None of Heythrop College’s academic departments will be transferred to other universities when it closes next year and the future of its prized library is still uncertain, according to Professor Claire Ozanne, appointed to oversee the closure of the 400-year-old Jesuit-run institution.
Up to 31 academic and several support staff are also facing redundancy, while post-graduate students who have not completed their course will have to transfer to the Institute of Advanced Studies at University College London.
The 150 undergraduate students currently at the college are all in their final year of study.
"The college is closing and here is no plan for any other departments or any continuation of Heythrop College anywhere else. What the Jesuits do then with the intellectual apostolate will be something different and will emerge out of their discussions,” Professor Ozanne, Heythrop’s Principal, told The Tablet.
Plans were being made to pack up Heythrop’s Philosophy and Theology libraries, she added, and move them off site. “But we don’t know yet where they will go.”
The Society of Jesus has confirmed the sale of Heythrop, in west London, to a property developer, reportedly for over £100 million.
It was first announced that the college was to be sold in 2015 “due to rapidly mounting costs.” Partnership negotiations, with St Mary’s University, Twickenham and then with the University of Roehampton both failed and the College will now shut at the end of the 2017/18 academic year.
Professor Ozanne said that after consulting staff, the college is planning a full programme of events, including a major conference next summer, to “celebrate” Heythrop’s achievements and legacy.
Stephen Power SJ, treasurer for the Jesuits in Britain, said the order had not ruled out the library resources going to other universities. However, he continued, there would need to be discussion around “what would then be accessibly or not accessible for people to use – this would be an important part of any negotiations.”
He hoped that a decision would be made within the next six months, before the college closed, he added.
In a letter to The Tablet this week, Br Power played down the amount of money raised from the recent sale of Heythrop, saying it was “at the low end of recent speculation, from which a significant proportion of the proceeds of sale revert to the previous owners, the Religious of the Assumption.”
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