The Fulfilment of Lives
The Reith Lectures
BBC
4.2 • 770 Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 1963
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This year's Reith lecturer is Dr Albert E Sloman, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Essex. He was previously Gilmour Professor of Spanish at Liverpool University and Dean of the Faculty of Arts. Dr Sloman explores what is needed to make an institute for higher education in Essex in his series entitled 'A University in the Making'.
In this lecture entitled 'The Fulfilment of Lives', Dr Sloman explores how the newly built University of Essex will create accommodation for its students. Putting forward his concept of social cohesion for the college in the town of Colchester, he explains how small apartments, integrated recreational areas for students and lecturers and large sport areas will allow for the perfect work/life balance.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Reith Lectures. |
| 0:04.7 | This lecture in the series A University in the Making, given by Sir Albert Sloeman, was originally broadcast in 1963. |
| 0:13.7 | One of the distinctive features of the University of Essex will be that it will have no colleges or halls of residence. Like many Londoners and New Yorkers, |
| 0:24.7 | our students will live in flats or apartments, groups of a dozen or so rums ranged in towers |
| 0:31.4 | and forming part of a university town. The social centre of each group will be a living room and a small kitchen. Some of the |
| 0:40.5 | rooms will be used as single study bedrooms, others as studies for people living in digs. |
| 0:47.3 | We should like every student in the university, whether living in or out, to be a member of one of |
| 0:53.2 | these groups. In this lecture, I should be a member of one of these groups. |
| 1:00.2 | In this lecture, I should be concerned with the idea of self-education, which I mentioned last week. |
| 1:06.1 | I shall explain why we are going to provide a new form of living accommodation and should go on to discuss the place of the library and of clubs and societies in the social and working life of the university. |
| 1:15.6 | Someone who's graduated from a university has not only stayed the course and passed his exams, |
| 1:21.6 | he's had the intellectual and social experience which three or four years at a university mean. |
| 1:28.5 | Apart from its formal teaching, the university ought to have given him the chance to think |
| 1:33.5 | and argue about the fundamental problems of life, to stand on his own feet, and it should have |
| 1:40.0 | made the arts accessible to him in a way that they may never have been before. |
| 1:46.4 | English universities have always felt accountable for the conditions in which their students work and live. |
| 1:53.5 | This is partly to ensure the proper use of public funds by which so many students are supported, |
| 1:59.3 | but it's primarily to provide the full community life, traditionally associated with universities. |
| 2:06.1 | They'd regard it as irresponsible, not to say perverse, to admit students |
| 2:10.6 | and offer them expensive laboratories and lecture theatres, and do nothing about housing them. |
| 2:17.1 | And this is why I'm devoting a whole lecture to this subject. |
| 2:21.6 | A university should, I believe, provide an experience of living |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.