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75 12
May 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, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, senate report, Wollongong, conspiracy theories,
how others see us, threesomes, square things, letters ***************************************************** EDITORIAL Not
so much an editorial, perhaps, more a list of several matters that provoke
concern. The first is, obviously and inescapably, the imminent departure of
the VC. The University has, unlikely as it may seem, been taken by surprise.
Nine months' notice of this event may seem like a long time, but in terms of
recruiting a new VC it apparently isn't.
The drive to reduce democracy whenever possible which has increasingly
become part of the University's attitude to its own rules is again
highlighted by the paper to Senate attempting to change the method of
assembling the search committee. (See
Senate report below, for some evidence of Senate apparently rediscovering at
least one vertebra of its mislaid backbone.) Whatever method is eventually
decided upon, it is highly unlikely that a candidate of suitable standing
will be found by January, which will mean an interregnum and an acting VC,
with all the instabilities and uncertainties that such a situation will
entail, particularly given the government's reforms and the number of
submerged academic-related issues, for example about the management of undergraduate
and postgraduate studies, which are likely to come to the fore in the near
future. The VC's rapid departure also leaves the 94 Group adrift and in need
of a new chairman, at a time when the government has made an unprecedented
mess of its higher education policy and needs all the specialist guidance and
common sense feedback it can get. A
further concern is the departure of the Head of HR; it would be comforting to
think that the University might ensure the selection of a person who is
prepared to roll up his/her sleeves and engage in active dialogue with real
people. Comforting, but unlikely. Then there are the widely-held concerns
around the emerging REF trial exercise, particularly if it leads to the kind
of action being taken against colleagues in ELC. (This will be discussed in a
future issue.) We live, as always, in interesting times. ***************************************************** NEWS
IN BRIEF ****** Problems
in Malawi: things are worse elsewhere No
matter how much one might moan about the state of academia in the UK, it's
worth sparing a thought for those who have it much worse elsewhere. Academics
at the University of Malawi, who include Lancaster alumni, currently face
extreme problems. In February a political science lecturer was interrogated
by police after drawing parallels in class between the political situation in
Malawi and Egypt. Since then the lecturers have been on strike and there have
been attempts to sack the union leaders and close the university. The
protesters in Malawi have gained a court injunction which currently prevents
the union leaders being sacked or the university being closed, however the
university management is going back to the courts this week to attempt to get
the injunction over-turned. There's a petition asking the Malawian
authorities to ensure academic freedom and keep the university open that you
can sign here: http://www.petitiononline.com/freeacad/petition.html.
You can read more about the events in Malawi here: http://www.afriquejet.com/news/africa-news/malawi:-university-chaos-dominates-malawi-media-201104037464.html
and http://thechronicleherald.ca/TheNovaScotian/1242315.html. ****** Widening
Access After
the meeting on 4 May, members of Senate received a paper prepared by the
Deputy VC for Council on the University's proposals to the Office for Fair
Access (OFFA) for an access agreement. The paper is clearly argued and
organised. Parts of it are interesting for the light they shed on Lancaster's
'home' undergraduate population compared with that of other universities. The
proposal is to spend 22.5% of the university's 'additional' fee income on
widening access. (The additional income is the £3,000 difference between
Lancaster's proposed £9,000 fee and the government's preferred £6,000.) This will cover the three approaches to
widening participation - financial support, outreach and retention,
specifically of students from low participation areas. The proposal, as
required by OFFA, also gives targets for four indicators of widening
participation - the percentage of students from state schools, the percentage
from lower socio-economic groups, the percentage from low participation
neighbourhoods, and the non-retention percentage of this group. On the first
and last of these the proposal is for no change from the current actually
achieved figures of 91% and 5.5%; on the second and third small changes are
proposed, from 24% to 25%, and from 10% to 11%. The reason why only small
changes are deemed possible is that Lancaster, by design or accident, already
out-performs the 94 and Russell Groups on all of these indicators, and on the
first it out-performs the sector as a whole. Therefore, since, as the paper says,
widening participation is not central to Lancaster's 'core mission', there is
no point in attempting 'further outperformance'. OFFA will give its verdict
on the proposal by 11 July at the latest. An unscientific and anecdotal walk
around the University doesn't reveal many mature students, nor
many Black or Asian faces, so it seems that the performance indicators have
done well by us. Of course, we shouldn't take this as reason to do nothing;
as we know from league tables, performance indicators can easily be changed. ***************************************************** DE
MORTUIS NIL NISI BONUM, AND ALL THAT Subscribers
will be aware that the new revamped Waterside building near George Fox is to
be known as 'The Charles Carter Building', named after the university's first
Vice Chancellor. What those in charge
of naming such buildings may not be aware of is that when Charles Carter
resigned his position in the 1970s and the University offered to name a
building after him in grateful tribute, his strong Quaker principles meant
that he turned the offer down flat. He
regarded such things as immodest nonsense.
