INSIDE: 40 YEARS OF UEA HISTORY THE STORY SO FAR FROM BIO AND EAS EVENT REVIEWS FOR 1963 FREE
UEA'S STUDENT NEWSPAPER
Specia l Issue · 1963 - 2003
EARLHAM GOLF COURSE CHOSEN FOR NEW UNIVERSITY SITE.
the Uni ve rs ity or East Anglia is to become a reality. Origina ll y to be called the University of orwich (the name was changed tu sec ure a w ider base of fund ing). it joins York and Sussex in the first wave of new un iversi ties designed to address the c urrent shortage of under-graduate places. Describing his vision for UEA (as the insti tuti o n may come to be known). recently announced Vice Chance ll or Frank T hi stlethwaite spoke of ''b uilding bridges between the arts and the sciences." Professor Thistlethwai te. who special izes in American histo ry. is keen to use hi s experience to help bring new ideas to the English university system. He said ...si nce we are a new uni versity and not hidebound by tradition. there is everyth ing to be said fo r taking a look at the Uni ted Slates ...
Building an East University is a cu lw,,a J project. The proposed si te is Earl ham golf course and it b estimated that the gavernment wi ll have I 0.000,000 over the next seven to ten years in order to realize the plans proposed by Thistlethwaite. Located a shon d istance outside the ci ty centre, the golf course setting was chosen. according to the Eastern Dai ly Press. .. because of its beau ty". In additi on to the government grant. the University 's C hance ll o r. Lord Mackintosh, has launched an appeal to raise 1.500.000 from public donations. If thi s leve l of sup port can be fou nd. there is every reason to suspect UEA will be the .. well-i ntegrated. well-balanced. fu ll University .. Professor Thist lethwai te hopes for.
PlANS RELEASED FUNDINCi? DON'T FIRST STUDENTS' VERDICT: ''FINE'' HAVE ACOW WITH the proposed opening of the Univer sity of East Anglia less than a year away, mo re details have bee n released . The most high-profile announcement i, the radical design architect Denys Lasdun has proposed for the Uni,cr,ity site. Composed largely of concrete blocks, the site· s most recognitablc feature will be the five
recreation. However. Mr. Lasdun·s plans arc merely what he describes as .. an anatomy of an idea .. - architects for the individual structures have yet to
rows of 1iggurats that shou ld provide much of the student accommodation. The inter-li nking
be appointed. lt has been made clear that the 'ite wi ll not be ready for the firs t three years of the University's exisinstead a temporary tence: ·university Village· will be con structed. at a cost of 266.400 across Earl ham Road on I 2 ac res of la nd
nature of the buildings refl ects Vice-Chance ll or T hi stl ethwaite · s "i'h for an institution with no clear houndarie' between learning and
anonymously donated for the purpose. Earlham Hall. currently under renovation. will also provide teaching space.
TH E campaig n to raise 1,500,000 in donatio ns was given a promoti ona l boost by a friendly wager with York University, which is a t a s imila r stage of development. UEA Chancellor Lord Mackinto'h wa» heard to quip. "I see that York have set their figure at two mi ll ion - well good luck to them .. . We will raise more.'' He further raised the stakes hy agreeing with York · s Chance llor. Lord Hare wood . that whoever raised more wo uld
receive a prite-winning cow from the loser. For several months. totals remained close, with major contribu tions fo r East Ang lia coming from. amo ng others. John Macki ntosh and Son' ( 100.000). Norwich Union ( I 00.()()()) and J & J Coleman (75.000) . However. it has been announced York have emerged victorious by a ,)im 5000. True to his word. Lord Mackintosh has pre'cnted his rival with an I K-month old heifer.
ON October 7 th . UEA 's first MM und er gradua tes arri ved to begin their stud ies. Mis' Sally Hult. 18. fro m Surrey wa' the first fully-lledged student. hcing tlr>t at the matriculation ceremony . Reaction> from the new arrivals were positive. with one commenting. ··1 wa' 'urpri,cd to sec how line 11 was. Temporary housing wa' also wel l received. ··1 have taken the married daughter·, room in the fam -
ily with whom I am staying. and it is hig eno ug h no t only to work in. hu t to entertain ... Gcorge Earlier. Registrar Chadwick had spoken of the Llniverl<i ty's hope for a roughly 5050 gender split (at the time only 9r,1 of >tudents at Cambridge were women) . In the end. 6 1 of the 88 we re female. The intention i> to rapidly expand the 'tudcnt inta~c. with a target of 3.000 within a dcc·adc .
Cotuete
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Page 2
t 963 -2003
WELCOME TO NORFOLK A LTHO UG H muc h o f the buildin g work a r ound the Uni ve r s ity re m a ins unfinis h ed. tod ay s tud e nt~
were a ble to move f.-om
temporary hous ing in to Norfo lk Terrace. the first of ten pro pused bui ld ings of its t)·pc made to accom modate s t ud e n ts. Amid>L the rubble, mutl and pipe>. rain->oakcd s tudent> abo !loc ked to ex pl o re· ano ther new bui lding.
the
Chemi >tr y
It may be hitrd to pi c-
D~ partme n l.
tu re the f ull scal e of bui lding wo rk pla nned at presen t. but eve ntual ly a tov.: n new will e merge . Pede , trian' w il l ha\ e cnmplcte free do m to roam abo ut witho ut the nu i, ancc of traffic - roatl' w il l run undernea th rai , ed w a lkwa ys and countks>
intercnnner ting
pat hs
linking ho using. sho ps and ' chools o f ' tud y. The Unive rs it y A ppea l Fund raised £ I Mill io n purel y for the pmvb ion o f res ide nces for students. w ho befo re now have had to co me
. :-;::.--:-
~- ..,.
