Following the report in The Times today about Professor Jo Phoenix's forced resignation from the OU, I have sent the letter below to the Vice Chancellor, Tim Blackman by email.
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Dear Vice Chancellor,
As an OU graduate, I have financially supported the university for many years, being particularly grateful for its teaching expertise in STEM subjects.
But after reading about the hounding of Jo Phoenix in today's Times I have decided to terminate my DD to you.
This is not the kind of university culture I can identify with.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Nigel Seel.
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I am genuinely disgusted. The OU pioneered high-quality university-level teaching for a generation of predominantly working-class people who were ignored by hidebound traditional universities. The quality of their science, mathematics and computer science courses was uniformly high - really impressive.
This latest capitulation to the anti-science lobby within the university itself just crosses a line for me. We've lost another university.
Sad.
