Welcome, welcome to the University For Strategic Optimism. Below is the script for our first lecture which was communally discussed and collectively written. The lecture will be performed in a bank on Wednesday the 24 of Nov (location to be announced). If you want to take part in taking our university to a bank please do come to Laurie Grove Baths, Laurie Grove, New Cross at 10:30am this Wednesday for the briefing.

“Welcome to the University for Strategic Optimism, a university based on the principal of free and open education, a return of politics to the public, and the politicisation of public space. As our university buildings are being boarded up we inhabit the bank as public space. Not just a public space but the proper and poignant place for the introductory lecture to our course entitled ‘Higher Education, Neo-Liberalism and the State’. We will take up only five minutes of your time for our inaugural lecture but will reconvene in different locations on the dates to be found on the syllabus that should be circulating. Please do check the website for further information and for details about assessment.

How much was spent on the bank bailout?

- £850 billion

Who’s paying for this?
- students
- workers
- pensioners
- the unemployed

We at the University for Strategic Optimism reject the false antagonisms set up by the media between these groups and declare our solidarity with them. We are told that we must tighten our belts and sharpen our elbows so that the markets might be appeased, the collapse of society staved off. Along with Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel-prize-winning economist, we puzzle over a world in which the poor subsidise the rich.