-editor with Dawn Sherratt-Bado of the acclaimed anthology Female Lines: New Writing by Women from Northern Ireland (New Island 2017), described by Arts Council Head Damian Smyth as ‘one of the most important books to be published about Northern Ireland in half a century.’ Her novel Cuckoo, first published in 1986 by The Bodley Head, will be reissued in 2018 as a modern Irish classic by Turnpike Books.

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Source: https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/english/on-establishing-creative-writing-programmes/

​In June 2024 Peter Keogh, Professor of Health and Society in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies attended the graduation in Mountjoy Women’s Prison in Dublin of OU’s first female in Students in Secure Environments (SiSE) to graduate in Ireland.

He said:

“I was incredibly fortunate that the first SiSE graduation I attended after transferring to the OU in Ireland was for the OU’s first female graduate in Ireland. This was a huge achievement for the graduate herself but also for The Open University and the prison education staff.
“Talking to the graduate, I was struck by how little she made of the obstacles she faced studying in a secure environment. She expressed admiration for learners on the outside who juggle their learning with childcare and jobs. But the barriers she faced were all too real and included not only having to overcome the difficulties she faced in her own life but also having to fight entrenched norms against women prisoners learning, and significant technical and IT barriers.
“It was great to have an opportunity to discuss these things with a group of female prisoners who have been inspired to follow in her footsteps and study for qualifications with the OU. The SiSE team in Ireland deserve huge credit for supporting and facilitating all these amazing journeys. ”

“To me, these graduation events go to the heart of the OU’s mission in promoting equality and social justice through education. Never has the term ‘the university of the second chance’ been so appropriate.”

The event was also attended by John D’Arcy, Director of Ireland. He added:

“It was a privilege to attend this degree ceremony at Mountjoy Prison. I was so impressed by our new graduate’s commitment to her studies and how much she was inspiring other prisoners to undertake study. The commitment of the Irish Prison Service Staff and tutors from City of Dublin Education and Training Board with our SISE manager Tony Peoples is a model of good practice.”

On 22 January 2024 an Employment Tribunal found that Prof Jo Phoenix was discriminated against and harassed by her employer, the Open University, because of her gender critical beliefs. See here https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Joanna-Phoenix-v-The-Open-University-Employment-Tribunal-Reserved-Judgment.pdf Prof Phoenix also succeeded in her claim for constructive dismissal.

There are transcripts here: https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/professor-jo-phoenix-v-the-open-university

The Watford Employment Tribunal ruled that:
• Jo Phoenix holds protected gender critical beliefs, meaning that she believes that biological sex is real, that it matters, that it is not possible for someone to change their biological sex, and that biological sex should not be conflated with the gender identity.
• The OU directly discriminated against Prof Phoenix, treating her less favourably because of her gender critical beliefs.
• Prof Phoenix was harassed by her colleagues and by OU management in relation to her beliefs.
• Prof Phoenix was constructively dismissed by the OU.
• The OU victimised Prof Phoenix after she was dismissed.
Jo Phoenix was employed as an OU Prof of Criminology from 1 August 2016. In June 2021, she was one of those who established the Gender Critical Research Network at the OU, a research group focused on the importance of sexed bodies in different academic disciplines. 368 OU staff signed a public letter calling for the group to be disaffiliated from the OU. There were allegations of transphobia. Discrimination and harassment was experienced by Prof Phoenix and she left the OU on 2 December 2021. She issued a statement: https://jophoenix.substack.com/p/my-resignation-letter?r=mt0ab&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true The OU issued a statement: https://openuniv.sharepoint.com/sites/oulife/Pages/Resignation-of-Professor-Jo-Phoenix-.aspx

Rulings from the judgement were:
• The complaints of direct discrimination because of the Claimant’s gender critical beliefs are well founded.
• The complaints of harassment related to the Claimant’s gender critical beliefs are well founded.
• The Claimant’s complaint of constructive unfair dismissal is well founded.
• The Claimant’s claim for wrongful dismissal is well founded.
• The Claimant’s claim for post employment victimisation is well founded.
• The Claimant’s claim for post employment harassment is well founded.
The case received considerable publicity. For example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/open-university-academic-wins-tribunal-case-over-gender-critical-views The VC issued a statement. https://openuniv.sharepoint.com/sites/oulife/Pages/OU-statement-on-employment-tribunal-ruling.aspx
Others commented, for example: https://sex-matters.org/posts/publications/learning-from-the-jo-phoenix-case/

