University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

I wonder if the end game of higher education looks like purely administrative bodies with enormous tuition that just provide the students with leisure, varsity sports and regular events on the currently hot social justice topics.<p>I studied pure math in the Czech Rep. between 1996 and 2003. The administrative staff was about 10 per cent of the entire body of employees.<p>Reading that administrators actually outnumber teaching staff at some American universities today, I cannot help but ask what went wrong. This kind of bureaucratic bloat would make late Soviet Union blush and professor Parkinson rewrite his books.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtontimes.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2013&#x2F;feb&#x2F;28&#x2F;teachers-outnumbered-schools-administrators-suppor&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtontimes.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2013&#x2F;feb&#x2F;28&#x2F;teachers-ou...</a>

I recently read Dijkstra&#x27;s &quot;On the fact that the Atlantic Ocean has two sides&quot;. [1] In vast parts, it&#x27;s not much more than mildly disguised US-bashing (Dijkstra was always a grumpy old man) but that&#x27;s not what caught my eye. What did was the fact that he describes the US research landscape as a system that orients itself around short-term projects and industry desires. Dijkstra clearly expresses his contempt for this approach over what he claims to be the European way: long-term thinking and research done for research&#x27;s sake.<p>That paper was written in 1982<p>Fast forward ~40 years, and the presumed US model <i>is exactly</i> the way research funding works all across Europe today. Jumping from one project to the next, always hoping that one of your next proposals will receive funding, or you&#x27;re out of a job. Your project proposal has a weak &quot;exploitation&quot; section? Well, goodbye proposal then! Universities are thought of as nothing more than R&amp;D departments and providers of new young hires for the economic sector.<p>It&#x27;s only consequential then to axe such &quot;useless&quot; disciplines as pure mathematics.<p>This is a scandal.<p>--<p>Edit: these news from last September fit perfectly into the picture [2]:<p><i>The European Union’s next research programme is likely to have a greater emphasis on funding for applied research, experts have warned, as universities were told to put pressure on politicians to increase the budget. [...]</i><p><i>In July, EU leaders agreed to spend €80.9 billion (£72.9 billion) on Horizon Europe, €13.5 billion less than was hoped for in May.</i><p>However, regarding the budget cut, keep in mind the costs incurred by the COVID19 pandemic.<p>--<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cs.utexas.edu&#x2F;users&#x2F;EWD&#x2F;transcriptions&#x2F;EWD06xx&#x2F;EWD611.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cs.utexas.edu&#x2F;users&#x2F;EWD&#x2F;transcriptions&#x2F;EWD06xx&#x2F;E...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.timeshighereducation.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;horizon-europe-will-further-weaken-basic-research-funding" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.timeshighereducation.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;horizon-europe-wil...</a>

The Administrators make their power play: declaring faculty redundant. They no longer want pesky faculty <i>thinking about things that don&#x27;t earn money</i>, so the math faculty has to go. The end goal is clear: a University is a business, being sold to students and Alumni, for the purpose of profit.

The part about synergy between faculties is accurate. Having strong pure math academics helps out the various applied math departments in indirect ways that I&#x27;ve seen.<p>This is a shame. Pure math is a discipline with the most out of whack discrepancy between public positive externality and private benefit, even more than in physics. Pure math discoveries often have unexpected downstream benefits decades later as they percolate slowly into applied domains in unexpected ways, and its discoverers get little credit and no financial reward. Terence Tao should be getting paid in the millions for his work.