****************************************************** SENATE
REPORT Senate
met on 4 May, briefly, and with the exception of one item of business, uneventfully.
Members
heard the Vice-Chancellor report on the university's letter from HEFCE about
funding for the coming year - broadly as expected, with a 6.8% reduction in
the allocation for teaching and research. The longer-term capital allocation
(for 2012-15) was lower than expected - around £6 million, compared with £20
million for the previous three years. Other reports were on the university's
access agreement with the Office for Fair Access (OFFA), which explains what
the university will do by way of widening participation to justify its £9,000
undergraduate fee, on the establishment of the Confucius Institute, which
will teach Chinese language courses from Michaelmas
2011, on E-Prints, of which Lancaster's repository is the fourth largest in
the UK, and the 46th largest in the world, and on the new points-based
immigration rules as they affect students. A case was reported of one British
university which has had its Highly Trusted Sponsor status suspended, because
its overseas nursing students were judged to be doing too much nursing and
too little studying. The
first discussion item was on progress in the joint venture with the Guangdong
Foreign Studies University, about which members had previously expressed
concerns related to academic freedom for staff and students. While various
possibilities were noted of derailment of these plans - which, all being
well, will see the first students being registered in October 2013 - the
government's wish to restrict immigration was, members were assured, not
among these threats, since the targets of the immigration restrictions are
institutions considerably less prestigious than Lancaster or Guangdong. The
item that occasioned most discussion was the proposal to appoint a search
committee to find a replacement for Professor Wellings.
The news of his departure was dealt with in a perfunctory, perhaps
embarrassed, way by Fiona Aiken, who offered congratulations on his
appointment to Wollongong and expressed regret at his resignation from
Lancaster. No doubt a future Senate will find a way of conveying these
sentiments more fully and collectively. The proposal was that the search
committee should have a majority of Council members and that Senate
representation should be decided by the Pro-Chancellor and University
Secretary in consultation with the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and PVCs. The post
would be advertised, but head-hunters would also be appointed. Professor
Diggle said that the committee which had searched
for a replacement for Bill Ritchie had decided to do without head-hunters,
and that last time Senate had been allowed to elect its representatives.
Fiona Aiken said, in effect, that things had moved on since then, that
everybody else used head-hunters, and that an election would take too much
time. Chris Thrush, the outgoing Director of Human Resources, asked whether
the procedure was to be based on advertised selection or a search. He thought
the proposed arrangement was ambiguous and that the University risked paying
head-hunters a lot without being clear what they would be doing. Fiona Aiken
rejected this (presumably expert) opinion. Joe Thornberry proposed an
amendment to the proposal which would allow for the Senate representatives to
be elected by members of the Senate. In a rare case of Senate's voting to
keep rather than relinquish its authority, the amendment was passed.
Subsequently Senate members were given a very tight deadline for nominations
to the search committee, so it is to be hoped that enough of them respond
quickly, and so show that a democratic approach is practicable. ************************************************ WOLLONGONG,
WHERE AND WHAT? subtext researches matters like this so that you don't
have to, but many readers may well have taken the modest trouble to find out
where the university is that has attracted Professor Wellings
as a suitable place for his next career move. They will have found that
Wollongong is by the sea south of Sydney in the Ilawarra
region of New South Wales, not far from Coniston. Its tourism webpage
describes it as the 'gateway to the south' and 'one of Australia's most
liveable regional cities'. It has a population of just under
300,000. Its University has around 26,000 students, distributed across nine
faculties (too many, surely?), not including Sydney Business School and a
Graduate School of Medicine. A
colleague suggests that it has a similar relationship to the (very
well-known) Sydney University as the University of Central Lancashire has to
our own establishment. Judging
by its website, the University of Wollongong is very pleased that Professor Wellings is to be its next Vice-Chancellor, the fourth
since its independence from the University of New South Wales in 1975. And
judging by his photo on the site, Professor Wellings
is very pleased about it too. We look forward to learning more about what is
so good about Wollongong, or so bad about Lancaster. It can't just be that
the surfing is apparently better in Wollongong than in Morecambe. ***************************************************** CONSPIRACY
THEORIES There
was a nice rumour running around a couple of months ago that the sudden
closure of the underpass and the delay in the renovations was due to the
discovery of something unanticipated by the builders. This was, apparently and depending to whom
you spoke, due to any one of a number of reasons, amongst which were; badly
corroded concrete supports ('The Square is about to collapse into the
underpass'); a mistake in the load-bearing calculations ('No-one noticed that
the new paving-stones in the Square are heavier than the old ones'); a
bulldozer, (or dumper truck, or tractor) in the foundations ('They
constructed the Square around it and only noticed when it was too late'); and
a Native American burial ground discovered directly beneath Greggs which was
causing the temperature of their cheese and onion pasties to approach that of
the core of the sun. subtext is, as always, happy to
explode such theories whenever possible.
