Anastasios Christodoulou - The Open University

The Open University

After graduating in 1955 from Queen's College, Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, he joined the overseas Civil Service and served as District Officer and later District Commissioner and Magistrate in Tanganyika. In 1963 he moved to the University of Leeds, where he was Assistant Registrar and later Deputy Secretary. In 1968, he became Foundation Secretary of the Open University, having been appointed by Walter Perry, the University's Vice-Chancellor. They began work on 1 January 1969. While in recent years the OU has been described as one of the great educational initiatives of the twentieth century, its early days were difficult. Labour politicians Harold Wilson and Jennie Lee had been determined that it should be a 'proper' university, there were many who believed that the University would fail, and would award worthless degrees. Christodoulou also had to overcome various disputes between course teams, the BBC, and regional organizers. When Edward Heath's Conservative Party came to power in 1970 Margaret Thatcher was appointed Secretary of State for Education and Science. She proved to be deeply sceptical about the academic standards of the OU, believing that students could get degrees just by ticking boxes, because some courses included multiple-choice questions. Christodoulou and Walter Perry travelled back to London with Thatcher after she had visited the Open University, and managed to persuade her that it was genuine and useful. In 1971 Christodoulou was responsible for managing 43,000 initial applications, from which 24,000 students began degree courses. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1978 Queen's Birthday Honours. In May 1981, he was awarded an honorary degree from the Open University as Doctor of the University.