Asa Briggs and the Opening Up of the Open University

Abstract

Championed by individual supporters and small groups of enthusiasts, the survival of the Open University was heavily reliant on a handful of people in positions of power. In addition to advocates, to support thousands of students and be innovative in the nine different ways identified by Professor of Education William Campbell Stewart in his survey of post-war higher education in Britain, the Open University also required the construction and maintenance of sophisticated structures.1 An important designer and enthusiast was Asa Briggs. He was a member of the Planning Committee of the Open University 1967–1969 and the chair of its working group on students and curriculum. He went on to become the Chancellor of the Open University between 1978 and 1994 and he also taught at the university. Lord Briggs was awarded a Fellowship of the Open University in 1999. His understanding of the Open University was informed by a clear historical framework and a vision of the future but also by personal engagement at the level of teaching and committee work, by his inventive ideas about learning, by his connections to well-established networks (which enabled him to help resolve disputes) and by his experience of work on the University Grants Committee and at the universities of Sussex and Leeds.