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~
r--.<04" . . . .. ..._
~ ;.,.--::-
from the te mporary acco mmoda ti o n at ex - RAJ-' centre SI. Faith 's. fo ur and a half miles away fro m the Un i\'e rsi ty.
Luc ki e r stude nt s were
ho used at the Village. ano the r te mporary site about a qua rter o f a mi le from the ma in ' ite . Th e Vil lage still contai ns the library and can teen. Norfo lk Terrace a ttrac te d
so me
ha '
a lread y
ra th e r
negati ve
name> fmm the >t udcnl, . >Uc h as ll it ler' s Bu nke rs a nd it is cert ai nl y true tha t it is a uniqu e bui ld ing in it s desi g n.
Entra nce is o n the fo urth
Students agree to leave Art Building after 9 days. Y ESTE R DAY. after nine d ~1f nccupa ti on , t h e s tudents cam-
Uni\ers it y prope rt y. w hi ch the) may
Un ion reacted ang ri ly to th is 'do ub le
neighbo urin g >. ite. The po li ce were
b) the time the sit ended .
be ro rcetl to pay. and accu, eLI them o l ·rilli ng' exam pape rs.
punishme nt ·. fir>! by Court. the n by
ca lled due to ite ms bei ng ' to lc n l ro m
thiS time m il ita nt ' oct ali' t group'
the U niversity. a nd fcc b students
the
were blamed for the ma tn "' urce of
sho uld have the po wer o f veto over di\C ipl ina ry acti om of a non-acade-
be l\\ e en
fl oor vi a a rai sed wa lkway w hic h
pa~ nin g
le ad ~
dow n steep ste p:. into sets of t wcl vc st ud y bed room >. T here is a nauti ca l feel w he n e nte rin g the
fe llow s tudent Bill Hut c hin son lina ll) left t h e Ar·ts hlock and ma r ched to Unive r s it y
Tcrra ncc . like goin g below dec·k
Administra tion a t Ea rlha m Ha ll .
' i"n o f Amer ica n ' tu de nt Bi ll Hutchin >on. '' ho pleaded g uilt y to th ~ c harg~ o f pw•,\C~.., ion n f cann ahi ..,
int n sets o f w inding com partme nt s
llcre the y wa ited to ' P~ak to Vice C hance llor Thi s tklh\\ a il~ . who had
and am phetamine ' at the Mag i.., tra h:\ · Court two mont h.., ago.
in ~ i ~ tcd
The Uni1·ersity then added their own
a> if on a shi p. Bu t any s tudent feel in g d au , trnpho bic in the narro wetl
fm· the re instatement of
lhc rc '' o uld he no negotia' llltl~nh
The pro tc;t ' !e ms from the c xdu -
>ile.
and
aft e r
the
Studen t'
di >cu " io m
During
l ln ion
the protest. and a 'lll1a\l group o f ' lU -
Pre s ident. Mr K . Coo mbe >. . and police. the mah: rial :-. \ \L'fl' I'L'tllrn ~ d
dcnl >. took to climbing o n the roof o l
but the 'tudcnt> re ma ined .
rnu m w here t.:x anh \\ en.~ hei ng hdtl and ha nging th..:ir fee t to ~ au ~t; Llh-
" hcrc as the L:ni,·er>it y sa y they re,e rvc the ri ght to rci nfnrce their
Altho ugh th ~ Arh Bl oc k wa ' free to th me w ho wa nted to co me and go
rupti o n. T he Student>· Uni on de ny the >c
o w n regul ation > de spi te an y other sa nctio ns.
" ' they pleased. lc " on ' were tli sruptcd . Fnod ' upplie' and ge ne ra l pnH j.., iu n . . ''-l'l'l..' hro ught up to stu-
e1enh haLl an ythin t: tn do \\ lth the ir
de nh .
C o mpre he mi" c a nd en cn urag 1ng . ., dH ln l pupil ' tu join the :-. it in .
mi c nature . The y dem a nd the readmiss ion of Bi ll H ut c hinson ,
corrido rs need onl y look o ut of the ir
tion "hilst the
co nt inued to
puni slune nt. e\pellin g the ' tlllknt.
hu ge ' tudy windo w o nt o the Terrace and a bea utiful vi ew of the Yarc \'al -
nccupy th e An ' Blor k. Tnda). the ll niver, ity ha' accu , c<.l the ·,i t-in ·
" hn may nm1 ha n : to re turn to the U. S . and po" ih l) ra ce bc 1ng dra l tc<.l
T he studen t' began their occupation by harricadin g them ,e lvcs in
k) .
'tudenb n l 0.000 nr dama ge' to
to Vie tn a m "' a re,u ll. The Stude nt
" ith con>lructi o n ma teri al fw m a
th o ugh
th e
number
of
pw te, lo rs d " 111tllcd In <>rou nd I 00
ca u\e.
h\
Loca l pare nt> we re a ngered
... tu li ..:nh
gn ing
r.arlh am
,e
Tents provide temporary housing solution .as UEA money worries increase T he ll ni,·er,i t) of East A n g lia h a' felt t h e sti ng nf the c u rrent l' CO-
annu ~d
nomic nisis most pro found ly throug h o u t thl· ) l':tr. a nd
Utla\ o itlable. The hudg.:ttl ghtelllng
n r 't udc·n h
may he ill -ti med "' the re are plans )o r ru rthc r e\)lllll,!On wi th in th e
\'ornad Sc..KtL' I) an: l i\ ing
"ht!"t thL· l n itll l h:l\1...'
