Sir Albert Edward Sloman (1921 – 28 July 2012) was the founding and longest serving Vice Chancellor of the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the an ...

, UK.

Background

Albert Sloman was born in

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and educated at Launceston College, before attending

Wadham College, Oxford Wadham College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy W ...

in 1939, where he secured a scholarship to study Spanish and French. After two years’ study he fought with the RAF as a night-fighter pilot, returned to Oxford in 1945 to finish his degree and begin a doctorate. His thesis topic was

Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño (, ; ; 17 January 160025 May 1681) was a Spanish dramatist, poet, writer and knight of the Order of Santiago. He is known as one of the most distinguished Baroque w ...

's ''El príncipe constante''. However, after a year he took up an Instructorship in Spanish at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He went on to work at

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

and held the chair in Spanish from 1953 to 1962 at

Liverpool University , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

, latterly becoming the Dean of the Faculty of Arts.

Contributions

In May 1960 the University Grants Committee voted to establish the

. In 1962, at the age of 41, Sloman was appointed the first Vice Chancellor. He was drawn to the philosophy and structure of leading American universities, and was given government funding to establish and run the university. He retired as Vice Chancellor in 1987 after twenty five years. He delivered the 1963 BBC

Reith Lectures The Reith Lectures is a series of annual BBC radio lectures given by leading figures of the day. They are commissioned by the BBC and broadcast on Radio 4 and the World Service. The lectures were inaugurated in 1948 to mark the historic contribu ...

on ‘The Making of a University’. He outlined plans for "radical innovation" - a high level of research and scholarship, with an inter-disciplinary curriculum. Departments would be headed by leading academics on a rotating basis so that they could maintain their research. He recruited young academics to establish the new departments, including the economist

Richard Lipsey Richard George Lipsey, (born August 28, 1928) is a Canadian academic and economist. He is best known for his work on the economics of the second-best, a theory that demonstrated that piecemeal establishing of individual first best conditions w ...

, the sociologist Peter Townsend, the political scientist

Jean Blondel Jean Blondel (26 October 1929 – 25 December 2022) was a French political scientist specialising in comparative politics. He was Emeritus Professor at the European University Institute in Florence, and visiting professor at the University of Sie ...

and the literary critic,

Donald Davie Donald Alfred Davie, FBA (17 July 1922 – 18 September 1995) was an English Movement poet, and literary critic. His poems in general are philosophical and abstract, but often evoke various landscapes. Biography Davie was born in Barnsley, ...

. His initiation of taught master's degrees was unusual in the 1960s. All undergraduates would sample a broad range of courses cutting across the science/arts divide in their first year before specialising. In the humanities and social sciences, students should study countries other than Great Britain. There was a lack of hierarchy in the buildings, open spaces, and dining arrangements. Some of Sloman's vision has survived. Sloman chaired the Conference of European Rectors and Vice Chancellors from 1969 to 1974, and the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals, from 1981 to 1983, when the Thatcher administration cut funding significantly to British universities.

Controversies

In 1966 the UGC, antagonised by the university's commitment to research, savagely cut the planned expansion of student numbers. In 1968, six years of political protest began on campus, detailed by sporadic student unrest, supported by many staff. On 7 May 1968 Police with dogs were called to a demonstration against chemical and biological warfare at a lecture by chemical defence scientist Dr Thomas Inch, a government scientist from

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. On Friday, 10 May, three students, Pete Archard, Raphael Halberstadt and

David Triesman David Maxim Triesman, Baron Triesman (born 30 October 1943) is a British politician, merchant banker and former trade union leader. Triesman is a Labour member of the House of Lords. Triesman previously sat as a Labour peer until resigning th ...

(now Lord Triesman) were suspended by Sloman and ordered off the campus. No evidence or charges were notified to the students, and no opportunity was given for the students to present their defence. Students retaliated with protest, blockading his house, boycotting the university's lectures and organising their own. After a week the three students were reinstated. The protests, continuing into 1969, continued unrest on the Colchester campus. There was negative press reporting, and there were calls for closure of the university from the populist right, and attacks on Sloman from the left. By 1974 there was a student ‘Occupation’ lasting several weeks, and the students were discouraging others from studying there, with attacks directed at Sloman The university's reputation was damaged in this period, and enrolments fell. Over the next 13 years, Sloman fought to reestablish the reputation of the university.

Personal

Sloman was married with three daughters. His wife Marie, was from Cognac in France, where they had a house. He was knighted after retirement, in 1988. Albert Sloman Library University of Essex

Albert Sloman Library University of Essex

The University of Essex's library building is named after him. It was extended in 2015.

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sloman, Albert 1921 births 2012 deaths Academics of the University of Essex People from Cornwall Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford Royal Air Force personnel of World War II Royal Air Force airmen Military personnel from Cornwall