Andrea Jacobs
University of Winchester
Was it a question mark or a hammer
and sickle that the students of King Alfred’s College carved into the face of
the nearby chalk down in the mid 1950s? Those interviewed for the Alumni Voices
project at the University of Winchester were divided on this point. Oral
histories of institutions are full of such inconsistencies and highlight the
debates over the ‘truth’ of past memory. Increasingly, however, these ‘bottom
up’ histories are being seen as enriching our understanding of the development
of the ‘soul’ of a university identified by John Henry (Cardinal) Newman in
1852. The oral history interview adds
an additional layer of understanding and allows multiple narratives to exist and
individual voices, of both the powerful and the powerless, to have equal weight
in the historical record.
The universities established in
the 1960s, the so called ‘plate-glass’ universities because of their modern
architectural design have now reached, or are approaching, their 50 year
anniversaries and it is significant that rather than commission a
traditional ‘house history’ to celebrate the event, many have chosen instead
oral history projects which have been made accessible on their websites.
The
example of the earliest of these, the University of Sussex, founded in 1961,
seeks to tell the individual stories behind the institution’s history and
provide an account of people’s relationship with the University, (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/fiftyyears/50voices50faces). At the University of York, founded in 1963,
they anticipate that the memories captured by their project will inform their
own history , the history of post-war universities and that of education in
general, (http://www.york.ac.uk/50/history/oral-history/).
Similarly at the University of Warwick, founded
in 1965, they hope that the interviews they have carried out reveal a great
deal about the development of higher education and research in the UK, and in
the history of student life and the social and cultural history of Britain
after 1945 (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/about/warwick50/blog/voicesoftheuniversity/). They have therefore not only included voices
not usually heard in traditional histories but have recognised that the result
resists the charge of being merely
‘parochial’ in view of the insights into the history of higher education more generally.
The University of Winchester is a much newer name, only
achieving university status in 2005. However its foundation as a Diocesan
Training College dates back to 1840 and it is therefore celebrating its 175th
anniversary this year. Alumni Voices: The Changing Experience of Higher
Education, written by Stephanie Spencer, Andrea Jacobs and Camilla Leach http://store.winchester.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=1&deptid=7&catid=17&prodid=443
is being published on 14th
April as part of the celebration.
Alumni Voices, while not originally intended to celebrate any
specific event, uses data from an oral history project, carried out in three
stages between 2004 and 2009. It focuses on the day-to-day experiences of those
who studied and worked in one institution to explore a way of writing the
history of higher education in the recent past and includes testimony from many
perspectives across the power spectrum.
The book reflects many of the changes
in higher education within the United Kingdom as a whole over the last sixty
years. It is also intended that by reflecting on the history of people’s
experience and in particular the way that the experience of being part of a
higher education community has changed, the book might provide additional
insight on the nature of higher education at the beginning of the 21st
century.
While ‘alumni voices’ are at its
core, alongside these, the book examines
the methodological dilemmas facing those who write histories of higher
education and more especially the exploration of the wider implications of the
contribution of the individual voice. This exploration is carried out, as we
have described elsewhere, (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03054981003696721), utilising voice relational methodology
(VRM) which derives from Carol Gilligan’s work.[1]
A critical period in the history of the institution, when in the 1970s,
it was fighting for its survival is given particular prominence in the book as
it was mentioned so many times by our respondents. In focusing on the way in which
members of staff, from lecturers to administrators to the principal himself,
recalled it, the book suggests that an oral history can indeed provide that
understanding of the significance of relationship between the personal and
political and the implications of that relationship for the direction in which
an institution grows and changes.
While our analysis using VRM, involves reading the transcript of interviews several times to capture the layers of meaning and restores some of the emotional responses which can be overlooked in a single reading of a printed page, nothing can replace listening to the interview itself: two very short extracts from two separate interviews which discuss the period in question are therefore included here.
The book is available for a special launch price of £10 plus £4 p and p.
For an order form at this price, please email andrea.jacobs@winchester.ac.uk
[1] Carol Gilligan, In a different voice: psychological theory and women’s development
(Cambridge Mass and London: Harvard University Press, 1982).