Willoh Wood Schumacher college student
Student expresses surprise and dismay at hearing of closure of Schumacher College.
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00:00First of all, thanks for reaching out, Willow.
00:05Yeah, thank you.
00:06Now, you are one of many people who've contacted us this morning to our surprise.
00:13They all said the same thing.
00:14They hadn't heard anything from Dartington or Schumacher College, and the first they'd
00:20heard about the closure was from us, from the article we'd written.
00:25So you're telling me that you had no idea this was going to happen?
00:30No, no.
00:31And in fact, so I'm a student rep, and we were part of the program meeting that happens
00:41every term, which is a meeting between student reps, teaching staff, Schumacher staff, and
00:45Dartington Hall Trust staff, just to check in about how everything's going.
00:50And obviously, the past year has been very turbulent.
00:52I don't know if you know about this very similar situation that happened last year.
00:57Let's tell us a bit more about that, just a reminder.
01:02Yeah, so it was actually much more short notice last time.
01:06So I've just completed my first year, and I was getting ready to move onto Schumacher
01:11campus September of last year.
01:14And then three days before I was supposed to arrive, I just got an email from Dartington
01:19Hall Trust saying, oh, we don't know if your course will go ahead.
01:25Don't come here, and we'll be in touch with more information.
01:29Just like no reasoning why, no idea of time scale, of when we'd find out more that was
01:35supposed to happen.
01:36Like I got this email, I think it was on the Friday, and I was supposed to start our welcome
01:40week on the Monday.
01:43Extremely stressful time.
01:47So yeah, that's kind of been hanging over us the past year, even as-
01:51Because you did actually go back to college for-
01:54Yes, yeah, yeah.
01:55The course went ahead.
01:56We started a week late.
01:59But it just felt like every step of the way, we were never given a guarantee that we would
02:04complete our degree.
02:06However, at the program meeting in June this year, we were informed that Dartington Hall
02:14Trust had confirmed our budget for the next year of teaching, and that all staff had been
02:20hired and it was all given the green light, go ahead, this is definitely happening.
02:24So we were sort of comfortable knowing that this was the case.
02:29And then yes, reading your article yesterday was the first thing any of us had heard, to
02:33the contrary.
02:35Now what are you studying, or what were you studying at Schumacher College?
02:40You said it was your first year.
02:42Yeah, so I'm on the BSc program, which is a BSc in regenerative food and farming.
02:50So you hear this news for the first time.
02:53How do you feel about it?
02:55Just completely in disbelief.
02:57We didn't know if it was true.
02:58We didn't know if it was misinformation, because it was just so out of the blue.
03:03And you know, as the article said, that we had been contacted.
03:07So we just thought there'd been some kind of mistake.
03:12But there's a Schumacher group chat, which is all the students.
03:17And rumors just started circulating, you know, and there are a few people who are on campus
03:22at the moment and had managed to check in with some members of staff to hear that, yes,
03:28there was very, very bad news, but they couldn't talk about it, because Dartington Hall Trust
03:34had informed staff members that they weren't allowed to tell us, because Dartington Hall
03:40Trust were going to tell us.
03:43Staff members weren't allowed to, Schumacher staff members weren't allowed to talk to us
03:46about it.
03:47It had to come from Dartington.
03:48And then they didn't tell us, they told you.
03:50So then we learned from you.
03:52Now, Dartington Trust, in their statement, reiterated the point that Schumacher is, was
03:59and remains by some distance, I quote, the trust's largest loss maker among several operating
04:06activities in the red.
04:09So is this something that was made clear to you as well, and made clear to students that
04:15the college was having deep financial problems?
04:18We knew, like this, this is why this happened last year.
04:23We're aware that Dartington Hall Trust very nearly went into administration around that
04:30time, that they managed to get out of it somehow, I think they sold some assets.
04:36There's been a lot of talk about Schumacher going independent so that we don't get dragged
04:40down with it.
