We had quite a lively discussion about the newly announced private New College of the Humanities in London. It appears that British academics and students are reacting quite negatively to it, in contrast to my relatively benign reaction (one that seems to be shared by other American academics I've chatted with). But perhaps we can get a better snapshot of current opinion with the poll below. I've given three broad options (please choose the one closest to your own view, even if it's not a perfect fit), but for each option I'd ask philosophy faculty and students to self-identify as either American, British or 'other' (e.g., Canadian, Australian, French, German, Chinese, etc.). Readers will decide for themselves how they can most usefully self-identify for purposes of the poll--I can imagine a Brit now studying in the US would identify as British, while a Brit who moved here thirty years ago might want to self-identify as 'American' for this purpose. Obviously it's up to the readers! But it might give us some further indication of how the initiative is perceived in different academic cultures. If 'other' opinion turns out to be divided differently from 'American' and 'British,' I might run a follow-up poll to break that broad category out further.
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