A campus in Leipzig, then! What’s going on there? Let’s start with the official announcement:
https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/lancaster-announces-new-campus-in-leipzig-germany-1
The person sat next to the Vice-Chancellor, signing the agreement on behalf of private education provider Navitas, is Paul Lovegrove, former director of Study Group International (SGI). Study Group has run Lancaster’s International Study Centre since 2007 (see subtext 17) and has a presence on many campuses, notably at Lincoln, where Mr Lovegrove worked closely with Andrew Atherton, once Senior Deputy VC at Lincoln and latterly Deputy VC of this parish.
Mr Lovegrove first came to subtext’s attention in June 2014, when in a Senate newsflash, we outlined SGI’s plan to deliver Part I modules here: ‘fag packet rumours echoing around the subtext warehouse suggest that the Deputy Vice-Chancellor has already given the green light for SGI to recruit to their Part 1 Lancaster study programme (intended to be drawn up in close consultation with relevant departments), and SGI are gearing up to launch this as an addition to their product offering…’
As we reported in subtext 121, senators were not amused, and ‘speaker after speaker exposed the flaws in the proposal.’ Joe Thornberry, then Principal of Bowland, noted that ‘if Senate agreed to this now it would be the crossing of a very important line, with consequences that had the potential to damage seriously the university’s reputation.’ The proposal was withdrawn.
Five years later, Mr Lovegrove is back and he’ll be helping to lead an entire campus on our behalf, as CEO of Navitas’s University Pathways in Europe. We trust that our senators fully scrutinised the tender process. Navitas will be responsible for administrative staff, support services, student recruitment and a foundation year, with Lancaster staff teaching the degree programmes.
Fingers crossed