\ lni1cr; it y. 1-'unding frn m the t 1111\C rsi ty G ran t Com mi ttee j..., IHll
rcn ti n!! n l . . ~\l'ra l canl\an . . . tn he 't;tlttlllcd llll ~,.,·;~mpu ..... pnn tdin_:! tcm
enoug h to L·m er the pro posed ne\\ ,dwols
pnra r.'
!llh\\tllll
llJ1[~
The l ·n 1on nt l'L\ Students arc
re"oun·e, are under 'train. In :Ln atiL· m pt tn l' tll
'J1L'Ild tng
a
imp~''L'd
llll
h;tc k u n
' I fL't.:'/l'
h ~t'
jnh"
"i th1n
l ·n t\c' t 'tt'.
O nce
hCl'Uil1L''\ \ i.IL'i.t ll l. llt.:'\\ '!. \( (
hL'L'il
\\il l
the
\V age..,
..., p~ n d 1n g g:1 H11 g tn" an!. . a nU ...,aJar). jnh c uh ..,~cm
dL'L'IllL'd ~,h,o lu tL'I:
he hn,ught in !'' r~p l ac·e '' Id 11 1t " l h.'l'C\,,Lr} 111 the
cr
runmn~
ca terin g anU
o t the l
Ill\ l'l""' ll ).
I he l 1nl\ L'r , tl ~ cJcterm ined 1h CPU I' 'I..''
•..-ha n ~c ... tn
lP ~eep
by
up 'tandard ... nt
J ll~t h.in ~ 11111 : 111a r~i n a l
t c~u..·J11ng
h.t\l.' I.II~L'IL' d ~t;,..,
' '~'~·~··•,,... , t h o.tl 1t ,..,
rc . . nurcL'"·
~m d
that
<H \..'
de p a llll h..'llh
cruci al in thL' cl fo rt I ll mai nta in
~..·ou l ''-'
tra tin n.
'land an.l-.. ' uc h a' oH.illlllll'With fo ur firth ' n t the
abo appL·a llllg lu r a " li e~..·
arc
fund' th ~..·
arc·
lll
'' ha te \-
"' ailahk
Re nt.
~ll·~..·o mm oda ti on
pri ce:-..
m ;tin cnw.:L'rn .... and the} k·d
the L 'niH~ r ...,Jt\ 'I H I
P I , u]·h td .'.
and
L'nt\L' J'..., l l~
C\ll} JK'L.IIll' ll I ll
tcm pu ra r)
'h1ndJ nllct
. . umc
~car. tit ~..·
l l ni 11 ll
Th t'
ha'\.' hc\.·n
111 ~..:hhc
the dl on to pnnuk
h ~H l li•.':-.
lnr ....,ILilkn h \\ tth-
dc . . p ll c Ilk' I~K·t the L' ni \ ~..:- r . . ll ~ ha" no legal rc qulrl ·tH tt ; t\.'l'1Hlllll1Kia t u}n.
me n! I<' help 't udenh find h <llll~'· In the heart o l ta rlham Wood .,, gn,up \1
111
ll'llh.
or~an i ... ~...·d
the
fnr ~() q udl' nt ..... nt till' Ulllhlla l "llll<iltllll.
IHli11L''
lk·l'<tt""-'
m.de and lema le ' tude nh ,tll u\\1...'d 111 111 1\. unltl,~,.,· in
11
L'd fnr (4 pL'r \\Ce k.
~...·u ll \L'Il
:\1 r f:bmore.
lnll'll \\ ell.ne Ol l tc·cr. he llc''e' Lnldl tlrd' ju, t \\nn' t I'L' Ilt In -. tud l'nh.
lt
I'
hoped th,ll lo ll<lll 111)2 the· lir't
n i iL· rm on
Page 2 Norfolk Terrace opens Students occupy Art~ Building UEA Money Trouble~
ill he
ti,,n,d rc"dencl' ha ll s. Lac~lnt: nHbt IJ H)d-1...'1\ll ..... l hL' (d l'd \ 'i.lll " \\ I JI hL' J'L' Il i-
le\\ \\L'L'k'
••
ho c all thelll,c' il e' The
~...·ampu' I'PUilh
Pages 4-5 Photos from UEA's first 40 years Page 6 Feature on Bio
Page 3 Sainsbury Cen tre Opens Union ban Nestle UEA Bookcr succe:-s Medical School
Page 7 Feature on EAS
Page 8 Event circa 1963
\\ Ill hcctlllll..' d\i.ll l.!h lc a' ... tuc..knh
dttlp nut.
