Stroud Cornock

Stroud retired after holding senior posts with the Open University and the Council for National Academic awards (CNAA), becoming an inspector with the British Accreditation Council (BAC) and providing a consultancy service in the higher education field.

On graduating from the Royal College of Art in the Sixties he joined a team led by Roy Ascott, who was pioneering a radical new approach to fine art studies in higher education at Ipswich. During that period he established a studio in Camberwell and exhibited a number of large 'Minimal' sculptures. 

At the beginning of 1968 he developed Gemini, the first of a series of interactive works, and the next year led a team that took Interplay to the VI Paris Biennale.  In 1970 this new art form was jointly discussed and demonstrated with Ernest Edmonds; the interactive art system was now my focus. 

Meanwhile, having proposed making 20th century media available to students of fine art at Ipswich, Stroud established a Media Handling Area in Leicester, leading projects, symposia and exhibitions with staff and students of fine art, mathematics, design, architecture and computing. 

Systems thinking, the theoretical counterpart to interactive art practice, prompted a research apprenticeship with Peter Checkland.  That work laid the foundations for a study of the way in which art students learn, and a theory of drawing.

Accreditation became his focus as Leicester Polytechnic as it was delegated increasing authority by the CNAA, whose staff he later joined, leading the team responsible for the art, design, art history and performing arts in higher education in the UK at the time of its dissolution.  He went on to establish an awarding body for higher vocational qualifications under the aegis of the Open University.

In 1989 Stroud oversaw refurbishment of the CNAA art collection.  The collection now forms the nucleus of a national collection devoted to the history and achievements of fine art studies in higher education in the UK.  He also served as the first curator of the art collection of the Open University.