The vice-chancellor of London Metropolitan University has highlighted the shocking level of deprivation facing some of its students, drawing attention to both the importance and the challenge of running a university focused on civic duty.

Lynn Dobbs told Times Higher Education¡¯²õ THE Live event that there were huge issues with housing, violent crime and substance misuse in the university¡¯²õ local area of Islington, adding that some students had been murdered while others were homeless while studying.

¡°London Met students have massively complex lives and social challenges. A lot of them are homeless ¨C and I¡¯m talking about some of them, when the library closes, heading off on to the street. They have very complex caring arrangements. They almost all¡­juggle work and study,¡± she told delegates.

¡°Some of our students have been murdered in Islington,¡± she continued. ¡°We¡¯re talking about really significant challenges facing the local community.¡±

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As such, London Met was a ¡°key linchpin institution¡± in the London boroughs of Islington, Tower Hamlets and Hackney, Professor Dobbs said, adding that most of the students from these boroughs would not go to universities ¡°if they didn¡¯t go to London Met¡±.

During a panel discussion on the civic duty of universities, Professor Dobbs, who is from Newcastle and was deputy vice-chancellor and provost at the University of Roehampton before taking over London Met last year, admitted that it took her ¡°a while¡­to realise just how important every individual university in London?is¡±.

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¡°There is a bit of a tendency to lump us all together and imagine that if one wasn¡¯t there, the students would just head off to the other universities,¡± she said. ¡°It took me a while to realise that each university was part of the social ecosystem of [their local community], particularly the modern universities, and particularly universities like London Met, where we take a lot of students from the local area and through clearing.¡±

Professor Dobbs added that London Met greatly benefited from the fact that many local institutions and councils were keen to work with the university ¨C a feature she believed was less common at Roehampton and Newcastle.

¡°The partners in Islington, Tower Hamlets and Hackney, and actually even more widely ¨C [such as the] City of London Corporation and Metropolitan Police ¨C they are all really interested in tackling the sorts of issues that matter to London Met,¡± she said.

When asked whether it was possible for universities to reconcile their civic duty with the need to survive in a higher education market, Professor Dobbs said there was increasing demand for universities to have a social mission.

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¡°The way that we are adding social values into the curriculum is very popular among many potential students and is certainly driving huge recruitment increases from America, and [further education] colleges are partnering with us because of it,¡± she said.

¡°I think you can make it commercially worthwhile, although we are not doing it for that reason.¡±

ellie.bothwell@timeshighereducation.com