News stories by Clare Curtis and Rebecca Lawrence
www.concrete-online.co.uk
Ctlatte 1963-2003
TO U
THE Un iversity or East Anglia w ill b e offici ally opening il~ newest ven t ur e tod ay, the Sainsbury Cent re for Visua l Ar t$. It will auempt to build a new relationship between fine art and academic study. Students will be able to experience the work on display in an every-day sense, and it is hoped the centre will de ve lop the importance of an within education, something that hasn' t always been integral to university tradition . UEA's Vice-Chancellor, Or Frank Thistlethwaite, describes the gift as "the greatest of its kind to be given to a .university this century." The building itself is in contrast to the large! y concrete University Plain and to the surrounding Yare
£2.5 million Sainsb~ry Centre for Visual Arts opens its doors
Valley, and it dominates the surrounding area with its size and unique, innovative dcs!zn. Tbe costs for buyding the structure totalled £2.5 m illion, partl because Of Cll.leJISiVe IISC of ~ material superlastic aluminium. The interior is light and open; space is 1101 subdivided into rooms with the~ of realising the size and J>O.!ential of the whole buil ding. Interchangeable panels mean space can be arranged into rooms, and panels can be either solid OJ' glass, giving various degrees of privacy and separation bttween areas. The Centre is one of the most technologically advanced buildings in the world. The housed works themselves
range from pnmtltvc to modem . Lord Sainsbury's precious art collection wi ll be shown in full for one year. In subsequent years, one third of the collection will be on display per year alongside other works, so that any student studying for the typical three-year period will get to see the collection. 1t is hoped the Centre will provide a bridge between town and gown, expanding the University as a resource for local people to enjoy. The Sainsbury Centre has encountered some opposition, firstly by those who feel it clashes with the current architecture and landscape, and secondly by those within UEA wbo consider it a drain on crucial funds that could be spent elsewhere.
NO TO NESTLE
Low tu·rn-out ban company from Union MILKY Ba r s, K it Kats, a n d To rree Crisps h ave a ll been banned from the Student Union shops- along with scores of other Nestle products. The move came after the Union General Meeting voted to introduce a ban on the Multinati onal 's goods. despite the fact that the meeting was attended by less th.an four percent of UEA's 7,300 students. The motion was proposed by DevSoc and amended by the Society for Environmental Action which called for the boycou. Once existing stocks have run out, students will have to shop elsewhere for products such as Perrier water, Buitoni pasta and shredded wheat, as all arc owned by Nestle. Products made by Terrys, Findus and Rowntree Mackintosh arc also outlawed, since Nestle is the parent COfl!pany in each case. Ci ting the nat ional c ampaign coordinated by Baby Mil Action, the motion claimed that by supplying
T hird World hospitals with free powdered milk, Nestle arc encouraging mothers not to breastfeed leading to the death of 4 ,000 babies each day. Union communications Officer Jaqui Mackay said it was a democratic decision made by the membership. " We will be informing students of wny this decision was made and why the meeting voted in favour of the Union w ithdrawing any forq1 of suppo~t for the Nestle company." "l believe that in the lor:tg run the majority of products that we seLl produced by Nestle can be successfully substituted." But Nestle strongly denied that they arc flooding the Third World with free supplies of baby milk. Spokesman Allan Allbeury said t~at the company has not been involved in that at all. " We respond to written requests from doctors and health professionals who run those hospitals, and
orphanages and missions where they write to us for free products." The Union could stand to lose as much as £10,000 gross from adopting the policy. Finance Officer Lizzie Watson sa.id that it was not only direct action against Nestle. " lt's the effec t that if students can' t buy their Kit Kats then they' ll go elsewhere, and buy their papers elsewhere." Students displayed mixed reactions to the boycou. One student questioned thought it was wonderful to take a stand against such a large 'organisation. ''It's time people realised what Nestle arc up to. It's a shame about the Kit- Kats though. But another student was upset by the action taken by the General meeting. "It's laking away the student's right to chose, and the Union should be taking care of issues closer to home."
DOUBLE SUCCESS IN BOOKER PRIZE T HE R ENOWNED Creat ive W riting cou r se a t UEA has received a fu rther boost with t wo former students ba gging nominations for t hc£21,000 Hooker Prize. Trezza Azzopardi and Kazuo lshiguro - both graduates of the top MA course - arc now competing against each other for the prestigious prize .. Ms Azzopardi began writing her book. Hiding Place. only three years ago, whilst still on the creati ve writing course. and the acclaimed novel is now being published all over the world.
Page 3
She was delighted by the news of her nomination. " I felt deaf because my publisher was screaming down the phone at me. l fell shell-sh,ocked, I wasn't expecting it at all I'm the rank outsider. I've g{)t the longest odds," she explained modestly. Professor Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate and Head of Creative Writing was excited by the nominations. "As soon as I read Hiding Place l thought, something amazing is happening. "Trczza is one of the best people
we' ve had on the course, this is a wonderful validation of her tale nt. I think she should win," he added. "But just to have two graduates nominated proves that the magic goes on working." he prai sed. Thi s is not the first time UEA has had success with the Booker. Kazuo lshiguro previously won the Booker Prize in 1989 for hi s novel. The Remains of the Day. Another UEA graduate Jan Mc Ewan. who studied under Malcolm Bradbury. also achi eved Bookcr success in 1998 w ith his novel Amsterdam.
New Medical School opens on campus T HE SCHOOL of m edicine, heal th policy and practice opens th is autumn for the la unch of a new m edica l degree. It is the first new medical school for a lmost thirty years. l 10 students will undertake the five-year programme, enabling !her to gain a provisional license to practice as doctors. The General Medical Council, responsible for validating the course, is working closely with the school. Both practical experience and !beery are included in the degree, and most of the teaching will take place in a new purpose built
CAS
building. But Professor and ViceChancellor of the school Shirley Pearce points out that the importance lies w:ith the undergraduate degree. adding tp the range of health related c?urscs already in plaee, not to the opening of a new school. "We arc very excited to stan on a clean sla e with a designed curriculum. lt compliments what we arc already doing. Tt will benefit UEA as the new programme will strengthen the health related research taking place here." The professor disagreed that the university will beco me crowded
with the extra student.s. ''The 110 new students will only broaden and enrich all the students' experience at UEA as it is important to people from different walks of like." But Academic officer Alex Dawson argues that the university has become crowded as it has expanded. "ll is important the facilities such as transport, accommodation and teaching advance at a correspondent rate. At present, the expansion in accommodation is lacking." The new students will expect to graduate in 2007.
