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subtext issue
70 27 January
2011 ***************************************************** 'Truth:
lies open to all' ***************************************************** Every
fortnight during term-time. All
editorial correspondence to: subtext-editors [at] lancaster.ac.uk. Please
delete as soon as possible after receipt. Back issues and subscription
details can be found at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext. The
editors welcome letters, comments, suggestions and opinions from readers. subtext reserves the right to edit submissions. subtext does not publish material that is submitted
anonymously, but is willing to consider without obligation requests for
publication with the name withheld. For
tips to prevent subtext from getting swept up into your 'junk email folder',
see http://www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext/dejunk/. ***************************************************** CONTENTS:
editorial, news in brief, woodland walk and trim trail, hermit needed?, research excellence framework (REF), sabbaticals,
castle prison to close, great hall harpsichord concert, letters. ***************************************************** EDITORIAL At
the beginning of the new academic year, subtext predicted that there would be
gloomy times ahead, and warned readers that forthcoming issues would not make
for happy reading. At the beginning of
a new calendar year, we see few reasons to amend that prediction. The Christmas and New Year period is a time
usually spent with family and friends.
Insular lot that academics are, their friends very often turn out to
be other academics. Apparently, a
favourite Christmas party game was 'Alternative Careers' as academics vied
with each other to suggest the increasingly unlikely alternative jobs they
would pursue were they either to be made redundant or to find that they could
no longer stand working in an educational system that looks set to become
ever more depressing. Sadly, we are
obliged to add to that gloom in this issue.
On top of last term's setting in train of a funding revolution, we know that this term
will see an intensified attack on our pensions, and, more locally, word is
also filtering through of the increasing difficulty of taking research
sabbaticals, as well as news of an increasingly aggressive and selective
approach to the forthcoming REF. One
member of the editorial collective recently took a taxi from ***************************************************** NEWS
IN BRIEF Library
Restructuring Readers
will have noticed the appearance of new self-issue machines in the
library. They appear to be connected
with a major restructuring programme in the Library with serious implications
for library staff. This looks set to
intensify this term, with particular members of staff being identified for
redundancy. Understandably, the morale
of library staff has plummeted. As
well as redundancies among more junior staff, there also appear to be
questions being raised over the future role of Subject Librarians. We will report any further news as it
becomes available, and in the meantime, we offer our good wishes and warm
support to all colleagues in the Library at this difficult time. ****** University
Court The
annual meeting of Court takes place on Saturday (29th January). Although meetings of Court have recently
become increasingly sterile public relations exercises, past meetings have
been known to throw up surprises and garner considerable debate. Among the Court papers that have been
distributed to members, one particularly interesting proposal comes from
former Lancaster UCU president Alan Whitaker, seconded by former LUSU
presidents Michael Payne and Tim Roca.
It proposes the setting up of a Working Group of nine members
representing various constituencies 'to assess the changing expectations of
students as a result of a substantial increase in tuition fees, together with
the implications of such changes for all groups of staff, in the context of
the aspirations and objectives of the university.' subtext will carry
a Court Report in its next issue. ****** Director
of Marketing and External Linkages Arrives Readers
will recall the dramatic departure of Anthony Marsella,
Director of Marketing and External Linkages over the summer. His long-awaited successor has finally
arrived. Her name is Katrina Payne and
she was previously Director of Business Development at ****** University
wind turbine subtext readers may recall that the University's plans
to build two 101m wind turbines on its Hazelrigg
site near the M6 were rejected by Lancaster City Council's Planning Committee
last May. The application had prompted a 1011-name petition in support of the
scheme, but also objections from a range of individuals and groups, including
the local Tree Protection Officer, the Environment Agency and local parish
councils. In defending their decision,
the Council argued that 'the proposed development, by reason of their scale,
design, close proximity and visual impact, would exert a significantly
harmful influence on the living conditions currently enjoyed by neighbouring
residents'. On 7 March the Committee
is expected to discuss revised plans for a single turbine which, advocates
hope, will prove less controversial.
