Warwick University Ltd: Lessons from 1970 and the higher education sector today A conference sponsored by Warwick Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) Friday 6 June 2014 , 10 am - 4 pm, Woods-Scawen Room, Warwick University Arts Centre “Is it inevitable that the university will be reduced to the function of providing, with increasing authoritarian efficiency, pre-packed intellectual commodities which meet the requirements of management? Or can we by our efforts transform it into a centre of free discussion and action, tolerating and even encouraging ‘subversive’ thought and activity, for a dynamic renewal of the whole society within which it operates?” (E P Thompson, Warwick University Limited ) Warwick University Limited , edited by E.P.Thompson, the great historian of the English working class and one of Warwick's leading academics, was published as a Penguin Special in 1970. It followed events that began with a student occupation of the administration building and th...