History of the OU

Open University staff at Walton Hall have been informed that this week the RAF Hut on campus is to be demolished to reduce costs and carbon emissions. The RAF Hut came from RAF Cardington as a temporary building in 1969. It was finally demolished 42 years later in July 2011. Recently it has been used mainly for storage but the hut’s structural condition had deteriorated and it is no longer fit for purpose.

Several huts were erected as temporary accommodation in 1969 and 1970, but because of a shortage of capital funding ended up being in still in use many years later.

Visit the History of the OU website for more information about the history of the campus at Walton Hall.

In wishing a happy birthday to Eliza M Shardlow we acknowledge that the OU built on the work of other universities in accepting part-time and mature female students. The first of the 381 day students and 623 evening students who started their studies when, on 30^th June 1881 Nottingham University College (now  The University of Nottingham) opened its doors, Eliza, then aged 24 would be 154 today, 20^th June.

We’re still looking for alumni tales of starting studying with the OU. Do let us know your story.

Many books and film portray students as wealthy, careless young men. For example, Bertie Wooster, a character who appears in the popular novels of P. G. Wodehouse, attended Magdalen College, Oxford. As the stories have appeared on the radio, and in films and been televised his antics on boat race night will be familiar to many.  However, such representations are only part of the story. This film, funded by Student Volunteering charity, ‘Student Hubs’ illustrates some of the ideas about students which were perpetuated in the popular media through a combination of archival footage and animated sequences. (more…)

The history of the OU was an important element  of a discussion on Monday, 13 June 2011 at the British Academy, London.

After a welcome from Robin Jackson, Chief Executive and Secretary of the British Academy there was an introduction from the chair of the panel, Sir Peter Scott, Professor of Higher Education Studies, Institute of Education University of London (Vice-Chancellor Kingston University till December 2010, earlier Editor Times Higher Education Supplement introduced. He spoke warmly of the innovative social democratic ethos of the OU and invited Professor Alan Tait, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Curriculum and Awards, Open University to address the question, ‘Flexible learning: the future higher education landscape?’ The PVC told his audience of approximately 70 people about the initial development of the OU in the face of criticism from civil servants, politicians of left and right and the BBC. He explained the ways in which it might be seen as flexible and some of its strategies for coping with the uncertainties which face the HE sector. Taking up the theme of the innovative nature of the OU a Fellow of the Society for Research into Higher Education, Lewis Elton asked how it was that OU had been pioneered in the often conservative UK and not adopted or adapted for use elsewhere. Alan Tait explained that there were many universities which had adapted the blend of teaching communication through broadcasting and correspondence with some contact with personal tutors.

The next speaker was Carl Lygo, pictured, Chief Executive Officer, BPP Holdings, and Principal BPP University College of Professional Studies. (more…)

The current storyline in BBC popular drama Waterloo Road, in which the school caretaker’s OU studies are an excuse for a blossoming romance with the head teacher, is just the latest example of how the OU has become a handy plot device for television fiction.

The OU page on Wikipedia reports that other television series in which characters have studied with the OU courses have included Ever Decreasing Circles and Goodnight Sweetheart; in Brookside,  Sheila Grant was accused of having an affair with her tutor; and there are many other references. (more…)

According to Cherwell, 177 dons have no confidence in the Universities Minister, David Willets,  Jonathan Black, the director of a careers service and Fellow of New College, Oxford sees this as a wider lack of confidence in the government.  Elsewhere there is a lack of confidence in changes which are being made to universities. Although she is against charging higher tuition fees Valérie Pécresse, the minister for higher education and research of France has still succeeded in provoking professors and students to take to the streets (in both 2007 and 2009) and demand her resignation. She has argued for 15 big universities across the country. This has echoes of an idea associated with former Open University VC John Daniel, who coined the word mega-university (see Daniel, John S (1996) Mega-universities and Knowledge Media: Technology Strategies for Higher Education, Kogan Page, London). He, however, looked to the past, noting that Walter Perry ‘did more than anyone to build the foundations for today’s mega-universities. It is largely because of him that we can use the word ‘mega’ about these institutions’. Perhaps if Ministers better understood the evolution of the OU then academics would have more faith in their pronouncements about the best way forwards.

So far publicity for our new website  has focussed on asking students, staff and alumni to share their OU experiences – such as on Platform, the University’s online community website. Whilst we hope that more people will share their stories, the website also provides an opportunity for those with particular knowledge or access to sources the project may not be aware of, to add links or material about aspects of the University’s history.

For example, (more…)

With holidays over and word slowly spreading about the new History of the OU website, it is pleasing to see the first user-submitted stories appearing. (more…)

The history of the OU project has launched a new website designed to showcase elements of the University’s history and to gather views and perspectives from others outside the project.

More material will be added as the project progresses. In the meantime, please browse the site. Any feedback would be very welcome.