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Ancient and Archaeology  permalink

Archaeology Dept to Close

• Message 1. 

  Posted by ap Tom (U1380901) on Monday, 3rd October 2005

  I have just been reading a message posted to the Britarch mailing list on behalf of Adraian Chadwick who currently lectures at the Archaeology Department at Newport in the Caerleon campus. He says "Archaeology at the University of Wales, Newport
  
  The management of the University of Wales, Newport have decided to close down the Department of Archaeology at Caerleon, which will cease to exist in two years time. This will be a great loss for archaeology in South Wales
  - staff at the department have an enviable publication record for such a small department, and have been very active in research projects at Ogmore-on-Sea (mesolithic and neolithic occupation), Lodge Hill (Iron Age and post-Roman hillfort) and Gray Hill (multi-period upland landscape). They have also been involved with local archaeological groups. Many UWN graduates have gone on to work in museums, and have taken up curatorial and contracting positions in many archaeological trusts and commercial field units, including the National Museum of Wales, the Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust, Wessex Archaeology and the Cambridge Archaeological Unit. Archaeology at UWN has also been very active in lending their support to groups such as the Friends of the Newport Ship, following the find of the well-preserved medieval ship in Newport.
  
  Despite being told earlier this year to go ahead and recruit a new 1st year undergraduate cohort, this decision was suddenly reversed in August (when most staff were away on research projects), and those students which had been accepted have now been told to reapply elsewhere. Many are now considering legal action against the UWN management. Existing 2nd and 3rd year students will therefore be the last at Newport. Archaeology staff were also told to cut the number of hours in existing taught modules, and it will not now be possible to have the same breadth of options and staff members for teaching (several part-time posts have already been cut). Although this is being strongly resisted, this has very worrying implications for academic standards. Archaeology has also been moved into a new School of Health and Social Science, whereas History, with whom Archaeology had previously very close contacts, has been moved into the separate School of Education. Many 2nd and 3rd year students are now also considering legal action too, and they will be publicly protesting these decisions on Tuesday 4th October.
  
  Archaeology at Newport's Caerleon campus had already lost their Archaeology Centre. Although Archaeology had been encouraged to submit a bid for the redevelopment of the existing building, in secret and without the knowledge of any Archaeology staff, UWN management were also considering a planning application for the same site, to develop it as further space for Art, Media and Design (despite a new campus for these subjects being planned for the centre of Newport). The head of Archaeology at Newport, Professor Stephen Aldhouse-Green, only found out this out by accident when he overheard a conversation between two members of Estates staff in a corridor! On several occasions in the past few years, UWN management and the Vice-Chancellor Professor James Lusty in particular, have been disingenuous with Archaeology staff and have not informed them of key decisions relating to their subject area.
  
  Archaeology have since had to move into two very cramped rooms, with very inadequate facilities for the storage of site archives and the numerous artefacts in the department's teaching collection. Having been reassured that enough room would be made available on the Caerleon campus, this is not the case, and it now seems likely that staff and students will have to travel to the Alt-yr-Yn campus in Newport for some lectures. (There is an obvious irony in that, despite being closed for an ostensible lack of students, the department now has too many for the allocated rooms). At the beginning of this semester vital equipment such as data projectors and computers were still not in place at Caerleon. Postgraduate archaeology students are being moved into one room shared with other humanities postgraduates, and this small room has very inadequate facilities, and is directly beneath a noisy undergraduate hall of residence. Given the insecurity of existing staff posts, there are also doubts about the continued provision of supervision for these postgraduates.
  
  As I have mentioned, our undergraduate students are considering legal action and are mounting a series of public protests, beginning tomorrow on Tuesday 4th October. I would urge anyone who cares about the provision of academic archaeology in Britain, and about archaeology in South Wales, to write to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales, Newport, and to the new Dean of Health and Social Science. It would be particularly good to have the support of leading academics from other archaeology departments in Britain, and from the Council for British Archaeology, RESCUE and the Institute of Field Archaeologists."
  
  
  This would be a dreadful blow to Welsh (and British) archaeology. SCARAB, the University's Research branch has already folded, but this is disaterous. There is little enough archaeology taking place in South eastern Wales outside resue archaeology, the department has been responsible for work at Trelech town, Gray Hill and Lodge Farm Hillfort.

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 12th December 2007

  Anybody know how this panned out?

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by RainbowFfolly (U3345048) on Wednesday, 12th December 2007

  Links (via Google) to the archaeology department are dead but cached. There's nothing that can be found by searching on the University of Wales, Newport's website. Curiously, searching for "Archaeology" in their news archive - which goes back to January 2006 - produces no search results at all.
  
  Ah well, at least we should be happy in the knowledge that the money they've saved has been well spent in developing the "University of Wales, Newport School of Golf":
  
  
  RF

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 3.

  Posted by Crystal Clear (U1010754) on Thursday, 13th December 2007

  That is terrible news. Im aware of Adrian Chadwick's work and was planning for it to be a big help for my masters dissertation! I just cannot understand why they would do something like that ( I suppose Im biased loving archaeology so much) but still...

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