Insiders at the City Council certainly report a massive public
response in favour of the planning application, but it is too early to guess
which way the decision will go. ****** Fees
and the Finance Committee The
next meeting of the Finance Committee on Friday 18th February could turn out
to be highly significant. It is thought
likely that this will be the meeting at which the new level of fees for 2012
onwards will be determined. All will
be waiting to hear how high ****** Saturday
Demonstrations A
'Future that Works' protest against the government cuts is to take place in Also,
on the same day in London, the Education Activist Network (EAN) and the
National Campaign Against Fees (NCAFC), with the support of the University
and College Union, are organising a march and rally, 'United for Education',
assembling 12 noon at University of London Union, Malet
Street, and heading towards Parliament. ****** University
in Crisis This
series continues this term with a talk by Terry Eagleton, to be given on
Tuesday 1st February from 5-7pm in the Management School Lecture Theatre 1. ****** Readers
might recall that in October the Government announced that they were minded
to fund the controversial Northern Bypass, 'subject to a best and final offer
from local authorities on costs'. The
road, which would run from an adapted Junction 34 on the M6 near Halton to the roundabout near ****** University
Web Site subtext readers who have struggled to navigate around
the University website, or who have been mystified by the results delivered
by the site's search engine, will presumably be heartened to hear that a new
Web Strategy Group has been set up.
The group will be looking in general terms at the university's web
presence and, in particular, the content, appearance and design of the
university's web site. All staff have
been invited to share their thoughts, concerns, criticisms and suggestions
and a web page has been set up to allow them to do this. The discussion site will be free and open
and staff are encouraged to be as frank as they
wish. For those on campus or connected
via VPN, the link is below, after which one has to click on 'Staff
Consultation.' http://centralinfo.lancs.ac.uk/sites/WebStrategyGroup ****** University
Brass Bands National Championships Brass
band enthusiasts will be excited to hear that ***************************************************** WOODLAND
WALK AND TRIM TRAIL As
was reported in LU-Text, the new campus Woodland Walk and Trim Trail have
just been opened. Members of staff
were given a trial run accompanied by members of the Sports Centre. Bette Nichols, College Administrator at The
County College, was one of those who participated. She comments: 'On
Thursday 13 January at 12.30 pm I met with many other members of staff at the
barbecue area at South West Campus to walk the new Woodland Walk. It is very
easy and you can get on and off at various signed points. We didn't do the
complete walk as it was very wet underfoot and would have taken longer than
our lunch hour permitted. It was very enjoyable and took us around parts of
the campus that I had never seen before. Members of staff from the Sports
Centre accompanied us on the walk and I understand that there were others who
took people on the Trim Trail. Soup and buns greeted us at the end of the
walk which was most welcome. I found the walk so enjoyable that I am keeping
a pair of walking boots and suitable attire in the office so that I can do
this regularly. It can be muddy and squelchy but this has been addressed in
most places with strategically placed boardwalks and bark chipping.' ***************************************************** HERMIT
NEEDED? Outside
the Great Hall, near the Jack Hylton Music Room,
there's a small sunken garden, in the garden there's a shed, and in the shed
there are: 1 broken piano, 1 empty packet of cigarettes, 6 pieces of coloured
chalk. On the gate to the garden there's a sign saying that the 'Making Time'
garden is open to all, and is care of the Nuffield Theatre, and indeed the
garden was created as a performance art piece that ran from 2009-10. This
prompts the question, now it's 2011, is the stuff in
the shed still art? If so, maybe an 'interpretation panel' is needed. And, if it's not art any more, could the
contents of the shed be upgraded? Though cold and miserable now, the garden
will be nice in the spring. Deck chairs and games would be fun. Or maybe the
shed could be inhabited? Anyone who fancied being a hermit might start
growing a beard now, and then they'd be proper scary looking by summer. ***************************************************** RESEARCH
EXCELLENCE FRAMEWORK (REF) After
some uncertainty over the form the REF would take and, indeed, over whether
it would actually take place at all, universities across the If
these early indications turn out to be correct, however, the implication
seems to be that at most universities, staff will be divided into
'research-active' and 'non-research active' staff, with these categories
being defined purely in terms of whether they are deemed to be eligible for
submission to REF 2014. This, of
course, immediately raises the question of the longer-term career prospects
of those who are deemed to be not so eligible. Indeed, word has reached subtext of several
universities who have signalled their intention to make use of many more
'teaching-only' contracts in the coming years. Thus far, it seems that no explicit
connection has been made between this and the REF, but it requires no great mental
agility for this connection to be made.
