Schumacher College Closure
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NewsTranscript
00:00You are one of many people who've contacted us this morning to our surprise.
00:06They all said the same thing. They hadn't heard anything from Dartington or Schumacher College
00:13and the first they'd heard about the closure was from us, from the article we'd written.
00:19So you're telling me that you had no idea this was going to happen?
00:23No, no. And in fact, so I'm a student rep and we were part of the
00:33programme meeting that happens every term, which is a meeting between student reps,
00:36teaching staff, Schumacher staff and Dartington Hall Trust staff, just to check in about how
00:42everything's going. And obviously the past year has been very turbulent. I don't know if you know
00:46about this very similar situation that happened last year.
00:50Let's tell us a bit more about that, just a reminder.
00:53Yeah, so it was actually much more short notice last time. So I've just completed my first year
01:01and I was getting ready to move onto Schumacher campus, September of last year. And then three
01:07days before I was supposed to arrive, I just got an email from Dartington Hall Trust saying,
01:14we don't know if your course will go ahead, don't come here and we'll be in touch with more
01:21information. Just like no reasoning why, no idea of timescale of like when we'd find out more that
01:28was supposed to happen. Like I got this email, I think it was on the Friday and I was supposed to
01:32start our welcome week on the Monday. Extremely stressful time. So yeah, that's kind of been
01:41hanging over us the past year.
01:43Because you did actually go back to college.
01:47Yes, yeah, yeah. The course went ahead. We started a week late, but it just felt like
01:54every step of the way we were never given a guarantee that we would complete our degree.
01:59However, at the programme meeting in June this year, we were informed that Dartington Hall Trust
02:07had confirmed our budget for the next year of teaching and that all staff had been hired and
02:13it was all given the green light, go ahead. This is definitely happening. So we were sort of
02:18comfortable knowing that this was the case. And then yes, reading your article yesterday
02:24was the first thing any of us had heard to the contrary.
02:28Now, what are you studying or what were you studying at Schumacher College?
02:33You said it was your first year.
02:34Yeah, so I'm on the BSc programme, which is a BSc in regenerative food and farming.
02:42So you hear this news for the first time. How do you feel about it?
02:47Just completely in disbelief. We didn't know if it was true. We didn't know if it was misinformation
02:52because it was just so out of the blue. And, you know, as the article said that we had been
02:59contacted, so we just thought there'd been some kind of mistake, that there's a Schumacher group
03:08chat, which is all the students and rumours just started circulating, you know, and there are a few
03:14people who are on campus at the moment and had managed to check in with some members of staff to
03:20hear that, yes, there was very, very bad news, but they couldn't talk about it because
03:25Dartington Hall Trust had informed staff members that they weren't allowed to tell us,
03:31because Dartington Hall Trust were going to tell us. Schumacher staff members weren't allowed to
03:38talk to us about it. It had to come from Dartington and then they didn't tell us,
03:41they told you. So then we learnt from you.
03:44Now, Dartington Trust, in their statement, reiterated the point that Schumacher is,
03:52was and remains by some distance, I quote, the Trust's largest loss maker among several
03:59operating activities in the red. So is this something that was made clear to you as well,
04:06and made clear to students that the college was having deep financial problems?
04:11We knew, like, this is why this happened last year. We're aware that
04:17Dartington Hall Trust very nearly went into administration around that time,
04:21that they managed to get out of it somehow. I think they sold some assets.
04:28There's been a lot of talk about Schumacher going independent so that we don't get dragged
04:32down with it, but it seems we're sort of all dragging each other down. Schumacher, I mean,
04:37I'm not surprised that it's making so many losses because we, we haven't taken on any new
04:45students. So at the moment, like, we usually have a January intake and a September intake.
04:52We didn't have a January intake this year. So suddenly, student numbers just dropped off.
04:57And there's only so many students, I think at the moment, like 40 of us that are starting in
05:01September, paying, you know, what's capped at student fees. That's really not very much money
05:06for how much money the building's taken up, keep paying all the staff, everything, everything.
05:11So we have been aware. I know that Schumacher was putting a lot of energy into their short
05:17course program to try and make up more money, essentially. And they have a whole short course
05:24team who've been working very hard on that. But according to Dartington's statement,
05:30the courses have had very low uptake. So, you know, I think that's a good thing.
05:41That clearly hasn't worked. So, yeah, I'm not, I'm really not surprised to hear that Schumacher is
05:47at such a great loss. But it also feels like we haven't been given the opportunity to operate
05:54properly. Like if we'd been able to have more of a student intake,
05:58surely that would have helped. But I'm not sure. I'm not an economist.
06:03Where does that leave you now? Because I understand in the statement,
06:07the trust said it's going to approach each student individually from Monday next week,
06:13although that clearly hasn't helped you now, because as you said, students don't didn't know
06:19anything about this until our article appeared in the paper last night. So what are you going to do
06:25now? I am about to drive to Schumacher. I'm currently in Bristol. I'm actually homeless
06:31currently. I'm kind of sofa surfing. I do have accommodation sorted from the end of September,
06:37but that was very much tied to our degree. It's a house share of some of us on our course.
06:44We're not sure what we're going to do. We've already paid the deposit for that house,
06:47signed contracts, etc. Several other students are in similar positions of having spent money
06:52for their accommodation for the next year. So I don't know. I don't know. When this happened
06:59last year, I looked far and wide for similar courses. Our course is extremely unique. There's
07:04nothing else like it in this country, maybe the world. I've looked at similar degrees kind of
07:11covering some similar stuff, but it's it's just not not really possible to just transfer. At the
07:19moment, we're wondering if because our accrediting body is Plymouth Uni, we're wondering if maybe we
07:28can all as a group with our teaching staff use their facilities to complete our degree at Plymouth
07:35campus. But we don't. We're just speculating there because we know that that's what happened
07:40when Dartington Arts University shut down in 2012. I think it was. I had some friends who were there.
07:49All their courses got swallowed up by the University of Falmouth. So everyone had to
07:54move from Dartington to Falmouth and complete their degrees there. But we have no idea if that's
08:00an option for us at the moment. Our teaching staff are legally not allowed to talk to us
08:05about any of this. So we just we don't know. I'm guessing the wording of everything that
08:14Dartington has said so far, it makes it sound like they just want to shove us out the door
08:20and have us all find different degrees and just like leave and do something else with our lives.
08:25But for a lot of us, that just really isn't an option. I'm not sure it's an option for me
08:30personally. I have a disability that would make mainstream university study very difficult. One
08:37of the things that attracted me to Schumacher is that it is at once a institutional university,
08:42but it's also a community. Also, we're studying farming. A lot of that has a practical element.
08:49We have a growing space there that we have put our blood, sweat and tears into with like long-term
08:56plans because we've been told that we could create these long-term plans. And now it seems that we're
09:01losing that land. And the rent for that particular piece of land was paid for out of the budget for
09:08our programme specifically. So we just we don't know. We don't know. Well Willow, I wish you all the
09:15best and please keep in touch with us and let us know how this plays out for you and for your
09:23student, colleague, friends and I hope to speak again to you soon.