FOR QUESTIONS
To celebrate the anniversary of the Juice page on student life in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, w.e are offering five students the chance to win £1,000. The page is written by students for students, and, along with news and gossip from universities across the country, it features everything from cheap booze to ballroom dancing, via prison visits and holiday jobs.
·································~ To get your hands on our s tash, just * 1. Pick up The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, October 11 2. Turn to the Juice student page in the Weekend section
3. Enter our cash For Questions text quiz And il you would like to receive The Daily Telegraph at our special discounted student rate of 20p weekdays and half-price or less at the weekend. call freephone 0800 181 2.22 or e-mail stu dentpapers @teleqraph.co.uk. Quote your name. address. university, year course ends and ref 205. •See lt>e oa 1y T~Je<;r~p~ oo Satt.<day. Octotx>· 11 flY •~• :efms al>d concM.ons. Text rressaqes wtll oocfla<qedat 'IOU" slaN!ar<l 'leh'fOik oppr~or's rate.
Pa e4
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. Cotcrtt. 1963-2003
Colcntt 1963-2003
www.concrete-online.co.uk
PageS
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Captions: 1. A sports day in the 1970s - note the curious lack of sport; 2. UEA procession in 1977, second Chancellor Lord Franks leads Vice Chancellor Thistlethwaite; 3. a Norfolk Terrace kitchen in the '60s; 4. The early days of Union House, before chairs were fashionable; 5. UEA from the air in 1968 - the concrete was clean and the parking was plentiful; 6. Earlham Golf Course before some bloody fool decided to stick a university on it; 7. Sun-bathing on Norfolk Terrace in the '60s, at a time when no one minded if students plummetted to their deaths; 8. Earlham Hall, by far the oldest building at UEA and the only place you can go to be reminded what bricks are; 9. Waverney Terrace now, if you squint... it still looks a bit rubbi~h .
Page6
Caattt 1963-2003
www.concrete-onJine.co.uk
ers an 11
c1ence BIO Lecturers Or John Thain and Or .Oavid Wildon have been present for much of UEA's first _40 years. They spoke to Toby Lewis about student fashion, xylem translocation and maintaining the school's five-star reputation ~ wander through the bustling corridors of the Biology faculty reveals an alternative side to UEA. Those who spend more of their time in the similarly archi· tecturally "Brutalisr but invariably empty Arts building would be surprised by the continuous stream of people and the experience of strolling past the random chemicals stored away in the various offices. Huge cranes are prominently visible through the office windows of my two interviewees, the senior members of Bio, Dr. John Thain and Dr. David Wildon. The building work is the 17.5 million pound Biomedical Research Centre, which will be the new addition to UEA's prestigious joint found· ing faculty. The two men conveyed a mixture of pride about the quality of their 5 star rated department and a hint of nostalgia towards their original 1960s experience.
A
"They behaved remarkably like students now. Although they were better dressed back then. Men had suits and ties and the women had handbags." Dr. Thain implied that the faculty's early days in the Village in the 1960's owed very much to its era and the spirit of academic sexual liberation: "lt was full of people and a privilege to get a metre of bench space. I did meet one of my students, so things got a bit more intimate in some other ways. One of my only claims to distinction is that I was probably one of the first members of Bio staff to be seduced by a student.• He hastily added that she was a postgraduate student. For if the girl, who is now his wife, had been an undergraduate below the age of 21 she would not have legally been an adult. The university was In loco Parentis, with the students ineligible to vote and lacking the legal self-determination that we currently take for grant· ed. However, Or Wildon noted "they behaved remarkably like students now. Although they were better dressed back then. Men had suits and ties and the women had handbags.• Both lecturers remarked on the mood of change that encapsulated the first decade of the university's existence. Dr. Thain was invigilating an exam in the late 60's "whilst a mass of students were gathered outside trying to disrupt the whole thing because they didn't believe in exams. Those inside were torn between sympathising with their fellow students and attempting to do as best as they could in the exam they were actually sitting." The Paris riots of 1968 had spread across Europe and the UEA radicals occupied the arts building in 1971. Despite the traumatic nature of the times, Dr. Wildon thought that the university benefited from the growth of "representation for students on the senate; the students, once given responsibility, were very responsive and proactive." He felt this was because the "New Universities" attracted very interesting students, "the people thought 'woW' I can be first President of the Student Union. People wanted to make a mark. Whilst the intellectual quality was similar to now, the infectious energy produced by some individuals was remarkable." ·or Wildon arrived in 1966 with the incentive of a travelling fellowship to come from Sydney University. He came to UEA due to his "confidence
Above: Bio today; above right: The Blo of tomorrow? ing to·r it under the broad heading of a biology department. Universities worldwide have sub· sequently copied the model of the department's organisation. The department had an unusual emphasis on Biophysics in the 1960s which has been superseded since by the emphasis that the science has placed on Molecular Biology. Plant BioPhysics at UEA was propelled by the influential figure, Jack Oavy, who provided a physical framework for thinking about how processes went on in plants, Or Oavid Wildon Or John Thain which Dr. Wildon believed was that they had outstanding research in my area. "necessary and very successful and has provided They had easily the best plant bio-physicists. The a framework for molecular biologists and cell biolo· gists in their studies." Dr Wildon seemed almost University was expanding and the school was sad that interest in Biophysics had declined and expanding and there was a lot of money in the UK, especially the 'New Universities'." The two key wistfully added that the only field of study that was research areas of the Biology department were set emphasised in the 1960s that has similar force in the department now was Biochemistry. up in the 1960s: the