Much ado about Shakespeare

Warwick University is hoping to burnish its global reputation by signing up American students – with a little help from the bard. Lucy Hodges reports

British universities are increasingly looking across the Atlantic to emulate the American way of higher education. Warwick University has gone a step further and appointed an American vice- chancellor, Professor David Vandelinde, who is busy trying to sell Warwick in the USA. "We're going over to the United States," he explains. "I don't mean that we're setting up there. But we have put together a working group and we have a part-time employee based in Boston. This is partly about public relations – making Warwick better known in America – but it's also about recruiting more students from the US than we have in the past."

To make this work Warwick plans to talk to the guidance counsellors that exist in American high schools. The experiment will be watched closely by other universities who have relied mainly on countries such as Malaysia and now China for the lucrative overseas student market. If Warwick can attract Americans to the Midlands it could start a new transatlantic trend and give a boost to the global market in higher education. At the moment it is more common for British students to go to America than for Americans to come here – and the traffic is mainly for postgraduate degrees and postdoctoral fellowships.

It certainly makes sense. British degrees are a cost-effective option for Americans. Overseas students pay £6,000-plus for a humanities degree and a few thousand pounds more for a science degree. Americans at many top US universities pay more. British undergraduate degrees are highly regarded internationally. They might have to be adapted for American students but Professor Vandelinde does not think that would be too much of a problem.

It is clear that Warwick is concentrating on luring Americans over for humanities programmes. There are good reasons for that. You don't need the depth of knowledge to begin a humanities degree in the UK that you need for a science degree. And Warwick has the good fortune to be situated half an hour away from the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford. "We are working with the RSC to develop a not unrelated partnership," says the vice-chancellor.

The idea is to recruit American students to courses in, say, history, English literature, theatre studies and film studies with the help of the RSC brand name. Shakespeare himself is a pretty good attraction for Americans, and the Royal Shakespeare Company adds more. If Warwick could do a deal with the RSC which meant actors and directors giving lectures or workshops on their work, it is thought that Americans would flock to sign up. Warwick is already working with the Royal Shakespeare Company in a small way at the university's National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth. This was set up to enhance the education of the top five per cent of school pupils in England, and RSC directors have been speaking at its summer schools about theatre management.

A further strand is being developed by Professor Andrew Oswald, Warwick's best known economist, who is organising a conference at a Washington think-tank, the Brookings Institution. This will help to develop Warwick's profile with opinion formers in the US capital. When Professor Vandelinde left Bath University two years ago to take the helm at Warwick, he said in an interview with The Independent (Education, 9 November, 2000) that he would be working on the university's global reputation. It is important for Warwick to develop a better international profile because that way it will be better able to recruit the best possible staff and students and attract fat research contracts. At present it is relatively unknown in the US. In Britain, however, Warwick is highly regarded – though it has not made it into the very top tier. In the 2001 research assessment exercise (RAE) the top five universities were Oxford, Cambridge, University College London, Imperial and King's College London. Changes to RAE funding make it more difficult for Warwick to clamber into this top league.

Although Professor Vandelinde does not like such talk it is clear that he would like to be in that league. All the top players receive huge amounts of money for medical research because all have well developed medical schools. Warwick has an embryonic medical school which it shares with Leicester and which takes graduates in other subjects who want to become doctors. So the vice-chancellor plans to expand medicine. He also wants to develop plant science. "Universities have to be flexible and fluid institutions," he says.

From its creation in the Sixties, Warwick has been nimble and adaptable, building its strength on a "can do" attitude and links with industry. It is no coincidence that it is Tony Blair's favourite university and that Bill Clinton gave a speech at Warwick shortly before quitting the White House.

The new vice-chancellor is well in with the Government. He is chairman of the red tape review group, charged with doing away with bureaucracy in higher education. He is bored by bureaucracy, according to those who know him well, and does not suffer fools gladly, interrupting people who bore on in meetings. This, of course, does not endear him to all the academics. He has been trying to introduce changes to the administration at Warwick – though on a smaller scale than his reforms at Bath.

One of the big battles he won was to have a deputy vice-chancellor, Stuart Palmer, to cover for him. He has introduced a system of merit pay for senior academics and has streamlined committee structures. He has also brought greater openness. "I am very impressed," says Professor Oswald. "He is a very powerful figure. He's good at delivery and has a good head for figures."

Coming from a working-class West Virginia background, the new vice- chancellor has an ease of manner not normally associated with the top echelons of university administration. He has introduced a reform from Bath – the American-style long-service anniversary dinner. All support staff, everyone from cleaners to senior technicians, who have served five years, or multiples of five years, are treated to dinner on campus. They have their picture taken with the vice-chancellor and are made to feel they matter. In addition he has instituted a summer barbecue for everyone from the level of porter to professor. "We're trying to develop a sense of community – that everyone has an important role to play," he says. "I think we are making headway."

Professor Vandelinde entered a successful institution two years ago. If he can show that it is more successful by the time he leaves in three years time – that it enjoys a higher profile globally, that the American fundraiser he hired has managed to raise substantial amounts of money and that it has prospered in research, and that those American students showed up – he will be remembered with gratitude.

l.hodges@independent.co.uk