Is the proposed closure of Queen's University's Classics Department the end of civilisation as we know it or a prudent managerial decision? Monika Unsworth reports.
"Who can bring peace to people who are not civilised?" Michael Longley, the eminent Northern poet and himself a classics scholar, asks. "In an age of rapidly decreasing public funding for third level education, who can afford to pay for a department for which there is no demand?" the philistines in the university's accounts office reply.
Since Queen's University Belfast (QUB) announced its decision to close its Classics Department two months ago, the letters pages of broadsheets on both sides of the Irish Sea have been overflowing with appeals from eminent international scholars and academics fervently opposed to the move.
Yet their efforts appear to be cutting little ice with those holding the purse-strings. QUB's director of communications, Mr Tom Collins, says there is "absolutely no chance" of reversing the controversial decision.
"The restructuring plan to make Queen's an even stronger university was passed by both the Academic Council, with over 70 of its 80 members voting for it, and the Senate, where only three out of 35 members opposed it. It was also broadly welcomed by the unions and there is no going back on it.
"It was a hard choice and I don't think anybody, even those in favour, were happy or content to see the Classics Department go. While we all have enormous respect for Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley and all those campaigning for its remaining, this is simply not viable in the face of absolutely no demand for Latin or Greek as academic pathways on their own," he insists.
One of the three Senate members opposed to the decision, Dr Steven King, however, sees a much wider argument. With staff numbers at the Republic's five classics departments increasing, the closure of the North's only facility to study Latin and ancient Greek would be irreversible, he argues.
"This is a shameful capitulation to political correctness and it is driven by class hatred. It is ludicrous to argue that Latin and Greek are ivory-tower subjects when a lot of ordinary people are looking up to Queen's and are proud of their university. What are they going to offer next - a masters in woodwork? We might as well rename Queen's a polytechnic then."
In a recent Guardian table, QUB's Classics Department was ranked fifth in the UK for teaching standards, scoring 23 out of 24 points. Yet the argument about its closure is not only one of opposing philosophical views but of numbers themselves.
QUB's management quotes the Higher Education Statistics Agency as stating that the Classics Department currently only has around eight students. A senior lecturer at the department, Dr Maureen Alden, says student numbers including post-graduates were 26 in 2000/2001 and 31 last year with 60 students taking some module in Classical Studies as a first year option in 2001/2002, 14 of whom kept on the subject in second year.
"I can't understand how they can argue there are no students in our department, especially as not a single member of the administration has actually contacted us to inquire about student numbers this year."
While it is sometimes difficult to be exact about student numbers due to the modular system which enables students to follow individual pathways by picking courses based across several departments, numbers alone are not the issue, Dr Alden adds.
"If they discontinue Ancient Greek, no historian at this university will be able to read an ancient inscription in future." Plans by QUB to integrate the teaching of Byzantine Studies and Ancient History into other departments are "nonsensical" without the teaching of the necessary language skills, she insists.
Other departments will be affected as a result of Vice-Chancellor, Prof George Bain's, £84 million restructuring plan which will fund over 80 new academic posts, partly offset by the closure of the Classics Department and around 50 staff members taking early retirement across the university.
The school of philosophy will be cut from eight staff to four while the Institute of Irish Studies is to be substantially restructured. During the last cost-cutting exercise five years ago, the Italian, Geology, Slavonic and Semitic Studies departments were closed.
Mr Collins argues that since making the cuts, QUB has entered the UK universities' top 20 after being ranked in the 40s only a few years ago. The North's grammar schools turn out fewer and fewer classics students with those having taken their A-levels in classical subjects and wishing to continue them transferring to prestigious universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, he insists.
"We are fully aware of our responsibility to society and equally aware of society's sentimental attachment to the classics subjects.
"But society has to understand that in order to pay for them we would have to take money away from medicine, law or engineering. This is not just about money, it's about the bigger picture," says Mr Collins.