8:59am Monday 22nd March 2010
By Clare Kennedy
STUDENTS are calling for their popular university course to be spared the axe.
Bosses at the University of Southampton want to scrap the sports studies degree after a review of its range of programmes.
The move comes just days after the Daily Echo, right, revealed the university wants to shed 200 jobs in a reorganisation of support staff, as it bids to cope with a drop in funding.
Workers have been told the university, which employs around 5,000 people, has “more to do, but less money with which to do it” as it seeks to become one of the best in the world.
The three-year BSc sports course, with eight applicants for each of 60 places every year, faces the axe after a review panel recommended it be withdrawn.
A university spokesman said the review is designed to ensure all courses are underpinned by world class research, as new Vice-Chancellor Professor Don Nutbeam looks to push Southampton into the top ten of British universities. His plans include recruiting 100 new professors in the next five years.
Angry sports students say losing the course will jeopardise valuable community projects tackling obesity.
They have launched an online petition and sent letters to the university, ahead of a meeting on Thursday when the ruling council will decide on the course’s future, and the proposed job cuts.
The course, which covers the historical, cultural, political and economic aspects of sport as well as the study of physiology, psychology and human movement, could be phased out, with the last intake coming this September.
Students are also taught about the coaching and teaching of sports with many students going on to practise what they learn in the local community.
One student, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “If the course is phased out it will not only affect us as students but also the community that we live in.
“The course brings students that are willing to volunteer in community projects ranging from helping local teenagers to old people in nursing homes stay active.
“There are also serious repercussions on making initiatives to tackle obesity work by increasing physical activity. By removing this course there will be less help and focus on dealing with this rising epidemic.”
The spokesman said cutting the course would not affect the university’s commitment to sport, or financial and practical support for talented sporting students.
He said the academic sports programmes had been part of the curriculum for less than a decade following their transfer from New College and there was “good local provision of academic sports programmes at other higher education institutions in the region.”
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