Sandra Kemp
Professor Sandra Kemp was head of the London College of Communication (LCC), one of the six constituent colleges of the University of the Arts London from 2008 until March 2012. The college is sited at Elephant & Castle in South London, and specialises in media and design courses preparing students for careers in the creative industries. Courses cover diploma, foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate level. She led a review of the college's academic portfolio and financial structure in 2009.[1]
Education
She has a BA and DPhil from the University of Oxford. She has a background in English literature.[1]
Career
Before joining LCC, she spent eight years as Director of Research at the Royal College of Art. She worked with London's creative and cultural industries, strengthening the College's research capacity and building strong partnerships with other universities, policy makers, research councils and the private sector in Europe, north America and south-east Asia.[2]
Previously she held posts at several UK universities including Southampton, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Westminster and had sabbaticals at Sapienza, Brown and Columbia. She has been a researcher and writer for 25 years, specialising in visual arts and building bridges between the arts and sciences.[1]
As a columnist for the Times Higher Education, she has written on the arts and higher education. She has been on the advisory and management boards of the British Museum Centre for the Visual and Material Culture, and the research centres at the Victoria & Albert and the Natural History museums. She has been a panel member for the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Research Assessment Exercise, and the Arts & Humanities Research Council's Visual Arts and Media Panel.[1]
She has appeared on television in the UK and abroad, including Omnibus and London Tonight, and broadcasts regularly, most recently on the BBC's Night Waves[3] and Woman's Hour[4] and on Chicago Public Radio's Odyssey[5]
Exhibitions
She has curated a number of exhibitions and written widely in these areas. The subject of the human face formed the theme of her fellowships at the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington DC, the National Portrait Gallery, London and her curatorship of the exhibition Future Face: Image, Identity, Innovation funded by the Wellcome Trust at the Science Museum and later in Taiwan and China.[6] It investigated the way images of the face as a barcode of human identity have been affected by advances in science and technology. [7] and was accompanied by a special issue of New Scientist and was the subject of TV and radio programmes. [8]
Publications
She has published books and articles on Virginia Woolf, Rudyard Kipling, Henry James, Wilkie Collins and Charlotte Bronte[9], and on feminism and literary theory/cultural studies. She edits Penguin classics written by Victorian and modernist novelists.
Criticism
She undertook a major review of LCC academic provision and its finances in 2009. As a result of this process 16 courses were closed and there were 26 full-time redundancies.
The University and Colleges Union passed a unanimous vote of no confidence in the Head of College and College Management Team on 12 June 2009.
In 2011 an inquiry by the Quality Assurance Agency into restructuring at the LCC found standards were affected by course closures.[10]
The resignation email of the Head of Communications Gillian Radcliffe in late November 2011, which criticised management practices was leaked to the college unions and the press. Head of finance, Steve Chaplin, another member of the college management team, resigned two months earlier.[11]
In January 2012 16 more courses, mainly in design subjects, were cut. The three unions representing the workforce voted unanimously for her immediate resignation, and a vote of no confidence in her leadership was passed.[12]
The ongoing disputes at LCC were reported by the publication Private Eye in a summary of events in issue 1306 (27 Jan 2012), p31, entitled "Public enemies" in the "High Principals" column.
Professor Kemp was in the news again on 23 February 2012 when it was revealed by Times Higher Education that she had been consulting celebrity publicist Max Clifford about her image, a fact confirmed by a University of the Arts London spokesperson. [13]
On 2 March, Times Higher Education followed up with a report that Professor Kemp had been suspended from her post. [14]
Certain other rumours indicate she has resigned.
References
- ^ a b c d Head of College: Biography and Mission LCC website biography, accessed 10 August 2011
- ^ [1] RCA Tops Research Funding Application Ranking RCA website, accessed 11 January 2012]
- ^ [2] BBC 3 Night Waves accessed 12 January 2012]
- ^ [3] What might we look like in 50 years time? Women's Hour History + Science Archive, accessed on 12 January 2012]
- ^ [4] The Future of the Human Face Odyssey Audio Library, accessed on 12 January 2012]
- ^ Face of the Future BBC News Online Magazine 2008, accessed 10 August 2011
- ^ [5] Welcome Trust looks into the Face of the Future Science Museum website, accessed 11 January 2012
- ^ [6] Facing up to the future New Scientist, accessed 11 January 2012
- ^ Publications edited by Professor Sandra Kemp on Waterstones
- ^ Course closures at LCC disrupted studies and harmed students’ chances, QAA rules - Times Higher Education 17 June 2011, accessed 10 August 2011
- ^ PR chief's parting shot cites LCC head's 'unfair' management style - Times Higher Education 15 December 2011
- ^ "Unions call on LCC head to quit over decision to cull 'unviable' courses" -Times Higher Education 19 January 2012
- ^ "Spin doctor pays call to ailing LCC" -Times Higher Education 23 February 2012
- ^ "Controversial head of college suspended" -Times Higher Education 2 March 2012