People should note that:<p>* this is a UK university, tuition is limited to about 30k GBP for a (UK standard) 3 year degree. That&#x27;s 30k total, not per year. Accommodation is extra.<p>* Leicester isn&#x27;t a particularly good university. It&#x27;s ranked 77th out of 121. 50th out of 68 for maths [0].<p>* The department has been put on notice a few times that it needs more to up its income (get more students, get more research grants, get more other funding) or cut it&#x27;s expenses. It hasn&#x27;t done so.<p>* There are a whole bunch of wider issues for university funding at the moment. A rent strike is costing them money. Inability to take on foreign students (who they can charge more) is costing them money. A drop in overall intake as more students realise it likely isn&#x27;t worth the money to get a degree etc. Fewer students on campus means less sales from university bars, restaurants etc. Mix that with high fixed costs and someone has to be let go.<p>* They&#x27;re closing the pure maths departments but seem to be keeping the others (Including actuarial science) which is likely what students actually want. Ultimately UK degrees are mostly about getting a job these days, not the beauty of numbers. That&#x27;s sad but that&#x27;s the predictable consequence of 20 years of government policy in the area.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;education&#x2F;ng-interactive&#x2F;2020&#x2F;sep&#x2F;05&#x2F;the-best-uk-universities-2021-league-table" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;education&#x2F;ng-interactive&#x2F;2020&#x2F;se...</a>

I do not know the details of this case, but universities are opening new departments, centers and programs all the time. There needs to be some mechanism for reallocation rather than just growth.<p>Some breadth is always needed, but strength is even more critical for <i>research</i>. Having two universities, one with a center of excellency, say in physics one in ancient history is better than two mediocre research programs in each.<p>I think this has nothing to do with teaching mathematics -- classes will still be taught, this is about their research program. My 2c.

I used to work as an Lecturer in the other University in Leicester and I have lots of friends and colleagues working in various departments at Leicester University. It looks like the financial situation at the University is quite bad, and this isn’t the first time the executive has threatened to close this department. I feel for the people working there at the moment. Sad times.

So if I’m a hiring manager looking at someone with a recent degree from University of Leicester I have to discount their math abilities.<p>Their alumni should complain that the administration is harming the value of their credentials.

I think it&#x27;s important to fund research for the sake of research because it&#x27;s the only way to explore the unknown unknowns of the universe. At the extreme end, it&#x27;s a bit dystopian to consider the future of academia being limited to only topics that can deliver immediate economic value.<p>But seeing how much government debt has ballooned in recent decades, it&#x27;s disappointing to see moonshot research (literally [1]) may well soon be a thing of the past.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lettersofnote.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;08&#x2F;06&#x2F;why-explore-space&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lettersofnote.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;08&#x2F;06&#x2F;why-explore-space&#x2F;</a>

Nothing wrong with reshaping their focus if they also rename themselves into the Leicester Vocational School. They should be stripped of the title University that they are not worthy of any longer.

A lot of universities do not have a pure math faculty. It can be good or bad, it depends on the goals of the university and which faculties it wants to specialize on.

Amazing marketing fodder for any startup that wants to create a better educational system.<p>Also, they should read A Mathematician’s Apology (and the irony that came when Hardy’s work became applicable :P)<p>Pure math has brought so many amazing things: culture, intellectualism and straight up useful technology. For a university to ditch that means to me they’re not a university.