John lnnes Institute, which T~e research reputation of the department deterio· moved here in 1968 and the Institute of Food Research, which came in 1966. Dr. Wildon proudly rated amidst funding cutbacks from 1968 onwards. Although it remained under-funded throughout the stated that 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Wildon felt that "lan Gibson, ''the John lnnes Institute is probably the best plant research centre worldwide." The interdisciplinary current labour MP for Norwich North deserves philosophy which has characterised UEA since the much of the credit for reforming the system during 1960's proved an effectual experiment for the his period as Dean in the 1990s. Since he ceased Biology department. Before the university was set in his role the night he was elected to government, up, the Royal Society had commissioned a report Alan Dawson and I have followed in his footsteps into Biology teaching, which indicated the necessias Dean and the department remains one of the ty to integrate Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics best in the UK." and Biology. Following the report the department Another factor that Dr. Wildon felt helped his facul· had a diverse range of specialists in all fields work· ty attract high quality students was the mid 1980's
introduction of the four-year degrees to the United States, France and Germany. he ambition of science to push back the boundaries of understanding is still rife and according to Dr. Thain "everybody has always wanted the Nobel Prize. lt hasn't really changed since the 17th century in the extent of people's ambition. If you read about Newton and others, they were incredibly competitive." Yet Dr. Thain also stressed how competitive the world of science has become for research grants and the necessity to win competitions in order to increase funding. Whereas in the 1960s they could commonly play around with sealing wax and string, molecular biology has become incredibly sophisticated and expensive. Despite the increase in expenditure worldwide orr science, the ongoing technological revolution has clearly been extremely positive for the ease of communication between scientists. Dr. Thain gave an extraordinary example of how an investigation into xylem translocation - in which he needed to label molecules • required the use of nuclear waste in order to examine carbon radioactive isotopes. Despite the university not having any waste to hand, a fellow scientist in New Zealand was able to study the details they asked him to look up by tax. This they would send to him in the afternoon at UEA whilst he would work on the data during the course of his day in New Zealand. Thus there seemed a gloriously beautiful mixture between the small and large scale of the department when Dr. Wildon said he had to check his sunflowers after our interview; flowers and nuclear science seeming so disparate, yet knowing both men were intertwined in the study of both.
T
c..cr.tt 1963-2003
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www.concrete-online.co.uk
Long wit~ 810, EAS was one of UEA's first two schools. Matt hew Riddell offers a brief history and met EAS' s longest serving lecturer, Professor Vie Sage, to discuss how the University has changed over the past four decades.
The school of EAS today UEA was one of seven new universities born in the 1960's (the others being Sussex, York, Kent, Essex, Warwick and Lancaster), the brainchildren of an elite Academic Planning Board of professors and vice-chancellors whose innovations were distinctly neither Civic nor Redbrick. The many caveats, here from Kingsley Amis of Peterhouse, Cambridge - "University graduates are like poems or bottles of hock, and unlike cars or tins of salmon, in that you cannot decide to have more good ones" - did not deter the founders in their plans to incorporate what were basically Oxbridge values (with a sideward glance to the American system) but without its division into colleges. The compact infrastructure of Lasdun's design, with its library, refectory, bar, Union and schools of study all within close accessible quarters was very much an adjunct of its academic ethos, at once expansionist and intercommunicative. Taking as its motto the Norfolk proverb "do different", the University at its inception was bifurcated into the schools of English Studies and Biological Sciences alone, with the former portioning its tutelage equally between the cognate subjects of literature, language and history. (This was a sacrosanct principle upheld until 1994 when an independent School of History was created, and even then the American History faculty considered its field to be inextricable from literature and remained in the department.) Professor lan Watt, author of the touchstone text The Rise of the Novel (1957), became Professor of English Literature and the founding De;.ln of the School of English Studies in 1961 at the invitation of fellow Cambridge alumnus and first UEA vice-chancellor, Frank Thistlethwaite. Watt had been strongly influenced by a decade teaching at the University of California (Berkeley) and decided to introduce a novelist to the faculty; a practice completely unprecedented in Britain at the time and which was feted by The Times amongst others when Angus Wilson accepted in January 1963. [N.B. One recalls here the novelist Vladimir Nabokov who had once been considered for a writer-in-residence/professorial post at Harvard, to which one peevish member of the faculty of Russian Literature cavilled, "are we next to invite an elephant to be professor of Zoology?"] Bouncy,
dapper, voluminous re-reader, Wilson professed to be "untrained in literary scholarship" (he had studied History at Oxford) but was nonetheless to pioneer UEA's interdisciplinary approach put into place by Watt. Wilson was passionate about a perceived impasse in English fiction , chiding the graveside manner of nostalgic novelists in the early post-war period (Letter from London 1951) and declaiming the fractional representations of social documenters (The Future of the English Novel 1954). In late '62 The Listener serialised his hugely influential Evil in the English Novel, and as Chairman of the Literary Panel of the Arts Council he introduced the revolutionary concept of the writer's tour (Wales 1969) after the fashion of his beloved Dickens who once read in twenty cities inside of a fortnight. 30 September '63 saw a piece in the Daily E~press entitled "Looking Forward to Life with the Young Ones". Immediately afterward in October '63, the first sixty undergraduates and one graduate were admitted, paying a total annual fee of ÂŁ60 for a BA or MA.
