Sandra Kemp

Sandra Kemp
Kemp in 2010
Born	(1957-03-10) 10 March 1957 (age 67)
Nationality	British
Occupation(s)	Director, The Ruskin - Library, Museum and Research Centre University of Lancaster

Sandra Kemp (born 10 March 1957) is an academic and curator with a background in English literature. She is the director, The Ruskin - Library, Museum and Research Centre at University of Lancaster^[1] and visiting professor in the Department of Materials at Imperial College London.^[2] She was previously a research associate at IMAGES&CO,^[3] and has held leadership roles in the university and cultural sectors, most recently^[when?] as senior research fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum,^[4] head of college, London College of Communication and director of research at the Royal College of Art (RCA). She curated the Wellcome Trust-sponsored exhibition Future Face: Image, Identity, Innovation at the Science Museum, with a related programme at the National Portrait Gallery, a film festival and a debate on BBC Radio Five Live. She has also published and given public lectures in the fields of fiction, literary theory and cultural studies.^[5]

Career

She has a Bachelor of Arts and DPhil from the University of Oxford. In her early career, she held academic posts in the English Literature departments of UK universities Southampton, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Westminster and had sabbaticals at Sapienza, Brown and Columbia.^[5]

In 2001, she moved to a management role, spending eight years as Director of Research at the Royal College of Art, leading the College to two successful RAEs.^{[clarification needed][6]} The 2007 Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) Institution Report cited as good practice the leadership, management and currency of research including research student and supervisor training.^[7] In the same year, Research Fortnight noted a 60% increase in the success rate of RCA applications to research councils.^[8]

From 2008 to 2012, she was Head of College of the London College of Communication, where she led a major^{[clarification needed]} restructure of the college's academic portfolio and of its technical, administrative and financial operations.^[9]

She has also worked in the cultural sector, holding research fellowships at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution and the National Portrait Gallery, London, and most recently^[when?] at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). She has been on the advisory and management boards of the British Museum Centre for Visual and Material Culture, and the research centres at the V&A and Natural History Museum.^[5]

She has been a panel member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Research Assessment Exercise,^[10] and the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Visual Arts and Media Panel.^[5]

She has appeared on television in the UK and abroad, including Omnibus and London Tonight, and broadcasts regularly, most recently on the BBC's Night Waves^[11] and Woman's Hour^[12] and on Chicago Public Radio's Odyssey.^[13]

Exhibitions

She has curated a number of exhibitions. The subject of the human face formed the theme of her fellowships at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Portrait Gallery, London, and of the exhibition Future Face: Image, Identity, Innovation, funded by the Wellcome trust at the Science Museum and later in Taiwan and China.^[14] It investigated the way images of the face as a barcode of identity have been affected by advances in science and technology,^[15] and was accompanied by a special issue of New Scientist,^[16] reviewed in Nature^[17] and the BMJ^[18] and was the subject of radio and television programmes. She is on the curatorial team working on the exhibition The Future - A History at the V&A.^[19]

Publications

She has published books, articles and critical editions of modernist fiction, including Virginia Woolf, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Wilkie Collins, Charlotte Brontë and the Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction (with David Trotter and Charlotte Mitchell). She has also published on feminism and literary theory, including an Oxford Reader with Judith Squires.^[20]

Controversy

From 2008 to 2012 at LCC, she led a complete restructuring of the academic portfolio, and also undertook a financial review to eliminate a deficit of £1.4 million in addition to sector-wide substantial reductions in public funding.^[21] University proposals to close 16 courses in 2009 and a further 16 in 2012, leading to a significant number of redundant posts, were met with consistent opposition from the trade unions and calls for her resignation.^[22] A QAA investigation found that the university procedures the College followed were inadequate and that this had a detrimental impact on the courses being closed, though there was no ongoing risk to academic standards and quality.^[23] The university continued the restructuring, including further staff redundancies in the reorganisation of technical and administrative services.^[24] Widespread media coverage included publication of a leaked resignation letter of LCC Head of Communication Gillian Radcliffe criticising Kemp's management style and practices, on which the university refused to comment, noting the availability of its own grievance and internal procedures.^[25]