With the advent of teaching only contracts, there seems little doubt
that most research-active staff will hope to be wholly or mostly relieved of
the 'burden' of teaching. The alarming
prospect is gradually coming to light of a British university academic staff
divided roughly 50:50 between 'research' staff and 'teaching' staff. This,
of course, would be to enact yet another revolution in British academic
life. For many decades, British
university life has been characterised by an intimate conjunction between
teaching and research. Much has been
made of teaching being undertaken by the pioneers of the very research that
is being taught. It would be ironic
if, just at the time when students are being asked to pay inordinate amounts
of money for their university education, there is the prospect of them no
longer being taught by the research leaders in their field. But
there are other obvious implications.
One of the disadvantages of previous RAEs was the way in which they
encouraged short-term research strategies and discouraged longer ones. This problem will be exacerbated with the
more intensively 'selective' approach of the REF. Major research monographs in the arts and
humanities especially often take a decade or more to come to fruition. There are many stories of departments
having done exceptionally well in the last RAE due to several members of
staff bringing to completion monumental works on which they had been working
for 15-20 years. Such scholars many
now be deep into their next project but with little
concrete to show for it by 2013. Are these leading scholars to be deemed
'non-research active' simply because they do not have the requisite
submissions for REF 2014? Also, what
of younger or early-career scholars?
If they don't quite make the required 3 or 4 targets in all four
submissions, are they too not to be submitted? There is clearly much at stake here and one
hopes that much more careful thought will be given
to these questions all round. subtext readers may recall UCU's excellent 'Stand Up
for Research' petition from 2009 - signed by 13,000 academics but ignored by
HEFCE. Perhaps it is not surprising
that there are growing rumblings about a possible boycott of REF as a waste
of time and money and as introducing incentives inimical to the spirit of
research - see for example http://boycotttheref.blogspot.com/. ***************************************************** SABBATICALS Periods
of sabbatical leave have long been contractual entitlements for members of
academic staff. At one time, these
might have been used for constructing new undergraduate courses or catching
up with long neglected reading in one's field of expertise. More recently, such pursuits were deemed
unacceptable because they produced no 'measurable' or 'quantifiable'
outputs. The fact that such outputs
themselves depended upon uninterrupted periods of unquantifiable reading and
thinking seemed to disturb few. Now,
it seems, the monitoring and regulation of sabbatical leave is to become
stricter still. We have heard that
university managers are raising questions about the financial cost of
sabbatical leaves and are looking for more concrete evidence of measurable
financial returns. So staff will have to give clear and precise undertakings
of what 'outputs' they will produce during their sabbatical leaves, which in
effect and perversely means that they will have to undertake the necessary
thinking and research in advance of the sabbatical that is supposed to give
them the time to undertake these very things.
Once again, this exacerbates the pressures towards short term
research, as mentioned above (REF). If
a sabbatical allows one to produce a monograph in 8 years rather than 10,
this is of little account to faculty management bean counters, simply because
there will be no measurable 'output' during the particular period of
sabbatical leave in question. Another
concurrent development in many departments is for those embarking on
sabbatical leave in any one term to undertake double the amount of teaching
during the term when they are not on sabbatical (accompanied by double the
amount of exam marking during the summer term). In many departments, this doubling of the
teaching load is becoming a quid pro quo for the term of leave. This in itself will be enough to make many
academics think twice as to whether a period of sabbatical leave will really
be worth taking. When this is combined
with the much heavier handed approach to monitoring of measurable outputs, it
will not be surprising if many academics conclude that sabbaticals are simply
not worth the hassle and the exhaustion.