Tutors were given a hospitality allowance to entertain their students and seminars consisted of around 12 undergraduates The first term was a success with UEA's second annual report declaring an impressed set of external examiners at Cambridge who had second-read . the preliminary examinations of '64 which featured the.three strands of literature, history and philosophy. Wilson's energy proved infectious, and fifty of these students were involved in four public performances of Arthur Miller's The Crucible (starring the future film actor John Rhys Davies) under the direction of Nicholas Brooke, a specialist in seventeenth century drama. The American literature critic and prolific novelist Malcolm Bradbury joined UEA in '65 and renewed his old acquaintance with Wilson whom he had originally met in a Bury St Edmunds pub whilst still an undergraduate at Leicester. Bradbury was to launch the American Studies programme in '67, again teaching literature
and history in tandem. Although they were at some variance in their aesthetic outlooks it was the collaboration of Bradbury and Wilson, their mutual conviction in the necessity of a course on living writers that lured future authors such as Rose Tremain, Snoo Wilson and Jonathan Powell to UEA in the late sixties. Despite protesting that the author was "almost dead anyway" Aberystwyth would not permit Christopher Bigsby to study Graham Green e. and the Professor, novelist and broadcaster came to UEA in 1969 primarily due to Bradbury's reputation. Bigsby recalls dinners at Wilson's Felsham Woodside cottage in Suffolk and his packed-out lectures on Dickens and Dostoevsky, chiming in with Bradbury's student of 1970, Senior Lecturer Jon Cook's memories of a "rare and intimate atmosphere, a literary powerhouse where one didn't meet people who were bored." Bigsby and Bradbury later co-authored a television play, The After Dinner Game (shown in 1975). Prior to Brad bury's death in November 2000 they had been working on a new script, bandying jokes to one another as "Malcolm laughed through his oxygen mask". Alluding to the Shelleyan myth that cruel reviews accelerate the symptoms of tuberculosis, Wilson once wrote 'thank god we are not as other men killers of Keats' and, similarly, Jon Cook, relates one of Bradbury's maxims: "never take a writer apart without building him up again". The nourishment of aspiring authors was to characterize both their tenures and draw the university further into the limelight when in 1970 UEA accepted its first Creative Writing student, the 22 year old Sussex graduate lan McEwan, who produced some of the stories collected in First Love, Last Rites (1975) under the aegis of the new programme. Both Bradbury and Wilson were knighted in later years and subsequent Creative Writing alumni have included Kazuo lshiguro, Tracy Chevalier, Andrew Miller, Martyn Bedford, and Trezza Azzopardi , with Toby Litt, Ben Rice, and Susan Elderkin crowding the much-hyped Granta list of 2003 .
T
he longest serving member of the English and American Studies faculty today is Professor Vie Sage, an expert on the Gothic
tradition, short story writer and novelist whose books include A Mirror for Larks (1993) and Black Shawl (1995) amid an array of academic publications. Sage's short stories Dividing Lines (1984) won him the admiration of Angus Wilson who - ---'----" wrote to him finding them "fascinating because they are Internationalist" and had departed from the tired formula of "adultery in NW2". At the introductory seminar during Week 0 of each semester Sage pencils a diagram of the table layout before him, appending the names of students and helpful biographical mnemonics to each of its scrawled chairs. In elaborating to each student in turn the dual nature of the course itself (which he likens to the distension and compression of a concertina) there is always a judiciously unhurried care, the verbal analogue of a loris charily testing a nearby bough. lt should be said that Sage's former students hold him in unanimous esteem . EAS' antique also teaches the eldest course in the department, Forms of Narrative on the MA Studies in Fiction which has undergone several metamorphoses before reaching an exclusively'lwentieth century context (Joyce, Beckett, Robbe-Grillet, et al) in the early 1990's. And he has taught well-nigh everything at some point or other. Sage and his then wife the late Lorna Sage (of the early memoir Bad Blood) had graduated from Durham University in 1964 where they had been taught by the caped, charismatic Nicholas Brooke. Although they intended to follow Brooke to UEA after graduating, Watt was forced to stall their appointments with the apologetic shrug "we've got no books" and so they completed their Master's degrees at Durham in the interim. Vie ran a poetry magazine there and wrote a great deal of verse before moving to Norwich in 1965. Watt returned to America to teach at Stanford shortly after the Sages arrived and Lorna promptly took over his course on the eighteenth century novel. In unique contrast to the solemn canon of dead greats taught at Durham and elsewhere, which began with Anglo-Saxon and simply could not go beyond T.S. Eliot, tutors were at liberty to teach the subjects they wished provided that their repertoire would guarantee the enrolment of students. Being an inchoate, tiny operation with quinquennial financial plans, it was, Vie Sage remembers, very much a ''family affair". Tutors were given a hospitality allowance to entertain their students and seminars consisted of around 12 undergraduates compared to the average 22 in 2003. Report cards were passed from tutors to advisers on overall seminar performances which were then ratified by a grading meeting "like a participatory democracy". There was a diagnostic class on theory and dating whereby students were required to situate anonymous, undated excerpts within the historical continuum (and wherein redemptive marks were given should the pastiche be confused with its original!) Vie Sage became a permanent fixture in '67 teaching alongside historians such as the nineteenth century scholar Dick Shannon and the political and social academic Geoffrey Searle in the same room . Students were often better versed than the faculty in certain areas. Whilst Vie directed Forms of Narrative with Jon Cook, Colin Clarke and Lorna Sage taught the Postmodernism/Postwar branch of the course which is taught at postgraduate level almost forty years on. "lt does", he says, "still bear her stamp."
