Cannadine, Colley join UK faculty

Two members of the University’s history faculty, professors Linda Colley and her husband Sir David Cannadine, have taken equity stakes in the newly founded New College of the Humanities in London.

The NCH, created by philosopher A. C. Grayling and announced in June, is gathering attention worldwide as a new, private, for-profit undergraduate college in England that will charge 18,000 pounds per year — twice what the country’s public universities will be allowed to charge in 2012. The first class will enter the NCH in September 2012.

Grayling will serve as the college’s first master, and its structure will be based on that of American liberal arts colleges.

The NCH is designed to award University of London degrees to “gifted” undergraduates, who will be registered as external students under the university’s International Programmes. As such, students will have access to university facilities, and the college plans to rent further property from the university.

In addition to the University of London degree, graduates will receive a separate certificate from the College called the Diploma of the New College of the Humanities, or the DipNCH. Together, the certificate and the degree will make a combined award of “BA Hons (London) DNC.”

Applicants must apply using a separate application, meet requirements for the University of London and be fully competent in English.

The staff of the College comprises some of the world’s most prestigious scholars, including evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and geneticist Steve Jones. Princeton bioethics professor Peter Singer has also agreed to deliver one lecture in the first year that the college will offer tuition. Meanwhile, Colley and Cannadine are only teaching for one hour each in their first year with the college.

“Princeton does not allow its faculty members to work for or belong to any other academic organization,” Colley said in an email, adding that she is identified as a “visiting professor” for the NCH.

While this system of having lecturers teach for just one hour has come under fire in the British and international media, senior account manager for Colman Getty Consultancy Alexandra Bevis noted in an email that it is crucial to give the NCH links to other academic institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Princeton.

Bevis is listed as the contact on the NCH’s website.

Lectures such as the ones that will be delivered by Colley will be open to all students.

The NCH has also received extensive criticism for providing education only for the elite, with some arguing that esteemed and prominent faculty will only be available for the wealthy because of the NCH’s comparatively exorbitant tuition costs.

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Bevis countered the claim by noting that the College is designed to be “elite, but not exclusive,” and that NCH strives to raise “accessibility for the brightest students from all backgrounds.”

In its first year, 20 percent of all spots offered at the NCH will be “assisted” places — a combination of partial and full scholarships. Those who receive partial scholarships will spend an estimated 7,200 pounds per year, which equates to slightly over $11,000, a lower figure than that at some other U.K. universities.

The NCH is also in negotiations with banks and the government to make loans more readily available to its students, according to Bevis.