We are reassured that the concrete supports are no more or less
corroded than one would expect, that the load-bearing calculations were
spot-on and that, as one would expect, there is a large margin of error
anyway. The story of the truck left in the foundations is, apparently, one
that is common to many new universities but has never been proven. As to the
Native American burial ground, we of course made that up, but nevertheless it
may be true; at the very least, the temperature of Greggs
cheese and onion pasties remains an unexplained secret. ***************************************************** HOW
OTHERS SEE US... A
Lancaster colleague was in Tunisia recently, at the tail end of the recent
disturbances. At the airport, while
waiting for his flight, he struck up a conversation with a Tunisian man. Our
colleague made congratulatory noises about the changes that were taking place
and offered his good wishes for the future of the country. The Tunisian
accepted these with a good grace, and then asked where our colleague was
from. 'England', he replied. The Tunisian's brow furrowed,
and he asked in concerned tones mixed with disbelief, 'England? Is it really true that they're going to
start charging for education there?' ***************************************************** THREESOMES In a
previous issue we commented - fairly impolitely - on the branding of the new
Cafe 2010 with various three-word slogans.
The penetrative power of such mockery is demonstrated by the fact that
the slogan TALK LAUGH CHILL, which hitherto was only written on the menus, is
now printed on the wall in letters several feet high. It seems that the Catering Dept not only
think that some people need instructions on the purpose of a cafe, but that
they need to be able to read them from a great distance. **************************************************** MORE
THREESOMES We
asked for suggestions as to other areas of the University where such verbal
triptychs might be applied. A
suggestion was received for ISS; LOG-IN CRASH DESPAIR. Other suggestions welcomed. ***************************************************** SQUARE
THINGS As
the refurbishment of Alexandra Square isn't yet complete, it seems a touch
unfair to start criticising it already.
But hey, what the heck. (We'll do a proper appreciation of it when
it's done. Let's be generous. The slope running across the steps is attractive.
Although it means that wheelchair users will still get wet.) The thing that strikes one immediately on
entering the Square is the Tardis made of smoky
green glass near the library entrance. Very mysterious. It looks like it's been stolen from inside
the Lloyds building in London, plonked down and left there. The only other
smoky green glass anywhere nearby is in the strips that run across the floor
Square. It has been suggested that these are the landing lights for the
helicopter which will take the VC to his new destination in December, in
which case we can only hope that they have been correctly aligned. On a wider issue, we note with something
less than rabid enthusiasm that the architects employed over the last 10
years by the University to bring it to the cutting edge of modern building
technology have looked at five thousand years of construction aesthetics and
come up with...The Box. Boxes are proliferating everywhere. The new LEC
building? A box. The new LICA building? A pale green box. The new sports
centre? A shiny black box. InfoLab? A green and bronze pointy box of, let it be said
loudly and clearly, quite surpassing ugliness. The spanking-new Charles
Carter (sic, see above) Building...oh yes, it's a box too. With big
windows. Come on, we accept that these
are primarily functional buildings, we aren't asking for flying buttresses,
Gaudi-esque curves and Baroque trompe
d'oeil, but maybe a bit of variety, eh? ***************************************************** LETTERS ****** (Re:
Article in subtext 74 on 'Mystery Yellow Sayings') Not
sure if your 'But who put them there and why?' question was rhetorical but
the answers are: who? - Laura
Wood, Chaplaincy Intern, whose idea it was, implemented by a team of
chaplaincy art-activists why? - to be uplifting and
to make people think - so it seems they succeeded. If
you really did like them, I'm sure Laura would be delighted to be told by
your good selves. Cheers, Lisa
Whistlecroft (We
did. Well done Laura. - Eds) ******* (Re:
Beer Fest) 'subtexters reflected that it is
possible in the windy isolation of Bailrigg to
forget that Lancaster is a substantial town with, on this evidence, a
thriving and active civil society.' Yeah
(hic), we love you too, mate ;-) love Chris
Satori, Editor, Virtual Lancaster ***************************************************** 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. |