In March 2024, Professor Phoenix announced that she had agreed a compensation settlement with the Open University. The amount to be paid was not disclosed. https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/open-university-agrees-settlement-in-gender-critical-belief-case-ou-phoenix/
The OU Council commissioned an independent review of the key issues raised in the ruling. See https://openuniv.sharepoint.com/sites/oulife/Pages/Independent-Review-Announcement–.aspx

Joan Bellamy, nee Shaw, 1926-2023, was an Open University tutor, Staff Tutor and between 1984 and 1990, Dean of Arts. She contributed to a number of courses, modules, including for A101, with Colin Cunningham, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow; The Roots of Western Society; Studying the Arts (1977) and for A102 she co-edited Culture – Production, consumption. She provided ‘Milton and marvell’ for A203 (1981) and for A205, Culture and Belief in Europe, 1450-1600: Royal and Religious Authority. The British Isles. (1996). She also wrote for the OU-focused journal Teaching at a Distance, notably in 1978, an article on ‘Special Support for Students with Academic Difficulties: Experiences in Yorkshire’ and, with John Purkis, Milton Study Guide.

The daughter of Hilda and Tom Shaw (a coal miner and Labour councillor) she grew up in West Yorkshire, read English at Leeds and in the 1940s worked full time for the Communist Party of GB. After her husband, Ron Bellamy, a Marxist economist at Leeds University, accepted a Senior Lectureship at the University of Ghana the couple spent 1963-66 in Ghana where Joan worked in the press office of President Kwame Nkrumah. After a coup ousted Nkrumah the couple returned to Leeds, where Ron became Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Social Studies, 1970-72 while in 1970 Joan (as Communist Parliamentary candidate for Leeds East) received 513 votes. Following the demise of the CPGB she joined one of its successors, her political position unchanged. In 1988, in a collection of essays entitled In search of Victorian values she assessed gender relations while Ron contributed a Marxian economic analysis. Having written for the journal of the South African Communist Party, The African Communist and Communist pamphlets (eg Homes, Jobs, Immigration: the Facts, 1968 and Unite against racism: defeat the immigration bill, 1971 and a ‘Bibliography on Africa’ for the Marx Memorial Library Bulletin (1971), Joan turned to literature. She edited, with fellow OU academics Anne Laurence and Gill Perry, Women, Scholarship and Criticism C. 1790-1900: Gender and Knowledge (2000) and wrote More precious than rubies: Mary Taylor, Friend of Charlotte Bronte, Strong Minded Woman (2002).

Her interest in empowering people and understanding democracy as a process pervaded her work at the OU and her wider contributions. In 1975 she wrote in the CPGB weekly Comment that to rely on the 1976 Race Relations Act was to ‘ignore the potential of the democratic participation of those most bitterly affected by discrimination, the black people themselves’. In 1992, for Labour History Review she contributed a piece on ‘The use of trade union banners in education’. She reported on how she had asked students to analyse trade union banners, her aim being ‘to illuminate the lives, values and culture of sections of the organised working class of the past’. When, in 2018 she offered, via the Guardian, a critique of the proposed developments of OU Vice Chancellor Peter Horrocks, it was in terms of a defence of the OU’s social democratic reputation. She opposed that which could ‘be the final hammer blows to the drawn-out process of demolishing one of Labour’s greatest achievements’. Having travelled to Iraq, Syria, Mongolia, Ghana and Moscow, she returned to the county of her birth and long retained an engagement with the Brontes and with women and Victorian fiction.

Degrees of Freedom: Prison Education at The Open University edited by Rod Earle & James Mehigan, Policy, 2019.

For half a century The Open University has provided higher education to those in prison. This book gives voice to ex-prisoners whose lives have been transformed by the education they received. It offers vivid personal testimonies, reflective vignettes and academic analysis of prison life and education in prison. It has chapters by both OU staff and former students.