Once again, it seems bizarre that when the university should be trying
to encourage high level research in preparation for 2014, it should be doing
everything in its power to make that research much more difficult to conduct. ***************************************************** CASTLE
PRISON TO CLOSE On
13 January the Ministry of Justice announced that The
castle is owned by the Duchy of Lancaster (the Crown), and leased to
Lancashire County Council, which in turn lease some of the buildings to Her
Majesty's Prison Service. When the
prison closes the main incentive to keep the crown court there also will be
lost; the court is likely to be relocated next to Lancaster Magistrates Court
on The
decision to close the prison was welcomed in a joint statement by Lancaster
City Council and Lancashire County Council, who say they are confident in the
possibility of attracting 'significant complimentary [sic] private sector
investment' to transform the castle into 'a major tourist attraction'. This idea has been argued for at least
since 2006, when Lancaster and Morecambe Vision Board (chaired by our
Vice-Chancellor Paul Wellings) argued that the
prison and court should be relocated and the castle developed as an
attraction which could potentially put Lancaster on par with Chester and York
as a tourist destination. They
suggested that in the future the castle might contain a 'Tower of the North'
housing some of Duchy's royal art and crown jewel collections, and a It's
already possible to visit the castle as a tourist (10.00-5.00, 7 days a
week). Access is basically confined to
the Shire Hall complex at the back of the castle, but worth it, including
Adrian's (or Hadrian's) Tower, the Old Cells, the large Shire Hall with its
shields, the smaller, atmospheric Crown Court, and the Grand Jury and Drop
Rooms in the round tower constructed in the Georgian period to mirror
Adrian's Tower. Also, it's worth
looking out for the production of Shakespeare plays in the castle courtesy of
Demi-Paradise Productions, who make very effective
use of the areas that are open to tourists. Perhaps
the closure of the prison will enable more archaeological investigation of
the site, which was probably first fortified in Roman times but whose exact
history remains patchy in places. The
oldest significant structure is probably the bulky, square Norman Keep (built
around 1150), not really visible from the outside. The monumental gatehouse
at the front of the castle was added by Henry IV at the start of the 15th
century. Going clockwise around the
outside of the curtain walls, the next interesting tower is the round Yes,
the castle has seen more than its fair share of historic events, and not all
of them very nice. The
closure of the prison has not met with unanimous approval. It will result in the loss of 300 prison
jobs at a difficult time (though there is talk of relocation and 'natural
wastage') – and, unlike those at most prisons, the majority of the officers
live in the Lancaster area, so the loss of their spending power will also hit
the local economy. Some local commentators reject the Ministry's judgement
that the prison is somehow problematic: after a recent visit to the prison,
city councillors reported themselves to be highly impressed by the drug
treatment, education and rehabilitation work undertaken at the prison. Some
are worried that the plans for turning the castle into a major tourist
attraction are unrealistic. Local MP
Eric Ollerenshaw, who was enthusiastic about the
potential for tourism when the closure of the prison was mooted last July,
now says that he is sceptical. The
first problem is that HMP's lease at the castle still has nearly 3 years to
run; they intend to mothball it until the lease runs out, with just a
skeletal staff running the heating (rumoured to cost £600 a day) to keep the
pigeons warm. So it will sit empty for
two years at least. Then
there's question of the suitability of the castle buildings for alternative
use. HMP have put aside £30m to fulfil
their contractual obligation of returning the castle to its 1954 state –
stripping out the barbed wire, the large visiting hall in the courtyard, the
brand new healthcare centre that cost £1m of public money, and so on. But what will be left is a complex of
buildings with overwhelmingly small, often tiny rooms. The story of Malmaison
prison in Oxford has prompted excited talk of the castle enjoying a similar
makeover into a hotel; but the part of the prison adapted at Malmaison was Victorian and far more suitable for the
creation of decent-sized hotel rooms. The
Vision Board's idea of the castle as a museum and major tourist attraction
will also come up against the physical structure of the castle, with a lack
of large rooms apart from one or two workshops in the Keep. Furthermore, most of the best bits of the
castle are already open to visitors.
Students of Michel Foucault may be excited to hear that the Georgian
women's prison on the south side of the courtyard is built in the form of a Panopticon, with a central observation room that can see
into cells arranged in an arc. But the
oppressive dungeons underneath the Readers
who lived in the area in the 1990s will remember the disastrous conversion of
Morecambe's ***************************************************** GREAT
HALL HARPSICHORD CONCERT The
second half of the 2010-11 season of Lancaster
International Concerts kicked off in the Great Hall of the University on
Thursday 20 January, with a recital by the young Iranian-American
harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani. That
this was to be an unusual performance became clear when the hall lights
dimmed to total blackness as the soloist came on stage, leaving only a couple
of small spots on a stand to illuminate the keyboard. Slight, bespectacled, and looking a bit
academic, Esfahani had put together a programme in
four sections, combining works by composers of the 17th and 18th century, the
heyday of the harpsichord, with a set of modern sonatas by the Californian Lou
Harrison. Unusually, the soloist had
provided eight pages of comprehensive programme notes. The first and the last sections of the
programme were by J S Bach, one of the great masters of counterpoint. Was this to be a dry performance of rather
formal pieces, likely to leave the audience frustrated by the absence of any
appeal to the emotions? Far from it. Bach
was also a brilliant improviser at the keyboard, and this aspect of his
genius was on show in both works performed on Thursday, the first of them
written when he was only in his mid-teens.