As a fellow Czech, who studies in one of top 20 UK universities, let me add my two cents.<p>As of 2020, UK universities are not worth the cost. The tuition fees alone amount to 27000 GBP (3-year undergrad) for British (non-Scottish) students with EU students now paying foreign student fees. I am still under SAAS scheme so I don&#x27;t pay a single pound, which is why I am still here. Nevertheless, the cost is too high to pay for something as uncertain as future market conditions, let alone life in general (from cancer to suddenly disliking your career choice). To make the most out of UK universities, smart students choose subjects by faculty and its professors. The best bet for Oxbridge and other is still STEM while I would be very careful with anything else. Unless the said student has a very nice liquid asset portfolio...<p>Currently, there are two problems in UK universities:<p>Firstly, the growing trend of limiting free speech and radicalisation of student on all sides of political spectrum. I witnessed my Slovak friend, who now supports views that would make Gottwald and Husak blush, while my catholic friend suddenly started to vote for open anti-semite. But that is a whole can of worms that I will let anybody else to open and examing. The issue I see now is that students and professors activelly selfcensor themselves in case of an everpresent snitch is present among their ranks (don&#x27;t you dare say something against CHINA!).<p>Secondly, students in the UK are neither students or customers, they are lifestock. Universities now compete in monopolistic market where the quantity of students determines their profits. The quality has minimal effect on profits as due to universities international reputation, there is no shortage of students. Also due to UK government, they also operate mostly as price takers. It is not about selling education to students, but to ensure that the greatest quantity of students is processed through the university system to maximise profits. That is why university management gives priority to enlarging university premises rather than paying teaching staff a fair wage and pension, which is why many professors are striking quite regularly in the UK. In simple terms, students are not customers, but raw material that is supposed to be processed for profit. Although I am open to debate, nobody will ever convince me that an academic institution should have the total of 5 bars and nightclubs in order to achieve higher level of academic excellence. I like my beer, but my personal research never supported my hypothesis that higher volume of alcohol leads to better grades.<p>This is why universities in UK are being filled with pseudoscientific courses, while lowering passing grades and standards which are effects I have witnessed due to my non-academic circumstances that prolonged my degree. It is to ensure that the greatest number of students survive through the course so that the university can make money of the students from 27000 tuition + bar spending + gym spending + overpriced accomodation fees + any other unecessary bs.<p>FYI, the above is the reason why I am purposefully staying quite far from my university (before covid) and I do not interact with students from my university. I am there for one reason only. I love my subject and I love my professors who are amazing despite the circumstances that they work in!<p>For fellow Czechs, if I would have a friend who would want to go study computer engineering to Oxford, I would point them to CVUT. Less money and excellent degree! Unfortunately in my field, the education in Czechia is not on par and lacks quite behind the rest of the world...I and I have a bad feeling one day soon we will pay the price<p>PS: appologies for spelling, insomnia...

What would make this more clear cut is a summary of what situation the university finds itself in. What&#x27;s happened with the finances, why these departments, which admin staff are going?

If their math faculty is of similar quality to (or worse than) what we had at my top 25 university, they aren&#x27;t going to lose much of value. I was a math major. Our math department was so bad - because the faculty was truly, magnificently inept at teaching - that our engineering school created their own versions of every required math class so the engineers could actually learn the required math.

No doubt these administrators put very low value on pure math but they also know the uproar might&#x2F;will reduce some of the budget cuts they&#x27;re dealing with.

Seems like a good reason that their accreditation board should let them now that this would result in them losing accreditation for all STEM degrees.

Why not dirty up the math with some real world applications and you might have a provably winning system.

Running Universities like a business. A scam and a travesty

A thought experiment that has a surprising amount of predictive power is to view the universities as a system of single-party rule on the scale of the CCP, where they vie for power internally among themselves, and use the real economy to fund their effective system of sinecures.<p>Viewed this way, it is purging principled and quantitative thinkers because they can&#x27;t keep them on as a risk for where the party is going. Straight out of sci-fi, but sometimes experiments can be illuminating.

The tweets say that pure math is an important part of the ecosystem of scholarship at a university (slight paraphrase) and I agree with that. I don&#x27;t really have any concern about axing medieval literature though.

This is good. Too long have universities maintained the illusion that all subjects are worth studying. They are not. And we have a valuation mechanism - pay. The truth is that some subjects need far fewer participants than others. You don’t need the marginal new mathematician or historian or geographer.<p>We do need the marginal electrical engineer or software engineer. It is crucial that we signal to students their prospects accurately and operate our collective learning facilities in the interest of the public.<p>The number of support staff required to service a bug organization does grow super linearly which is a reason to have smaller universities. These institutions suffer massive diseconomies of scale past a certain size as information transfer suffers.<p>Unfortunately, support staff grow more support staff at a higher rate than productive staff so it is necessary to keep university size small.<p>But of course, Tim Gowers is a bit of a luminary, so maybe I’m entirely wrong on all of this.