Mike Fitzgerald (sociologist)

Mike Fitzgerald (born 1951) is a criminologist, former higher education manager and consultant. He was Vice-Chancellor of Thames Valley University in the 1990s.

Scholarly work

After studying at [no records....] Fitzgerald began an academic career in the 1970s at the Open University, as a lecturer in Social Policy, latterly working alongside Stuart Hall and other well known sociologists. He was involved in the OU's innovative teaching modes and joint publications. He is expert in the sociology of prisons and policing in Britain and internationally, publishing several books on these topics

Academic Management, and Thames Valley University

Walpole House in Ealing, housing the University's administration.

Fitzgerald latterly became professor, Dean and Director of Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Open University, then left after 12 years to become Deputy Director for Academic Development at Coventry Polytechnic.

He was appointed Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive of Thames Valley University (TVU) in 1991. TVU had just achieved university status. His personal characteristics came to define the image and policies of the new university. He was known for his flamboyant style, sporting an earring, peroxide hair, Armani suits and drove a car with an M4TVU numberplate. His office had no desk, but a sofa and a jukebox. He was the first person ever to use a swearword on the front page of Times Higher Education in 1996.

Fitzgerald believed in a "student driven university" led by a "New Learning Environment", which substituted online learning for some traditional teaching, and whose learning outcomes were career-driven rather than classically academic and disciplinary in nature. He said "Just as you need students to be active learners, so you need teachers to be active tutors. A lecture-driven model renders both teachers and learners passive." "...education is something you do; it's not something that happens to you. It is an active process". He initiated the Paul Hamlyn Learning Resource Centre at the Slough campus (now sold) and reduced many formal assessments in student coursework, arguing for continuous, student-directed learning.

Fitzgerald's changes, while prescient in many ways, were opposed by unions, because they led to negative terms and conditions for employees, and poorer conditions for academic staff. There were only two years during his tenure that no industrial action was held. He was angered that the staff were not on board with his vision of a "New Learning Environment"..

Poor relations with the teaching staff, combined with the very rapid pace of change and reliance on new computer technologies, created the greatest problems for his management. A scandal over low pass marks for resit exam candidates was quickly redressed by Fitzgerald in October 1997, but the Quality Assurance agency was called in. The industrial disputes with staff clearly had a negative impact on meeting marking deadlines, and thus on student progression. The QAA report gave negative evaluations of TVU's academic standards in many areas - registration, timetabling, validation, student support and assessment systems. The report said "The University chose to implement this vision of a New Learning Environment at the same time as it completely recast the underpinning academic-related administration. As we believe might have been anticipated, this subjected the institution, its staff and its systems, to stresses which it was not able to bear." Fitzgerald resigned in 1998 after the QAA report was published and a management team led by first Sir William Taylor then Ken Barker took over, ironically initiating more staff redundancies and closures.

Since 1999 he has worked as an education consultant, and currently resides in Amsterdam. His is no longer in the public eye, and the only recent mention of him in recent years is as an occasional film critic.

Media

Fitzgerald was well connected with Britain's 'New' Labour party led by Tony Blair. Tony Blair and David Blunkett opened the Paul Hamlyn Learning Resource Centre on the Slough campus in 1996 with the rejoinder: 'Why, I wonder, can't every university be like TVU?'." Fitgerald made frequent appearances on British television. He also published a regular newspaper column on education policy. Private Eye magazine ran a column about a 'trendy Vice Chancellor" in the 1990s, based on Fitzgerald.