{"id":3254,"date":"2019-04-15T14:20:15","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T13:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/?p=3254"},"modified":"2019-04-15T20:04:39","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T19:04:39","slug":"50-objects-for-50-years-no-50-the-philip-sully-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/?p=3254","title":{"rendered":"50 objects for 50 years. No 50. The Philip Sully Building"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The focus in this\u00a0posting is on\u00a0the final object of 50 in the series, the people at the heart of the OU, the learners.<\/p>\n

\u2190 President Cath. No longer a duck, she fits the bill.<\/p>\n

It was contributed by Cath Brown. She is well qualified to write about students. She been\u00a0a student \u00a0(she has a BSc in Molecular Sciences (i.e. Chemistry) and a BSc Open (mainly physics, engineering and history) and she is currently studying Computing at the OU. In addition, she has been a STEM Faculty Representative\u00a0on 2016-18 Central Executive Committee, has chaired an Students Association affiliated society (OU Alchemy) held various OUSA posts and moderated an online\u00a0forum. Currently she is President of OUSA.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
\n<\/a>Philip Sully with then OU Chancellor Betty Boothroyd on the occasion of the naming of the building
\n(Source<\/a><\/em> )<\/p>\n

Visitors to the OU\u2019s Milton Keynes campus will see buildings named after many illustrious figures \u2013 Perry and Horlock for the first and second Vice-Chancellors, Wilson and Jennie Lee for our political founders, and eminent scientists Alan Turing and Robert Hooke. But the Philip Sully building is the only one (to date) named after a student.<\/p>\n

When the building was named in 2006, Philip had completed 61 modules, and his qualifications included two undergraduate degrees, a masters and a doctorate. I somehow doubt he has stopped studying since then \u2013 the signs of OU addiction are clear to see!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good to be reminded, in this era in which education is too often seen as solely a means to an end, of the joy and the value of the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The Philip Sully building thus serves as a splendid symbol of lifelong learning.<\/p>\n

Our 50th object \u2013 the building \u2013 is here standing for Philip, and by extension all OU students, without whom there would be no university. What have these students looked like over the years?<\/p>\n

In the early days, there were a significant number of teachers who\u2019d taken the accelerated post-war training, but were now in search of a degree.\u00a0 These days, there\u2019s still that teaching link \u2013 it\u2019s a particularly popular career with OU graduates \u2013 but it\u2019s often classroom assistants looking for the degree to embark on initial teacher training.<\/p>\n

The OU was once christened the \u201cuniversity of the second chance\u201d. Being told that university was \u201cnot for the likes of you\u201d was all too common in days gone by; in 1950 only 3.4% of young people participated in higher education, and this was only up to 8.4% in 1970 and just 19.6% still in 1990.\u00a0 So\u00a0 the OU was the natural destination for many whose background had hitherto prevented them pursuing that degree.\u00a0 Even if they had the formal qualifications for admission to a \u201cbrick\u201d university, part-time or flexible courses at conventional institutions were unheard of, so for the employed aspiring graduate, the OU was almost the only game in town.<\/p>\n

In the 21st<\/sup> century, we are edging up to half of young people entering higher education (though who knows whether government proposals will knock that down again). So there are fewer of the \u201csecond chancers\u201d. Today\u2019s \u201ctypical\u201d OU student (in so far as such a creature exists) is in their 20s, working, and aiming to improve or change their career. In a surprising move, a fifth of OU students are now studying at full time intensity.\u00a0\u00a0 Then we have the students with disabilities for whom the OU is a much more feasible and flexible option, and the students who are carers, who can only contemplate studying if they can fit it around the demands of their lives.\u00a0 Many of these students are very time poor \u2013 fitting in study around family and work requires taking advantage of any free moment to keep up.\u00a0 Back in the 70s and 80s, OU students rose early and stayed up late to catch their course TV programmes; the videos may be all online now, but just as many students are keeping those same hours to carve out some study time.<\/p>\n

But the OU still has students from their teens to their nineties, and any broad assumptions about their motivations, their circumstances and their lives are pretty well destined to be wrong.<\/p>\n

So are there still students like Philip around \u2013 learning for pure pleasure? Most certainly; the rumours of the death of the \u201cleisure learner\u201d are greatly exaggerated (There is even a Facebook group called \u201cOU Study Addicts\u201d with hundreds of members). \u00a0\u00a0In England at least, it\u2019s expensive for a \u201chobby\u201d now, but there are still students who aim to never leave the OU, some taking advantage of the second degree funding now available for STEM subjects to keep going, others prioritising their studies over more frivolous activities such as holidays!<\/p>\n

Of course the OU student experience, like the student experience anywhere, is not just about studying. Many OU students say they\u2019ve made friends for life.\u00a0 In the early days, the tutorial, the summer school and the unofficial local study groups were where connections were made \u2013 a fantastic set up if you happened to click with someone local to you.\u00a0 The advent of widespread internet access opened up new additional ways to \u201cmeet\u201d; students of the 2000s will remember the FirstClass conferencing system with affection, but 2019 students are more likely to speak of Facebook and WhatsApp.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

OU Students Association first President Millie Marsland \u2013 clearly a force to be reckoned with! She maintained her job as a Headteacher whilst leading the Association.<\/em><\/p>\n

Like any other student body, OU students have had their own Students Association for most of the lifetime of the university. The Association (known for many years as OUSA) has (amongst other things) pushed for students to have a greater voice in the university (resulting on representation throughout the governance structure), developed its own support service Peer Support, started its own charity for students in financial need OUSET, and supports a raft of Clubs and Societies, including the strangely named\u00a0 TADpoles. This society was formed by students of the course TAD292 Art and the Environment, chaired by Simon Nicholson, which had its last presentation in 1985\u2026. But the society is still going strong in 2019!.<\/p>\n

The Association\u2019s video<\/a> gives a fuller picture of OUSA history.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/em>What will the OU student of the future be like? Whilst the financial pressures of the day and the demise of the \u201ccareer for life\u201d suggests that young(ish) career-changers and promotion-hunters may come to dominate our student body, let us make sure that our university always has room for lifelong learners like Philip, and continues to offer that enriching broad curriculum that has changed so many students\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The focus in this\u00a0posting is on\u00a0the final object of 50 in the series, the people at the heart of the OU, the learners. \u2190 President Cath. No longer a duck, she fits the bill. It was contributed by Cath Brown. She is well qualified to write about students. She been\u00a0a student \u00a0(she has a BSc […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[201,44,122,144],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-50-objects","category-people","category-students","category-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3254"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3284,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions\/3284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/History-of-the-OU\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}