Sir Albert Sloman's Vision - Creating a University Episode 2
This podcast examines founding Vice-Chancellor Sir Albert Sloman’s vision for the University and how others saw it at the time. Sir Albert Sloman saw a University which would be interdisciplinary, where subjects would inter-relate, often with an international focus that looked beyond the West, and be taught by leaders in their fields. Class and social barriers would be broken down by attracting not just some of the best and brightest students from around the world, but also many of the older men and women in the area who had never had the chance to go into higher education. Some of the early staff attracted by Sir Albert’s vision talk about the “bright, imaginative, adventurous” undergraduates who might otherwise have gone to Oxford and Cambridge – and academics who were upset at the idea of not having a Senior Common Room where they could escape from the students. Interviewees - Dawn Ades, Professor of Art History - Martin Atkinson, Emeritus Professor of Language and Linguistics, first came to Essex in 1974 - Joanna Bornat, PhD student, now Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Health and Social Care, Open University - Peter Frank, former Professor of Russian Politics in the Department of Government - Maurice Kimmit, former Professor of Physics, now Visiting Professor at the University’s Physics Centre - Anthony King, appointed Senior Lecturer in Government in 1966, now Essex County Council Millennium Professor of British Government - Alastair McAuley, Reader in the Department of Economics - Gabriel Pearson, Professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studiesfor over 30 years - Paul Thompson, Research Professor in the Department of Sociology, first came to Essex in 1964 - Peter Townsend (died 2009), founding Professor of Sociology