Last night was the TMS festive social – where everyone involved in the School could gather, chat and reflect on the year. Like all good parties, it included a PowerPoint presentation – covering a bit of the history of TMS, and the challenges we face as a community in the next year or so.
The landlord is selling the building where TMS is housed, and while they are sympathetic to its continued presence here, plans need to be put in place – whether to ensure a new landlord is actively invested in what is happening here, or preferably, to find a way to buy the building and turn it into a community-held co-operative.
The ethos of the school is democratic, with horizontal collective decision-making and everyone on the same pay (whether they are director, tutor, administrator or cleaner). So the emphasis of the presentation was that this is all of our responsibility. Everyone who works or studies here (or has worked and studied here) make the School what it is. Unlike most HE institutions, there is no divide where managers are set apart from everyone else, so all of the decisions around this and the provision of information that is made available, are happening in an open forum.
The next year will see a lot of changes, and I am very much aiming to be part of it during and after my residency. I really feel like this place needs to succeed and live if there is to be any hope for a better, less market-driven model of Higher Education surviving in the UK. I have seen an alternative way of providing HE, and it must be protected at all costs – no model will ever be perfect, but the sheer existence of alternatives is needed to shape change.