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subtext issue 109 17 October 2013 ***************************************************** 'Truth: lies open to all' ***************************************************** Every fortnight during term-time. All editorial correspondence to: subtext-editors@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/. If you're viewing this using Outlook, the formatting might look better if you click on the message at the top saying 'Extra line breaks in this message were removed', and select 'Restore line breaks'. CONTENTS: editorial, news in brief, in memory of, lake placid, applied social science – an obituary, eloi and morlocks, lecturer ratings, counselling services, more ref, links, letters ***************************************************** EDITORIAL Welcome back one and all. As always, we are cursed to live in interesting times, but let's look on the bright side. The latest Government re-shuffle could probably have been worse from our point of view. Michael Gove could easily have been given the portfolio for the HE sector and been allowed to inflict on Universities the same combination of neo-Victorian pedagogic policies and neo-Con financial straitjacket that he is imposing on schools. (You have got to wonder at Mr. Gove's ability to alienate almost the entire teaching profession.) We have avoided that fate, for now, but the sector is not a happy one. The staff goodwill that all Universities are so dependent on continues to be sorely tested. It would appear that the strategic choice by university managements is to systematically erode staff pay. Since 2009, the cumulative value of the difference between the annual pay increase and the rate of inflation is a de facto cut of around 13%. (See Will Hutton link, below.) Combine this with a 3-year freeze on new posts, and with the fact that universities are aggressively building up their surpluses and reserves, and it sure do make you think. Of course, there’s nothing at all wrong with putting universities on a sound financial footing, but it seems that it is the staff who are paying for it. The Lancaster UCU President described this process as 'undermining the real basis of quality education for students and ultimately gambling with their own reputations(…)and represent[s] a failure in their duty of care to the staff who teach our students. They are also being reckless with the reputation of our sector'. We'd agree with that. It is not as if the money is not there. Lancaster can afford to pay staff better, but chooses not to. (It would be nice to think that senior management were taking an equal hit – we are, after all, all in this together – but there is little evidence of that.) The University has met its self-proclaimed financial surplus objectives of a minimum of 4% in 16 of the past 17 years. In the last financial year (2012-13) it once again outperformed, with a cash surplus of £15.6m, (7.9% of turnover). Payroll costs as a proportion of total expenditure at 57.4% are now lower than in 2007/08. There has been considerable and continuing investment in buildings over the last few years. Let’s be clear: although we have expressed reservations about parts of the building programme (see subtexts passim), we regard the actual investment and its results as a good thing. Lancaster is looking rather well, and our facilities have improved markedly. Hurrah. However, investment in bricks and mortar must be complemented by a similar commitment to the people who work therein; and signs of such a commitment are long overdue. All of the Campus union (UNITE, UNISON and UCU) members at Lancaster have just voted in the majority to support strike action in the recent ballot. We would suggest that this is not the act of a militant workforce simply out to get more money, but rather a signal that our colleagues are increasingly willing to make an effective demonstration against a management which consistently overlooks their views and interests. We have not met anyone who relishes the prospect of a strike, but we have met plenty who would be willing to take direct action if only to demonstrate that we cannot continue to be taken for granted. ***************************************************** NEWS IN BRIEF Unite members working in universities across the UK have voted 'yes' to possible strike action to end a five year pay squeeze that has seen their real pay shrink by around 13 per cent. Unite, the country's biggest union, will now meet to discuss next steps with other higher education unions following the mandate for industrial action it and the UCU received. The ballot result shows that 64 per cent of Unite members have voted in favour of strike action, rejecting the employers' one per cent pay offer, on a 28.2 per cent turn out. Unite is urging the Universities and College Employers Association (UCEA) to return to the negotiating table with a vastly improved offer, arguing that a substantial pay rise is needed to ensure the retention of dedicated staff to keep Britain in the top 10 world university league. ******* Subscribers may or may not be aware of the host of changes to the law regarding their employment that were enacted over the summer. UCU have published a useful resource, available via the UCU national website https://ucu.