The chorale variations on 'O Gott, du frommer Gott' show the rich
fund of musical ideas that flowed from the young Bach. The second section consisted of three
tributes to Louis XIVth's gamba
player, Antoine Forqueray, by three
near-contemporaries - Couperin, Rameau, and Duphly
- and a piece by Forqueray himself, transcribed by
his son Jean-Baptiste. These ranged from the exciting and
virtuosic (by Rameau) to the sombre (by Duphly). The
six short sonatas by Lou Harrison (who died in 2003) comprised the third
section of the programme. Sparely
written, these were nonetheless very approachable works, making good use of
the harpsichord's sonorities. The
final section was devoted to a single work, Bach's Ouverture
in the French Style BWV 831. Written
later in Bach's life, when he was 49, this is a magnificent suite of dances,
opening with the rhapsodic overture which gives the suite its title, and
ending with a thrilling gigue followed by an 'echo', which is itself a
substantial movement. This
concluded a brilliant recital by a performer who is already a star - it was a
privilege to have experienced it. ***************************************************** LETTERS Dear
subtext, I write
with reference to Robert Segal's letter. I
was taught to use 'such as' when giving examples. The writer means presumably to refer to Yes
I know it's mean but he started. Jessica
Abrahams ****** Dear
subtext, Congratulations
on your fifth anniversary issue, significantly no.69. Long may you thrive. I note, too, that student rents are to increase by
6.9 per cent, making the cheapest room on campus £69. Also, nationally, student
tuition fees are to swell to between £6,000 and £9,000. What's this
preoccupation with 'soixante-neuf'? How
come? Happy
New Year, Alan
Wood ****** Dear
subtext, Like
my former colleague Robert Segal, I too am surprised by the appointment of
Charles Clarke as a visiting Professor in my old department. I am also
saddened by subtext's craven and misguided defence of the appointment in
subtext 69 in which you erroneously claim Clarke studied Philosophy (wrong -
he studied Mathematics and Economics - what has happened to your
investigative qualities?). Given
that Clarke as a minister trashed key humanities subjects (history,
classics), it is sad to see him being appointed - at a fat salary no doubt -
to a post in a humanities-related faculty and department. Given, too, that Clarke's prime activities
in the last few years of the previous government amounted to undermining his
party leader and then Prime Minister (Brown), and duplicitous back-stabbing
(activities that certainly did not help his party's cause, and that may have
helped create the conditions whereby we now have a coalition that has taken
an axe to so much of our public services) it seems astounding that Lancaster
has decided to reward him in this way. Can
I suggest that Clarke is asked, as part of his duties, to put on courses
and/or lectures in The Art of Back-Stabbing, and on How to Undermine Your
Party and Ensure Your Opponents Win?
Unless he is used in this way, it is unclear what value he would have to
Yours
in sadness Ian
Reader (former member of subtext collective) [Eds: Ian Reader is correct to point out that subtext 69
wrongly claimed that Clarke studied philosophy. We'd taken this factoid from
the BBC News website without checking it adequately, for which we apologise.
Still the basic claim of the subtext 69 piece – that Clarke says he approves
of philosophy - is true (http://www.childrenthinking.co.uk/action_govt.htm)
and given that he's got a reputation as an Arts and Humanities hater we think
that's interesting, even if it's not enough to overcome the misgivings that
many have about the appointment.] ****** Dear
subtext, Just
wondered how many other people had noticed that the website for the central
services 'keep it on campus' campaign seems to be hosted 'off' campus (http://www.keepitoncampus.co.uk/). Have
they incurred a cost to do this, rather than hosting it on a University
server for free? It also means that if
you search for details of the campaign using the search facility on the
University website you can't actually find it. Jean
Bennett ***************************************************** The
editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order)
of: Rachel Cooper (PPR), George Green, Gavin Hyman, David Smith, Bronislaw
Szerszynski and Martin Widden. |