In March 2012, the Rector Nigel Carrington announced in an all-staff email published by the Times Higher Education that she had resigned due to "sustained media coverage" making her position untenable. He stated that she had "successfully completed" the first stage of restructuring, "balanced the budgets and in 2011 achieved a significant increase in the College's National Student Survey scores".^[26]

References

1. "Professor Sandra Kemp". Lancaster University. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
   - "'Unparalleled collection' of Ruskin paintings and documents secured for the nation" (Press release). National Heritage Memorial Fund. 20 March 2019. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
   - "John Ruskin's message for our times". The Financial Times Podcast. 29 September 2019. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
2. "Imperial College London Staff Profile". Retrieved 15 September 2021.
3. "At the crease". IMAGES&CO. Archived from the original on 8 July 2013. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
4. "Sandra Kemp". V&A. Retrieved 15 September 2021.^{[dead link‍]}
5. Kunst und Forschung: Konnen Kunstler Forscher sein? (Austria, Springer-Verlag/Wein, 2011), ed Janet Ritterman et al, 254. ISBN 978-3-7091-0752-2; also available at http://www.wissenschaftsrat.ac.at/news/Kemp_Lebenslauf.pdf^{[dead link‍]}
6. "RCA Tops Research Funding Application Ranking" RCA website, accessed 11 January 2012
7. QAA Institution Report QAA website, accessed 22 July 2012
8. "Fewer, better proposals: 2007's key to success". Research Fortnight. No. 286. 12 September 2007. pp. 1, 16.
   - "Research elite spin funding into gold". Times Higher Education. 20 July 2007.
9. "Letter to All Staff from Heads of Colleges". University of the Arts London. Retrieved 22 July 2012.^{[dead link‍]}
10. RAE Main Panel O, RAE website, accessed 22 July 2012
11. BBC Radio 3 Night Waves accessed 12 January 2012
12. "What might we look like in 50 years time?" Woman's Hour History + Science Archive, accessed on 12 January 2012
13. "The Future of the Human Face" Odyssey Audio Library, accessed on 12 January 2012
14. "Face of the Future" BBC News Online Magazine 2008, accessed 10 August 2011
15. "Welcome Trust looks into the Face of the Future" (Press release). Science Museum. Retrieved 11 January 2012.^{[dead link‍]}
16. "Facing up to the future" New Scientist, accessed 11 January 2012
17. Jonathon Cole (4 September 2004). "Facial Diversity". Nature (432): 20.
18. Easton, G. (2004). "Future Face". BMJ. 329 (7470): 863. doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7470.863. PMC 521593.
19. "Research Department". V&A. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
20. Publications by Sandra Kemp in the Oxford Library Collection
21. "The Universities plan job losses in response to looming public spending cuts", Harriet Swain, The Guardian, 17 November 2009
22. "Unions call on LCC head to quit over decision to cull 'unviable' courses". Times Higher Education. 19 January 2012.
    - "Controversial head of college suspended". Times Higher Education. 2 March 2012.
23. "Course closures at LCC disrupted studies and harmed students' chances, QAA rules". Times Higher Education. 17 June 2011. Retrieved 10 August 2011.
24. "Communication crisis as head and demand fall". Times Higher Education'. 15 March 2012.
25. "PR chief's parting shot cites LCC head's 'unfair' management style". Times Higher Education. 15 December 2011.
    - "Public Enemies". Private Eye. No. 1306. 27 January 2012. p. 31.
    - "Spin doctor pays call to ailing LCC". Times Higher Education. 23 February 2012.
26. "So long and thanks for all the restructuring". Times Higher Education. 7 March 2012.