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/320) that contains all you need to know. There's also information on the site about zero hours contracts, payment in lieu of notice, the Disclosure and Barring Service, Fit notes, redundancy packages etc. ******* Work and the impact it has, including an observation on zero-hours contracts, is the subject of a film, made in collaboration with BBC Newsnight, by Turner-prize winning artist Jeremy Deller, who represented Britain in this year's Venice Biennale with an installation in the British Pavilion. In ‘All That Is Solid Melts Into Air’ Deller takes a personal look at the impact of the Industrial Revolution on British popular culture, and its persisting influence on our lives today. The film is part of a touring exhibition which opens at Manchester Art Gallery. You can check it out at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24458982 ******* Professor Jill Rubery, Professor of Comparative Employment Systems at Manchester Business School, discusses the use of zero hours contracts and the implications of introducing policy to bring these to an end on Tuesday 29 October 2013, 17:30 – 19:00. Room 4.206, University Place, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL. Hosted by IPPR North, in partnership with Policy@Manchester at the University of Manchester. ******* QUOTE OF THE WEEK 'Academia can be brutal I think'. If you're wondering why this quote amused us, have a look below at its place of origin. Lizelle Cline LCSW Mental Health Services Delivery System California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation, San Quentin **************************************** IN MEMORY OF The recent death of Malcolm George McDonald, whom Marion McClintock described as 'one of the elite group who worked in Bailrigg Mansion' before the University officially opened, brings cause for reflection – not least, that there are such people as Marion still at Lancaster to recall those days and the people who started the University on its journey. It is all too easy to forget where this University came from in a present when each institution of Higher Education aims to be a clone of others, or justifies its existence by claiming to be just above them in this or that league table. It is plain (at least to those of us who have been here a while) that as an institution we are gradually losing our memory. People and structures are being forgotten. Even the name of the place has changed - it used to the University of Lancaster rather than Lancaster University and words were said if you got it the wrong way around! Now, while we are still nominally the U of L, we trade as Lancaster University, so by our letterhead ye shall know us. Many subscribers will not know that the campus design is based on that of an Italian Village, (although it is sometimes hard to imagine that in the depths of winter,) and that we have a college system intended to replicate that of Oxbridge. Indeed the shape of the campus itself can remind us of what was once there: the croquet and bowls greens (now under the Ruskin Library); the wooden long house that was the Pre-School Centre (now under the pool in the Sports Centre); Bowland Tower, so recognisable from the M6, is currently undergoing major refurbishment, and the Senate Chamber – once an impressive symbol of the democratic basis of the University - is now split into a number of offices in University House. There are many people working at the University who are entirely unaware of all these changes and much more. We are in danger of forgetting. Some of the plans have been lost or destroyed, and the reasons why things are as they are or may have been otherwise are being re-written or changed through false assumption and urban myth. Our memories are fading under the weight of 'the new'. We deal increasingly with 'information' rather than knowledge, 'innovation' not revolution, 'consumers' instead of students. Some of us would like to live in a constant and perpetual Now, where all that matters is the present. Others, including subtext, would suggest that the Now includes the past, and we are the poorer if we fail to preserve it. The oncoming 50th anniversary of the establishment of the University, as well as celebrating the new, presents us with a real opportunity to remember and to reflect on what was, what has changed, and, along with all the triumphs and gains, what may have been lost along the way. *********************************************** LAKE PLACID The autumn sunshine plays on the new wooden walkway across Lake Carter. Happy smiling folk can be seen strolling across – it adds a welcoming feel to the entrance to the University. It really does look very nice as well as being a very practical and sensible development to people heading for the new sports centre. Many congratulations to the planners, engineers and builders. It also provides those members of staff who have been here a while yet another chance to reflect. In subtext 100 we recounted how the campaign 18 years ago to have a bus-stop and/or a zebra crossing at the then pre-school (situated where the sports centre is now) had come to nought – they moved the pre-school instead. Allied to this campaign was the movement to push for a walkway/bridge across Lake Carter – the Territorial Army even offered to build it for free! ', 'implausible', 'unachievable', 'impracticable' (and various other words ending in -ble) was the response from the University. 'Tempora mutantur', as the classical scholars sometimes say, or maybe the message is 'never take no for an answer'? Or 'If you stand by Lake Carter long enough the bodies of your enemies will float by?' ************************************************* APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCE, 1974-2013: AN OBITUARY The Department was established, as Social Administration, in 1974, towards the end of the University's first phase of expansion. It apparently owed its existence to the wish of the then VC, Charles Carter, that Lancaster should provide social work education (as part of his broader commitment to the development of a University that would be socially useful and relevant) and, more contingently, to the decision of the staff in Sociology that they did not want social work to be incorporated in their department. Hence a new department was created, very much on the LSE model with which its founding Professor, Roger Hadley, was familiar. The department reached critical teaching mass in 1976 with the appointment of six lecturing staff – a diverse group which included the future Dame Janet Finch, Lancaster PVC, Keele VC, and much else. By the late 1970s the department's teaching was mainly in social work, with both undergraduate and postgraduate courses, while numbers in social administration were in decline. Part of the problem was thought to be that 