These are undeniably difficult times for universities, but even so not all decisions taken by senior management as a supposed response to them are wise ones.

It shows a certain ineptitude on the University of Strathclyde’s part to have alienated staff and students in social sciences and roused the ire of a venerated figure from the very institution they claim to be emulating (“Top academic’s attack on university cuts plan”, The Herald, June 3).

Any institution that aspires to be “the MIT of the Clyde” needs to be at the forefront of technology and society, even arts and technology debates, just as much as it needs to excel at the science and technology itself. Worldwide, sociology and geography, the subjects now under threat at Strathclyde, have been central to such debates, and they should be built on, not erased.

Social science subjects can and should be combined in inter-disciplinary ways, but it is just not clear enough from the vision for the new faculty of humanities and social sciences quite what kind of sociology Strathclyde has in mind or how it will thrive.

The criticism “under performing in research” is all too often code for “not making big bucks” (at a time when there is a dwindling pool of grants and ever more competition for them) and says nothing about the quality of teaching, the prestige of staff in external networks, or even about the value and impact of a department’s publications, which can be impressive even if they not derived from big-funded research projects. Just ask Professor Noam Chomsky.

I could cheerfully assent to creating an MIT on the Clyde, but my own experience has left me with much diminished confidence in the university leadership’s ability to translate its visions into reality.

I was invited to apply for a chair at Strathclyde in 2004 on the basis of expertise and reputation in two areas, the training of criminal justice social workers and the use of electronic monitoring with offenders, as a well as a keen, practical commitment to penal reform, all consistent with the university’s aspirations. I was inspired by Strathclyde’s commitment to excellence and interdisciplinary, and by its famous tagline “a place of useful learning”, and accepted what seemed like a dream job offer.

The reality fell far short of expectations, and after five years of health-sapping encounters with managers who did not know how best to use my expertise, and who were wedded to obsolete models of professorial workloads, it was a relatively easy decision to take early retirement in December and accept an Emeritus position in the Law School.

Universities have never been the most formally democratic of places but authority within them has necessarily been dispersed simply because no single leader of one could ever know enough about its diverse, constituent disciplines to direct it from the centre. That is now changing. Managers who believe that, if they possess “managerial knowledge”, they don’t need knowledge or experience of the activities they are managing (a common failing today not unique to higher education) are a liability. A former employee told me in 2004 that Strathclyde was “already excellent in parts, and on the up”.

Experience confirms that, and it would be a shame if that trajectory were now jeopardised by people who claim to be acting in its best interests.

Mike Nellis,

Emeritus Professor of Criminal and Community Justice,

University of Strathclyde School of Law,

Graham Hills Building, 50 George Street,

Glasgow.

I have just been looking through The Herald archives from 2007 for reports on the struggle to save Glasgow University’s Dumfries campus.

As a (post-graduate) participant, I vividly recall how initial despair in January was transformed into celebration in August when the threat of closure was lifted. But, as I noted in a letter published on August 22, 2007, “the fight goes on”.

My concern was that although the new SNP government had found £1.5 million to lift the immediate threat of closure, in the longer term the threat would remain.

Four years on, the threat has returned. On June 22, the Court of Glasgow University seem likely to nod through the closure of philosophy, history and literature (liberal arts) courses at Dumfries. They will be replaced by courses on environmental studies. Yet, since it was established in 1999, the main focus of Glasgow University’s Dumfries campus has been on the liberal arts. To shift the focus away from the liberal arts is likely to reduce student numbers, making the Dumfries campus unsustainable.

Surveying his “modern age” from Craigenputtock farm in Dumfriesshire in 1829, Thomas Carlyle described it as the Mechanical Age, the age of steam power and the industrial revolution. Our age is the Information Age, an age in which we are deluged with information, as instantly available in the most remote rural location as in the heart of the largest city. In this age of information, the ability to critically assess and analyse the value of information sources and transform them into useful knowledge is an absolutely vital and practical skill.

Liberal arts students gain access to the power of such critical knowledge through being “challenged to develop as skilled, informed and reflective thinkers”. Or so Professor AC Grayling claims. Unlike Glasgow University, a group of eminent academics including Prof Grayling (“Super-college to rival Oxbridge”, The Herald, June 6) is convinced of the importance of the liberal arts and plan to establish a New College of the Humanities in London. It is unlikely that many students from Dumfries and Galloway will be able to afford the £18,000 fees the college will charge.

Alistair Livingston,

6 Merrick Road, Castle Douglas.