Following the announcement that the UEA School of Music would be closing as of 2014, Concrete caught up with Bill Vine, one of the leading figures in the Save UEA Music campaign. This interview was conducted prior to the occupation of the Registry, and subsequent poster campaign.
Chris: What's your initial reaction to the announcement?
Bill: Disgust. You can't help but think they didn't bother listening to any of the evidence. They certainly didn't give two shits about the offer from the RMA (Royal Musicians Association) and NAMHE (National Association for Music in Higher Education) which was amazing, and frankly the fact they hadn't taken them up was really insulting to those two organisations. I guess initial thoughts are: what do we do next? How do we fight them more? Rest assured, we are going to fight them more. We're not taking this lying down. They are not going to get away with it. The University has a PR nightmare on its hands already, this will only get worse for them now.
Chris: For anyone who isn't aware, what were the specifics of the offer?
Bill: Provisionally, they were going to send in a team of experts with proven track records of running financially successful schools of music, for free, to look at the School here and assess it. We had said that if these experts came back and said: "No, actually we don't think it's possible to turn it around in financial terms," we'd agree to its closure. If the University isn't even prepared to do that then they don't listen. They don't care. They have made up their minds.
Chris: You mentioned that you were going to carry on fighting. What is the next step?
Bill: We are not sure yet. We need to investigate and see if there are any higher bodies we can go to. We think there may be something in the Royal Charter, but we aren't really sure yet. As far as I am aware, someone is appointed as a visitor and if they want to change something in the constitution, they have to go through this person. It could well be that this person can step in on our behalf and join our case. As yet we don't know who or what they are.
Chris: How did you become aware of this?
Bill: Someone overheard John Charmley on the phone. He told them to make sure he was the first person to know and verify it with the School secretary just to make sure they weren't hearing things.
Chris: So you must be disgusted they didn't tell you?
Bill: They didn't have a chance to do so, but I guess we were. I mean, God knows when we would have found out if we hadn't overheard [the conversation]. Having Charmley come and tell us is a kick in the fucking teeth, because the man has been nothing but untrustworthy. He hasn't represented us, he hasn't fought for us. He was in on the secret review. He didn't tell his staff or the people that he was representing, the people he was supposed to be standing up for and protecting. He didn't tell them that this was going on. They were still having their regular School meetings and he was just sitting there, eating a pie or something. The man is with the worst of them in all of this. He didn't want the School to remain open. There is no way he fought for us. He could have done something to let us know the review was going on. Maybe we might have been able to better stand up for ourselves earlier and say: "Look, we can be a part of this University trajectory."
Chris: Obviously you couldn't stop campaigning, but do you feel the decision had been made before they [the University Council] convened?
Bill: We don't know. We had no idea if they would be reasonable and listen, and now it is clear that they had made up their minds first, because the offer was too good to turn down, and anybody capable of doing this would have to be an idiot.
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Following this interview, conducted last Monday (28 November), members of the Save UEA Music campaign occupied the Registry for 11 hours, and posters were created by people involved with Save UEA Music, and distributed around campus. To read about the occupation, click here, and to find out the specifics of the poster campaign, click here.
For news on the next steps in the campaign, and a full overview of the events of the past few weeks concerning the decision to close the School, pick up Issue 6 of Concrete, out today (December 6).