'social administration' conveyed very little to anyone outside the field, or perhaps outside the LSE: did it perhaps mean that the department was part of Hospitality or Catering? In line with other universities, Lancaster changed the name in 1990 to Applied Social Science, which proved to be a helpfully capacious term. Despite the lowly status of social work in the LSE model as the servant of the supposedly more research-driven discipline of social policy, the department did well in successive RAEs from 1992 on, linked from 1996 to health research, which by 2008 was the dominant partner. Its criminology teaching and research grew in the 1990s, considerably strengthened by the arrival of Keith Soothill from Sociology. The department was threatened with closure or merger during the financial excitements of the mid-1990s, in part because of serious misapprehensions in University House about what it actually did, but survived and then flourished with healthy student numbers and research income. Criminology and social work (which was still defined as including probation) were its core 'business', in teaching and research. Although these two disciplines had a long history of amicable cohabitation – in the University of Chicago from the early 20th century, for example – and several Lancaster staff could be seen as embodying their close relationship, it was not obvious to everyone that they were natural bedfellows. And social work teaching, like other vocational programmes, tends to generate practical problems whose resolution is labour- and energy-intensive. Not everyone has the patience for this. So, in late 2012, the then head of department suggested a split, in which criminology would become part of the School of Law and social work – well, it could go to wherever would have it. Senior figures in the Faculty and in University House were apparently persuaded that there were serious problems in the department – though the nature and extent of these was not obvious to those most directly involved – and that in moving to Law criminology would be freed from the messy constraints of social work. The demise of the department was achieved with little attention to constitutional niceties, or to the wishes of most of the staff involved. Criminology teaching – along with most of the criminology staff – has moved to Law, and social work to Sociology (as had been envisaged by Charles Carter). We hesitate to draw any general lessons – that determined, unilateral action is a good way of imposing managerial will, for example. Or that Gordian knots can be conjured into being and then cut with impunity. Let's hope not – and let's hope that the new bedfellows of criminology and law, and social work and sociology, can build amicable, enduring and productive relationships, despite the shotgun quality of their unions. ************************************************* ELOI AND MORLOCKS (Contributed article) The first priority for Human Resource Management (HRM) is to ensure that a workplace stays within the law in regard to minimum wage rates, holiday entitlements and so on. Thereafter HRM secures good practice as set down in codes of conduct, guidance for workloads etc. While codes and guidance may change, good HRM achieves this by consultation and agreement between the manager (hereafter, the') and the managed (hereafter, 'colleagues'). Good HRM also seeks to reduce the trade-offs and to increase the complementarities between efficiency and collegiality. Times may prove challenging. New pressures have arisen from REF 2014, where the University provides an assurance of remaining 'committed to treating all staff equally and fairly, irrespective of inclusion or non-inclusion in REF'. That assurance appears not to be understood by some department heads (HODs). There are departments at Lancaster where colleagues sense their segregation. By their unequal treatment and entitlements they are identifiable either as Eloi or Morlocks (AKA racehorses or donkeys). In 2009, one Management School (LUMS) HOD introduced a 'Department Research' document which painted a future where there would be an 'unequal distribution of teaching', because the investment 'for older staff to raise their game [in respect of research] would not have sufficient payback'. (NB: such a statement, explicitly evidenced and sent by a manager, is potentially open to a tribunal to infer discrimination.) In 2012, that same HOD set workloads which left colleagues in no doubt of their status as Eloi (by the allocation of 'additional research hours to those who I think of as the people most likely to generate the highest quality'). For the Morlocks ('who seem less likely to make important research contributions for us'), there was a corresponding reduction in research hours. That innovation was accompanied by the Orwellian comment: 'this seems sensible, efficient and equitable'. The LUMS Dean immediately overruled that HOD, after the university's grievance procedure was invoked. There are a number of departments where CVs are being rented (at considerable privilege and remuneration) to boost REF 2014 returns. (A THES spreadsheet shows Lancaster ranked sixth, for staff recruited on 20 percent contract in the last two years and still in post.) No plaudits to UK VCs for compliance with such absurdity, or for the focus on 'selectivity' to boost 4-star papers for REF 2014 and beyond. Expect attempts across departments to syphon off more research time to Eloi, with more teaching and administration for Morlocks. Whether workplace codes and guidelines implicitly form part of the terms and conditions of employment would be an issue for legal interpretation. (NB: if the contract is silent then a court will generally assess this as a matter of fact and degree.) At Lancaster, prime illustrations are the LUMS Workload Guidelines (introduced 2011; revised 2013) and the Performance and Development Review (PDR). In 2013, a revision to the LUMS Workload Guidelines of 2011 retrospectively legitimised the action of one HOD who, in extending further privileges to Eloi, had ridden