The Internet arrived late in my career. Its annoyances are far outweighed by its joys. One of the best things about the new era is that I can converse with far more readers and at much greater depth than I ever could with just a phone and a typewriter.
It's a cinch
Tariq Tahir asks why funding for art and design, which contribute so much to the economy, is being cut
With the annual ritual of degree shows at an end, the euphoria of the bright young things finishing their art and design courses is dissipating, replaced by the feeling familiar to many of this year's new graduates - uncertainty at what awaits them in the world of work, especially in the midst of the worst recession in 80 years.
Wendy Malem, a dean at the London College of Fashion, describes the students coming out of her institution as "hardnosed, entrepreneurial, incredibly intelligent and incredibly motivated". Many plan to take the products and ideas developed during their courses straight on to the market.
They could be just the kind of graduates Peter Mandelson might have in mind as he seeks to impose his vision for a more commercially focused higher education sector from within his new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
Art and design might not seem obvious contenders for this driving role, but this is a sector that historically weathers economic downturns better than most, and already has an important place in the economy.
The figures speak for themselves. In the last decade, the creative industries have grown at twice the rate of the economy as a whole. They employ 2 million people and contribute £60bn a year - or 7.3% of GDP - to the economy. Around half of these firms employ graduates.
But at a recent conference on higher education and the creative industries, Nigel Carrington, the rector of the University of the Arts London, said his institution's budget is likely to fall by between 4% and 5% over the coming year as a result of the government's emphasis on prioritising funding for science and technology.
Tom Bewick, the chief executive of Creative and Cultural Skills, the body that bridges the gap between education and employers in the sector, spoke at the same conference, and later said the government could be ignoring a potential source of economic recovery.
Bounce back
"What is really interesting about the historical trend in the creative industries is that they bounce back much quicker than other sectors, and while this may not happen this time around, in the last three recessions, the creative industries - in terms of employment and number of businesses - have grown faster than any other part of the economy," he says.
"I think it is a false choice between this idea of rebalancing the economy back towards science and manufacturing and the idea that creativity is 'soft'. It is an outdated view of Britain's economic strengths.
"If anything, the government should be increasing budgets to universities to help creative industries. There is a great success story around that in Britain, and I think we are putting it at risk with a nostalgic view of the economy. I'm very concerned that in the latest round of funding, the arts and humanities have just had their budgets cut. The skills council is absolutely against the cuts." But while cuts in funding could affect higher education's ability to support the creative industries, Bewick argues that universities themselves need to do more.
"What HE needs is to provide students with the enterprise skills and be as concerned with setting creatives up in business as awarding them a degree," he says. "There aren't going to be the sexy jobs with design companies any more, and I think the jobs of the future are going to be more about the one-, two- or three-person bands that are going to come together over particular projects."
He said that while there were many good examples of universities working to support businesses in the creative sector, it was not systemic.
"I don't understand why higher education doesn't collaborate more. Most creative businesses - 87% of them in fact - are small or micro-businesses of less then 10 people, [so] they could be part of the knowledge networks like in the collaborative ventures that happen in other parts of campus life such as research networks.
"We have a very, very poor rate of graduate start-up businesses compared with the US, either at under- or posgraduate level."
For Professor Keith Bardon, University of the Arts London's pro rector for research and enterprise, the decision to reduce the university's research budget from £9.7m to £6.2m contradicts the government's claims of championing the creative industries.
"Creative industry businesses tend to be smaller and more reliant on the university's support and development assistance to grow," he says. "This slashing of research funding will have a negative effect on the businesses we work with, as we will be less able to help them push the boundaries of what is and isn't possible.
"The university's knowledge transfer projects, which have seen us partner with creative businesses to give them access to the very latest arts, design and communication thinking, may also suffer because of this short-sighted decision.
"It seems more than a little strange that the government claims to support the creative industries sector, which contributes £60bn to the UK economy, while undermining the research wing of Europe's largest specialist arts university and a major contributor to the creative industries sector."
Industry needs
Funding aside, the government also needs to be more in tune with the needs of the creative industries, say many of those who work in these fields.
Sally Taylor is the chief executive of the London Centre for Arts and Cultural Exchange, a body that was set up to foster the exchange of knowledge between nine of the capital's higher education institutions and the creative and cultural sector. "The problem comes when one relies on a government model of how that is funded," she says. "Universities do want to get involved with the creative sector and a lot of that is on an informal rather than a formal basis, although we do encourage the more formally funded areas."
Problems can arise, says Taylor, when universities have to show a direct economic benefit from their work with creative industries, even though much valuable work is done with longer-term goals in mind: "The government's only criterion is income, though thankfully the universities I work with take a much broader view."
A particular concern, she adds, is the ability of the creative industries to access funds through the Technology Strategy Board, a quango set up to provide support to businesses, including those fostered by universities.
"The Technology Strategy Board has opened its coffers to applications from the creative industries, but it is extremely difficult to make the case in their terms," says Taylor. "In the creative industries, the answer might not be cutting-edge technology but the application of existing technology in a different area.
"What we are lobbying for is more flexibility in how they apply the application of technology to the creative industries - can you look at it on our terms rather than ones that are set up to deal with sewage or housebuilding?"
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President Obama has been urging Americans to pursue at least one year of education beyond high school. He and others say most new jobs being created require at least a two-year college degree. But that notion is being challenged by those who say formal schooling might not be the answer for everyone.
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Five Great Educators Who Make a Difference
Columbia University's Teachers College Press comes out next month with a book about five important reformers: James P. Comer, John I. Goodlad, Henry M. Levin, Deborah Meier and Theodore R. Sizer. If you were assembling the leading American thinkers and writers about education, you would have to include these five. They tell the stories of how they became so obsessed with education and what they learned about improving schools in the book "Those Who Dared: Five Visionaries Who Changed American Education."
In Texas, A Living Lab For Studying The Dead
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Only a few universities in the world have facilities devoted to studying human bodies as they decompose. Texas State University's Forensic Anthropology Research Facility is the newest. Students there learn to recover and study human bones.
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