The university has blamed a wider trend across the higher education sector for its decision.
Kingston University has announced plans to close the Department of Humanities from September 2025.
The decision, which is subject to a 30-day consultation, will mean the end of Humanities courses at Kingston, as well as English and Philosophy courses. Creative Writing, which is currently taught by the Humanities Department, will remain in place.
The Kingston Language Scheme, offering free language courses to students, will also be closing along with the suspension of applications for the foundation year Humanities programme.
In emails to students and staff on 26 February, Mandy Ure, Dean of the Kingston School of Art (KSA), under which Humanities sits, blamed the decision on low recruitment to Humanities courses.
The proposals are part of a university-wide review of its offering. The university plans to make £20m in cuts over the next two years with a focus on subjects and departments attracting low numbers of student applications.
The decision has raised concerns among students and staff about the future of arts at Kingston.
Students were told about plans via email on 26 February, shortly after a meeting with staff.
Theo Vaughan, a 20-year-old Creative Writing undergraduate student, said: “I felt very confused, frustrated, but mostly angry. An hour after discussing ways to improve the Humanities department, we were told it would no longer exist.”
Vaughan raised his concerns about the future of Creative Writing, which will be moved to the Department of Critical and Historical Studies under the new proposals.
Job losses are expected should the proposals go ahead. This has raised questions about teaching levels at the university going forward. Many lecturers are currently employed across Humanities subjects such as English and Creative Writing.
“KU has earned a reputation as one of the best Creative Writing courses in the UK, but it’s deeply tied to the English department,” Vaughan said. “If our professors are at risk, the course under a new department will be unrecognisable.”
Tiger Liu, a 26-year-old PhD student in Modern European Philosophy, expressed his worries about continuing his research with uncertainty over jobs.
“Our learning is intrinsically linked to our professors, who are leading experts in the field. If they are made redundant, we will be left without supervisors or academic events essential to our research,” Liu said. “The university’s promises to continue teaching and research feel like empty words.”
In an email sent to all students, Ure said the university will open a 30-day consultation period to allow everyone to share any feedback.
The email also specified the need to invest more in departments that have a rising number of students and show growth potential.
Jessica Oakes-Smith, a 24-year-old Creative Writing and Publishing MA student, argued that the university has been prioritizing financial gain over education and culture.
“Kingston markets itself as a hub for the arts and diversity,” she said. “Recent actions show that they have not lived up to their promises and have failed at a university’s job as a centre for the arts, expression, and culture in favour of being a business first.”
Teaching staff argued the plans were a betrayal of the intellectual heritage of the university.
Daniel Read, an hourly-paid English Literature lecturer and University and College Union rep said: “Kingston holds the world-renowned Dame Iris Murdoch archive, yet it is now dismantling the very departments responsible for teaching us about her work. It seems blind to the values that the arts, humanities, and social sciences represent.”
He added: “These proposals damage my career progression, my discipline, and the university sector as a whole.”
Oakes-Smith expressed her concern over the faculty.
“Our lecturers have their jobs at stake. Many students have chosen supervisors specifically, and if they leave, it compromises the quality of our degrees. We could be the last students to study humanities at Kingston.”
She also added how the department has helped Kingston’s reputation with initiatives like The Big Read to high rankings in Creative Writing courses.
In her email, KSA head Ure cited “an extremely challenging national economic climate for the higher educational sector”. The Kingston cuts reflect a broader trend across the sector of axed courses, departments shut and redundancies as universities face declining numbers of overseas applications and a tough financial climate at home.
Read talked acknowledged that the decision is part of a broader trend at UK universities. He claimed that the problem lies in the way education is funded.
“Applying business finance and marketing approaches to education will not solve these problems. Universities are a public good. They should enable people to access new ways of understanding the world, not just function as businesses.”
Oakes-Smith warned how this closure could be the start of a dangerous transition.
She said: “This speaks to a wider problem, the stripping away of free speech and creative expression. Without humanities, we lose the ability to understand history and avoid repeating past mistakes.”
Students have been trying to challenge the decision by writing open letters to university management, with some seeking independent legal advice.
A Kingston University spokesperson said: “To be in the best position possible to invest in and support areas of growth and continue to enhance our students’ teaching and learning, the University has been reviewing its undergraduate and postgraduate provision.”
On the decision to target specific departments, the spokesperson said: “The subject areas proposed for closure are low recruiting and have had to be subsidised by others across Kingston School of Art for a number of years. This has deprived areas where there is demand and those with potential for further growth of important resources.”
However, the spokesperson stressed that “no final decisions have yet been taken” and that they are “currently consulting our University community about the proposals.”
They also reassured students that they “will receive the same high-quality teaching they expect from us and can complete their studies successfully.”
Recalling Iris Murdoch’s words in her 1993 address to Kingston University graduates, Read said: “She spoke directly to graduates about the importance of not forgetting the arts, by which you have been so enlightened. Good art, very difficult – music, poetry, painting, literature in all its forms – these must be practised and protected.”