roughshod over the earlier version. Within recent weeks, the HRM Partner for LUMS (who has now left the university) was advising that it was 'entirely reasonable' to ignore the precepts of the PDR: to wit (1) that it should be an annual cycle; (2) that it should not be used to raise serious performance issues for the first time; (3) that reviewers attend initial training and then further training every three years; (4) that a reviewer should conduct no more than eight reviews. In duly ignoring those requirements, one HOD openly truncated the PDR process to 'gather information about an individual's activities at the end of the Lent Term' so 'that research activity should be incentivised' within the 2013/14 workload allocations. Developments such as these are destroying collegiality and they sit uneasily with the principles that define the traditional function of a university: 'to ensure that academic staff have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at their institutions' (Education Act, 1988). For colleagues who are disadvantaged by any breach to a code or guideline, there is recourse: by the internal grievance procedure; by outside mediation and arbitration; or by taking a complaint to an industrial tribunal. Such resistance has implicit backing from the Minister of State for Universities and Science: 'There is a nightmare scenario where what matters is research, not teaching. What matters in research is how you score in the research rankings. For that people think they have to appear in the prestigious journals ... Now, anything that we can do in government to help break this cycle, we’re up for it. ' (Rt. Hon. David Willetts, MP, May 2013: http://www.policyreview.tv/video/905/6812 - recording at 9 minutes 44 seconds onwards.) Gerry Steele, LUMS *********************************************** LECTURER RATINGS Subscribers on the academic side of things may already be aware of the website www.rateyourlecturer.co.uk. The clue is in the name: it's a place where students can put up an assessment of their lecturers. Subscribers who have used sites such as tripadvisor.com will be familiar with both the advantages and disadvantages of this sort of forum. An ex-student of the LUMS recently exposed one of the (fairly obvious) flaws in the system by asking his friends to post overwhelmingly positive reviews of him, as outlined in the THE article here: http://Www.Timeshighereducation.Co.Uk/News/Rate-Your-Lecturer-Website-Scores-Poorly-With-Lecturers/2004760.Article It would appear that since then this student's 'doctored' profile has been removed, but a quick search shows a number of other profiles which are almost certainly skewed, in both directions. A subtext subscriber whose partner works as a lecturer at a University down south reports that she has received some poor reviews on the website from specific students, which she attributes to the fact that they received low marks in a number of pieces of coursework, marks that were confirmed by second markers and an external. A website such as rateyourlecturer.co.uk, providing an opportunity for anonymous commenting and feedback, only serves to hurt new, inexperienced, possibly thinner skinned lecturers who don't yet have the experience to shake off the criticism. If there really is a problem with a lecturer there is a clear complaints procedure. Sites like this are open to abuse in so many ways and from so many directions that it's hard to see their value. Let us hope that the University doesn't start taking them too seriously. *********************************************** COUNSELLING SERVICES Interesting article in the Guardian last week about student mental health issues. If you click on the link www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/oct/10/university-students-seeking-counselling-mental-health-uk and have a look at the table you will see Lancaster comes second from top. Hurrah! No, sorry, look again. Unfortunately that near-top ranking isn't in a good way. subtext would suggest that this failure is caused by a structural problem and is nothing to do with those members of staff amongst us who labour mightily to help students with such issues. The previous Vice-Chancellor, for reasons that were never clearly set out, oversaw the careful and comprehensive dismantling of almost all the SLDC support that was a significant part of the less-visible network of ways of supporting students and diverting them from other services. (Even such modest operations as the nurse unit were dissolved. This used to mop up all sorts of minor stuff and stopped escalation to greater need thereby. It seemed to outside observers to be both necessary and highly cost-effective, but apparently there were those who knew better.) Some amongst us said that this purge would come back to bite us, and, lo, with a heavy sigh we look at the Guardian's article and we hear the clucking of chickens coming home to roost. The present Vice-Chancellor, whose fault this is emphatically not, might perhaps take another look at the situation, and might even see some value in what was so casually and, we would argue, so disgracefully tossed aside. This might even, heaven forfend, affect our NSS scores, and so affect our league table standing... ********************************************** MORE REF Below is an open letter written by Professor Paolo Palladino of the History Department. Dear all, Over the next few days, a number of colleagues across the university are to be informed that they will not be returned in REF. I am one of these colleagues and I wish to challenge the culture of secrecy around our situation, which blocks any form of engaged, collective response to the way in which REF, as it is being managed at Lancaster University, impoverishes us all. I regard the evaluation of research as perfectly legitimate and also think that the university's management is at liberty to mobilise academic assets in a manner that maximises the returns of the university’s investments in staff and resources. I think none the less that the situation in which I find myself is an