We recently sat down with Prof Ron Barnett, who took his PGCE at St Mary's in 1970-71.
Ron has spent over 50 years working in higher education, and is currently Emeritus Professor of Higher Education at University College London (UCL).
Having published around 40 books and hundreds of papers, and won numerous accolades, Ron's academic work has been leading the development of a new sub-field, the philosophy of higher education.
We spoke to Ron about his longstanding relationship with St Mary's, and what he has learnt from his hugely successful career in education and academia.
Do you remember why you chose to come to St Mary’s?
A personal reason was that St Mary's is close to where I lived at home in those days. I came back from the University of Durham to my home in Raynes Park, which is not far from here.
Another reason was that I wanted to find a course that I could study at PGCE level, which wasn't a conventional subject back then.
I specialised in social studies, which was just starting to be a PGCE subject as they were beginning to teach it at secondary level in schools. It was really quite a new venture and St Mary’s was one of the places to offer it.
What was your favourite thing about St Mary’s?
St Mary’s was part of a teaching training organisation which was orchestrated by The Institute of Education in London. I was very privileged in that although I was taking my course here in Twickenham, I was able to go up from time to time to London and hear from some of the world's greatest scholars and thinkers in higher education. It was an amazing experience and an extraordinary benefit of coming here.
By choosing to take Social Studies, I was also breaking new ground in all sorts of ways. I think the way we were taught was almost experimental, and we were shaping the curriculum as we were going along.
Was there anything that you found a challenge during your time at St Mary’s?
For my teaching practice I was assigned a comprehensive school in Battersea, and I have to admit it was very challenging. I had no experience of dealing with an unruly class and I didn't handle it very well. However, I was determined to get through and I stuck it out. I'm glad of that achievement in a way as it was quite challenging.
I come from a modest background and I started my way through life as quite a shy, reserved, and insecure person. I've managed to overcome a lot of that as opportunities have opened up. I failed most of my exams in school and in university, and yet I've made something of my life.
I'm now mentoring a lot of people and trying to inspire them, drawing on my life story. You have to keep going and take advantage of opportunities that come your way. Life is difficult, and professional life is very difficult these days, so we need courage, enthusiasm, energy, and that flagging spirit to just keep going.
What did you do straight after leaving St Mary’s?
That experience teaching in the London comprehensive school was quite formative as I felt that school teaching was not going to be my métier and that I needed to look elsewhere.
I was fortunate to get a job as a research assistant in sociology in a large national project looking at the emerging polytechnic sector of higher education, being conducted in the Polytechnic of North London and funded by the Department of Education. Working on that project opened the way to my future life, which I've spent totally in higher education.
Do you have any standout moments from your career so far?
I've been incredibly privileged, becoming a Pro-Director of the London Institute of Education, but I suppose one particularly memorable occasion would be giving my inaugural lecture as a professor. We had about 600 people attend, with people coming from not only all over the country but even from other countries.
I used that inaugural lecture as a basis for one of my books, which then went on to win a major prize. I also launched a new development in my thinking, which has been taken up around the world, called Supercomplexity. It was an enormously happy experience to give a big inaugural lecture to an audience of that size, with my mother and wife in the audience.
I've also been very fortunate that my work has taken me around the world several times, and I'm very privileged to have won various prizes and a number of national and international accolades. St Mary’s, too, has honoured me with an Honorary Fellowship.
How do you think St Mary’s helped prepare you for your career?
I've got a lot to thank St Mary’s for in my educational and intellectual formation. My time here really opened up my eyes to educational scholarship.
The philosophy and sociology of education was just taking off in a big way then, and we had a very skilled and ambitious teacher that introduced us to the works of Richard Peters, Basil Bernstein and others that I really got hooked on. It was from there that I started to build up my own library of books (which is now approaching 2,000 books and still growing), and so coming to St Mary's formed an enormous and solid foundation for me in my intellectual development and career in higher education.
What was it like coming back to serve on committees at St Mary's?
It’s been an enormous privilege and I've done it for a period of 10 years or more, working successively with different Principals and Vice Chancellors.
How this came about was actually at a formal dinner I was attending at the University of London in which I was active. I found myself sitting next to someone I didn't know, but when we got chatting it turned out he was the then Principal of St Mary’s. It was out of that conversation that I was invited to come here and be part of the life of St Mary’s. Over the years, I’ve served on a number of committees in the University around research, curriculum development, and quality issues.
It has been a great joy to me as I’m intellectually and professionally interested in the question of what is a university in the 21st Century and also in university development. These have been abiding issues for me in my intellectual work for the last 50 years.
To come here and be part of this story of the transformation of St Mary’s from a college of higher education into a flourishing university is amazing. It is a fantastic pleasure and delight to feel that I have played a tiny part in that story.
What advice would you give to any current St Mary’s students?
My main advice is to ‘keep going, keep going, and keep going’ in that order!
The world is tough and you're living in a competitive world. You're being matched against world standards, and those standards are moving and changing. I try to encourage people simply to set oneself ambitious but realistic goals, read the tea-leaves and work out a path towards one’s goals, and keep going, but also be organised and make steady and incremental – even if very small steps - on a regular basis.
I am sometimes asked how I write so much. With a smile on my face, I reply ‘a page a day is a book a year’.
You've also got to believe in yourself. My proposal for my first book was turned down by about eight major publishers, but I believed I had something there and I kept going. I found a publisher to take my first book and it won an international prize. You have to keep going no matter what the world throws at you, and grow a thick skin.
Have ambitions to reach for the stars. You might not get there, but you will have a more interesting life on the way.
Ron’s latest book is 'Realising the Ecological University: Eight Ecosystems, Their Antagonisms and a Manifesto' (Bloomsbury, Autumn 2024). His website is www.ronaldbarnett.co.uk.
Ron can be contacted at ron.barnett@ucl.ac.uk.