Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

It is with deep regret and sadness that I have to inform you that La Sainte Union College of Higher Education - LSU as we have known it - has now closed. It is to be replaced on the same site by New College in the University of Southampton.

I wish I could have written to you sooner about this but, as Chairman of Governors, my hands were tied as long as negotiations between the University and the Sisters of the Congregation were going on. Those negotiations have now been completed and New College came into existence on September lst 1997.

I am now able to acknowledge publicly and with great warmth the great debt that the Diocese and the Church at large owe to LSU for the distinguished part that it has played in Catholic Education over the last 93 years.

Above all, I want to pay tribute to the vision and dedication to Catholic Education which was shown by the Sisters of the LSU Congregation when they founded the College nearly 100 years ago a vision which has been fostered and sustained by the Sisters to this day.

The record of the College during these years has been outstanding and through the great efforts of staff and students, both past and present, the Catholic community has been well served, both locally and nationally.

It is a matter of great sadness to me and to the Sisters that this history has had to come to an end, but we have been overtaken by events which have largely been beyond our control.

We did not give up without a struggle and I want to pay tribute to the staff, the students and to my fellow Governors for the way in which they fought to prevent this closure. Enormous efforts were made between the two OFSTED inspections to improve standards but, sadly, we were still judged to be performing inadequately. Once our teacher training operation had lost its accreditation, the College was never going to survive for long.

This is not a time for apportioning blame. It is a time for expressing a deep sadness at what has happened, while at the same time recognising and giving thanks for the enormous contribution LSU has made to the cause of Catholic Education during its great history. Generations of Catholics will not forget that.

Commitments to existing students are being honoured and many of. the former staff of LSU will be working in New College. Very importantly, the possibility of continuing to train Catholics to teach in Catholic schools is still there, thanks to the good offices of the Chichester Institute and King Alfred’s College in Winchester. Of course it will not be quite the same, but it would be wrong to view the current situation as a total meltdown. All is very far from being lost.

I have begun making arrangements to celebrate a Mass, hopefully in the Chapel at LSU, to give thanks for the past and to entrust to the Lord the care for the well-being and prosperity of New College in the future. At the moment, we plan to have this Mass at 3pm on Sunday November 9^th. I hope that many members of the College, both past and present, will be able to be present for that celebration.

As soon as I have confirmation of the details, I will make sure that they are widely publicised.

With blessings and prayers,

Bishop of Portsmouth.
Chairman of Governors at LSU
10^th September 1997