.....
08
Book Review
Album Preview: The Beatles With their eagerly awaited album With the BeaUes due for release in November, the amazing quad have the pop world quivering their fashionable mop top hair do's in mticipation. After the success of Please, Please Me fans are pleasing themselves and following three number one hits, it seems that the Liverpudlian crooners can do no wrong. John Lennon (Vocals, Guitar) recently caused controversy with his comment: "Sing along if you know the words, hum along if you know the tune, and those in the cheap seats, just rattle your jewelry!" at the London Palladium, directed at the royal box. It is only likely to have won him the respect of Republican youth. The new album was created in just five months, and seems to be more closely targeted at the bands impressionable female fans, with more songs and lyrics able to be used in an "Oh! It seems like the dashingly handsome one is writing just for me!" adolescent poster type way. Bearing in mind the screaming women and the vast amounts of money that could be made, this is hardly surprising. Songs of special n ote on the new album include All my loving, I wanna Be your Man, Money and All I've got to do, and the distinctive style, catchy melody and lyrics, are, as before, difficult to forget . The Beatles seem genuinely likeable, and this only add s to their wide appeal. With The Beatles has the freshness of the first album but perhaps less of the power energy and vitality which was Twist and Shout. Never the less, it is a great album, and a must for any respectable music collection. It wouldn't be surprising if, in the wake of The Beatles, thousands of imitation bands spring up to trail in their footsteps , as the lure of having literally hundreds of teenage girls trying to break into your bedroom understandably sounds very appealing, and beats stacking shelves or an office job.
Gat's Cradle, the new masterwork by Kurt Vonnegut, is set to become one of the best and most popular science fiction books around . Already called "one of the three best novels of the year, by one of the world 's greatest living writers" by Graham Green, the largely autobiographical work is set to become a modern classic. The novel is filled with zany but all-toohuman characters. The misfit Hoenikker family, which has parallels with Vonnegut's own and their mad-scientist father are central to most of the n ovel. Their story is told through the narrator, John, a writer researching the bombing of Hiroshima. A main theme of the dangers of science and the legacy of modern technology begins to emerge when John becomes fascinated by the scientist and his weird family. We then follow the creation, by Hoenikker, of 'ice-nine', a deadly substance with the power to freeze all the water on the planet. On his death he entrusts the secret to his children , and it is then that the themes of the danger of technology and the idiocy of man come into its own, with the children using the creation selfishly and irresponsibly. Happily Vonnegut does counter the dark subject matter with his humour and ironic wit, and through the theme of Bonkonism, present throughout the book. The use of this religious philosophy, which considers man to be sacred, is a useful balance for the theme of the terminal stupidity of a species that seems to do anything it can to hasten its own destruction. The result is a highly entertaining, playful piece of fantasy satire that also serves as a potent warning for modern society. This is a novel which will appeal to the young, and to anyone with a contrary nature , as it counters and contradicts almost every aspect of culture and society with subversive and ironic humour. Amy Lowe
With the Beatles is released in late November.
Matthew Colver
Dr. Strangelove
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With mad presidents and crazy bombing this film depicts a political e stablishment whose grasp of internationalism could be classified as cowboy. Peter Sellers is a virtuoso comic lead, taking on three roles, as US president, a chipper English army captain and the titular Dr. Strangelove. Although they are a group of men preoccupied with attempting to save the world, Stanley Kubrick's biting satire demonstrates, in fact , their responsibility for the destruction of it. It is shot in beautiful black and white and scripted with a delightful comic precision and has a orchestral echo of the Animal Went in Two by Two as a soundtrack. This ironic nod to The F1ood is contextualised by Dr Strangelove's attempts to persuade the US President to take a hundred thousand carefully selected people underground in order to survive the unavoidable nuclear destruc-
tion of the planet. Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) has unleashed his bomber wing on the U.S.S.R. Despite attempts to recall the nuclear armed planes, one continues careering towards its target. It has fallen out of radio contact and is under the control of a patriotic Major T.J. King Kong (Slim Pickens) a man desperate to complete his mission. Kubrick is said to have instructed Pickens to play his role "straight" and did not inform him that the film was a black comedy (if this is the case, then Picke ns must have thought that riding a nucle ar bomb whilst crying "Yee-Haw" is in the d omain of the real) . McCarthyism is fully assaulted by a Hollywo od film industry shaking off the shackles of the last decade; the apocalyptic decision to launch the bomb on the U.S.S.R is made due to the deranged suspicion of the Brigadier General that the communists are attempting to pollute "the precious bodily fluids of the American people" . Other highlights include the revelation of a "doomsday device" designed to destroy all plant and animal life on earth and the uncontrollable urge of the character of Dr. Strangelove to salute the President, call him Mein Fuhrer and talk in other fascistic terms. The character of Dr. Strangelove appears to be a reference to the famous attempt to incorporate the Nobel prize-winning physicist Werner Heisenberg as a key allied scientist despite his key role in the Nazi nuclear bomb programme, and then his subsequent absolution. This film is at once terrifying and side-splittingly funny, with an eccentric and vital political insight. Can we ever forget how close we came?
Toby Lewis
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