Tempora mutant, et nos in illa..

[shewhomust]

I don't suppose Durham University deliberately scheduled its Open Days to coincide with the Youth Climate Strike: more likely the date is set automatically, at a certain interval before the start of term. The result is that on a day when we are invited to take seriously the impact of our activities on the climate, the University also warns us that 22,000 visitors, prospective students and their parents, will be arriving in the City. They are encouraged to use public transport, but can't be compelled to do so.

durham_rambler was sufficiently shaken by that figure - could they really be expecting 22,000 visitors? - to consult our friend the University insider. Could this be right? Oh, yes, he said. In fact, although this is a ticketed event, there are usually a fair proportion who turn up on the off-chance, so the number may well be higher...

And we got to talking about these events, and their place in the admissions process. When I came to Durham for interview, half a century ago, I was invited to arrive the day before the interview, and entrusted for the evening to a first year student who was an Old Girl of my school. This turned out to be just as well, because it was a very snowy day, and my train was much delayed. But that's another story: the point is that the interview process also served as an introduction to the University. Where did you spend the night? asked S. I was given a bed in a college guest-room - and of course, as he pointed out, you couldn't do that now, there just wouldn't be room to accommodate everyone. It gets worse: actually carrying out all the interviews would demand so much time that the practice has been abandoned. It's all done - I was going to say "on paper", but probably not, on the screen then. To add insult to injury, the decision has been taken out of the hands of both colleges and academic departments, and there is now a centralised admissions department. Where this leaves Durham's claim to be a collegiate university I do not know.

But what I have been thinking since that conversation is that I already knew that the University has grown since my day. I almost typed "grown beyond all recognition", but in my mind I still assumed that things went on as they always had. I knew they held open days, but I didn't stop to wonder why.

Times change, and I don't always change with them.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Canterbury, which contains two of my almae matres, now has something like twenty times the students it had in my day and accommodation was problem even back then!

[shewhomust]

There are residents' associations across the country complaining that their local university - or universities! - have outgrown their home cities. Harder to realise that the universities are changed by this as much as the cities...