04:41But it seems we're sort of all dragging each other down.
04:44Schumacher, I mean, I'm not surprised that it's making so many losses, because we haven't
04:52taken on any new students.
04:54So at the moment, like we usually have a January intake, and a September intake, we didn't
05:01have a January intake this year.
05:02So suddenly, student numbers just dropped off.
05:06And there's only so many students, I think at the moment, like 40 of us that are starting
05:09in September, paying what's capped at student fees, that's really not very much money for
05:15how much money the building's taking up, keep paying all the staff, everything, everything.
05:21So we have been aware, I know that Schumacher was putting a lot of energy into their short
05:28course programme to try and make up more money, essentially.
05:34And they have a whole short course team who've been working very hard on that.
05:37But according to Dyington's statement, the courses have had very low uptake.
05:47So that clearly hasn't worked.
05:50So yeah, I'm really not surprised to hear that Schumacher is at such a great loss.
05:55But it also feels like we haven't been given the opportunity to operate properly, like
06:02if we'd been able to have more of a student intake, surely that would have helped, but
06:08I'm not sure.
06:09I'm not an economist.
06:10Where does that leave you now, because I understand in the statement, the trust said it's going
06:15to approach each student individually from Monday next week, although that clearly hasn't
06:21helped you now, because as you said, students didn't know anything about this until our
06:28article appeared in the paper last night.
06:30So what are you going to do now?
06:33I am about to drive to Schumacher, I'm currently in Bristol.
06:37I'm actually homeless currently, I'm kind of sofa surfing.
06:40I do have accommodation sorted from the end of September, but that was very much tied
06:45to our degree.
06:48It's a house share of some of us on our course.
06:51We're not sure what we're going to do.
06:52We've already paid the deposit for that house, signed contracts, etc.
06:56Several other students are in similar positions of having spent money for their accommodation
07:01for the next year.
07:02So I don't know, I don't know.
07:05When this happened last year, I looked far and wide for similar courses.
07:09Our course is extremely unique, there's nothing else like it in this country, maybe the world.
07:15I've looked at similar degrees, kind of covering some similar stuff, but it's just not really
07:24possible to just transfer.
07:26At the moment, we're wondering if, because our accrediting body is Plymouth Uni, we're
07:33wondering if maybe we can all, as a group with our teaching staff, use their facilities
07:40to complete our degree at Plymouth campus, but we don't, we're just speculating there
07:44because we know that that's what happened when Dartington Arts University shut down
07:51in 2012, I think it was.
07:53I had some friends who were there, all their courses got swallowed up by the University
07:59of Falmouth, so everyone had to move from Dartington to Falmouth and complete their
08:03degrees there.
08:04So, but we have no idea if that's an option for us at the moment.
08:09Our teaching staff are legally not allowed to talk to us about any of this, so we just,
08:16we don't know.
08:17I'm guessing the wording of everything that Dartington has said so far, it makes it sound
08:23like they just want to shove us out the door and have us all find different degrees and
08:29just like leave and do something else with our lives, but for a lot of us, that just
08:33really isn't an option.
08:35I'm not sure it's an option for me personally, I have a disability, that would make mainstream
08:42university study very difficult.
08:44One of the things that attracted me to Schumacher is that it is at once an institutional university,
08:49but it's also a community.
08:53So, we're studying farming, a lot of that has a practical element, we have a growing
08:57space there that we have put our blood, sweat and tears into with like long-term plans because
09:03we've been told that we could create these long-term plans and now it seems that we're
09:08losing that land and the rent for that particular piece of land was paid for out of the budget
09:14for our programme specifically, so we just, we don't know, we don't know.
09:21Well Willow, I wish you all the best and please keep in touch with us and let us know how
09:27this plays out for you and for your student colleagues, friends and I hope to speak again
09:34to you soon.
09:35Thank you, I wanted to ask a favour, would it be possible for, on the article published
09:40yesterday, to print a, like, revision?