more on the Bibs department at Sheffield

Alison Bygrave (the insider voice from the department) has posted the following update regarding the Biblical Studies department at The University of Sheffield[.]:

The University of Sheffield has today confirmed its position with regard to the future of the Department of Biblical Studies. In the light of concerns regarding inadequate consultation, as well as feedback from staff and students, the Department of Biblical Studies is no longer under review and a proposal that it should be reconfigured as a Postgraduate Centre has been withdrawn.

Instead the University has asked the Faculty of Arts and Humanities to consider, as a matter of urgency, a short, medium and longer term plan for the Department. With regard to the undergraduate intake for 2010, the University can confirm that it will recruit students for this year onto single and dual honours degrees in Biblical Studies. The Faculty of Arts and Humanities are working with colleagues to ensure that these students are appropriately supported, including through the recruitment of additional staff.

Looking to the future, the University recognises the outstanding reputation of the Department of Biblical Studies in Sheffield for scholarship and a superb student experience, and has confidence that all concerned will work together to enhance this for future students.

Professor Mike Braddick
Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities

This is obviously good news. For all of you in any way responsible for making decisions at an institutional level, let this be a lesson to you that consulting people involved in a decision is always a wise thing to do before making that decision. I'm no organizational psychologist, but this seems to be one of the most frequently overlooked principles of, well, common decency.

HT: Bryan Lee

Biblical Studies at The University of Sheffield (or not, whatever)

Thank you to everyone who has sent me e-mails over the last week or so regarding the news that The University of Sheffield[.] is considering closing the undergraduate wing of the Biblical Studies department, a move that most (quite rightly) suspect would result in the end of biblical scholarship at Sheffield. The news was published on 8 Oct on the Students' Union website (via Education Officer Holly Taylor's blog). Subsequently, support for the department has exploded, with Jim West (posts available here), Mark Goodacre, Doug Chaplin, and many others following events and commentary. There is also a Facebook group and a website for those interested.

I have waited to comment on the situation in part because I'm really not sure what's going on and in part because I don't have access to the most reliable information. My opinions, therefore, are based less on solid facts and more on my impressions and observations from living and working in the department for over two years and with continued work in the department for an additional two-and-a-half years. Even so, the Bibs department has been the University's neglected step-child for some time, from a general lack of support for replacing faculty to a general view of the physical space inhabited by the Bibs department (on the 11th floor of the Arts Tower) as expansion potential for the Philosophy department (on the 12th floor). The department, admittedly, hasn't maximized the use of its space, but that problem could have been addressed without threatening the department as whole.

Despite all of this, the Biblical Studies department at The University of Sheffield[.] has a worldwide reputation and is a leading institution in terms of defining and embodying biblical scholarship. Its RAE scores attest the quality scholarship fostered by the department's faculty, to say nothing of the work put out by its graduates (myself included). Unlike many (most?) other theology and/or religion departments across the UK, the Bibs department is not religiously affiliated, and this has been the source of some criticism from circles to which I belong. But in my experience, this world-renowned, unaffiliated department was a welcoming, nurturing, and stimulating environment for biblical scholarship even for a conservative, confessional scholar such as I am. Sheffield is a truly unique place to pursue biblical scholarship, and the loss of the Biblical Studies department would be a loss both to The University and to professional biblical research.