indictment of this department, this faculty and this university. All three have now assented to the notion that the author of the required four academic outputs, each published in a peer-reviewed, internationally recognised journal and thus meeting the expectation that any outputs returned should be 'recognised internationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour' (grade 2), does not merit inclusion in the evaluation of academic research undertaken by staff at Lancaster University. The problem is that the internal preparations for REF reward disciplinary orthodoxy by resting, for reasons of economy, upon the evaluations of a single reader per Unit of Assessment (UoA) and by expecting that each member of staff returned should fit within the narrative of one of the UoA submissions. Consequently, it is not possible to accommodate a researcher whose output is 'recognised internationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour', but whose work cuts across the domains of a number of UoAs and thus must in all likelihood fall short of the most common assumptions about what constitute the 'highest standards of excellence' (grade 4) for each and every UoA involved. Acceptance of this situation calls into question this university's commitment to supporting interdisciplinary research, the one asset that has served most successfully to distinguish Lancaster University in an increasingly competitive global market for higher education. I greatly regret this situation and I hope that the one third of our colleagues who, it seems, are not to be returned in REF will challenge an internal institutional judgement that calls into question both the rationale of our diverse appointments and the meaning of academic freedom at Lancaster University. Best wishes, Paolo Palladino Professor of History and Theory Department of History Lancaster University Lancaster LA1 4YT http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/history/profiles/paolo-palladino *********************************************** LINKS We've had a gratifyingly large number of links sent to us recently (and our thanks to those benefactors) accompanied by some variation on 'this looks interesting, you might want to have a look at it'. Some of these links have indeed provoked articles in subtext, but there have been some that, while not directly giving birth to an article, are nevertheless, we think, interesting. So, as a subtext service, we print them below, with a brief description. Just in case you fancy a look. Self-explanatory, cynical, fun, and quite pertinent. http://coastsofbohemia.com/2013/09/28/kafkarna-continues-ref-gloves-off-at-lancaster-university/ Paolo Palladino’s open letter concerning the REF, for anyone who wants to see the original discussion. Lancaster has stated that the REF 'will not have an impact on promotion' and that there are no plans for consequent redundancies or teaching-only contracts. Academics at some other institutions have not been so fortunate, as this link demonstrates. A useful bit of additional context to Sarah Beresford's letter, see below. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/13/england-leave-funding-universities-students 'Universities across the board are in a quandary. The real wages of academics have fallen by 13% since 2008, one of the largest sustained wage cuts any profession has suffered since the Second World War.' Will Hutton, The Observer. See the link for the full article. *********************************************** LETTERS Dear subtext I had forwarded to me a letter from a research student concerning the publication of email addresses by websites that appeared in a previous subtext publication. If you would like to forward my contact details to that person I'd be happy to work through the issues with them. There is no policy that I know of that stops the publication of research students' email addresses on web sites (and if there is, then the policy has been broken for all LEC research students who opted for the their Pure profiles to be public.) There is no restriction on 'showing' email addresses from off-campus (if such a behaviour were present, I would want it treated as a bug that needed fixing). Best regards, Yvonne Fox Research Support Manager ************************************ (In subtext 108, we asked: 'The Moodle VLE is a year old: Have you used it? What has your experience been?' And answer there came, below. Thanks Phil.) Dear subtext I love the way this question relies heavily on the 'single VLE as silo of content' paradigm for e-learning. Come on, that's SO 20th Century ;-) I do understand that for many people, Moodle is their only engagement with 'e-learning' and that less than 20% of Moodle's total feature set is actually used by most. However, Moodle is now the hub of several eLearning environments that each add their own specialised value to the student experience. These are described below for those who don't know: You may be surprised to hear that as well as 2 VLEs (Moodle and Sakai), LU also has introduced a podcasting and lecture capture system (Panopto), an e-portfolio system (Mahara), a peer assessment system (WebPA), a (student) desktop videoconferencing system (Big Blue Button), two specialised e-assessment systems, an (anonymous) online submission, marking and feedback system, on demand streaming of TV programmes, and direct links to the library's interactive reading list (and all this is done using a single login). This is not including lesser known core features of Moodle such as glossary, peer review, and sign-up activities. All the services detailed above are integrated with each other through Moodle, and lots of staff have been taking advantage of these to enhance their students' experience of their courses and as an opportunity to refresh their own pedagogical approaches. NB: You can also read this as an open offer to any member of staff or department who wishes to get extra help or support in using these new services. Please speak to your faculty eLearning co-ordinator or Phil Tubman in ISS. Phil Tubman B floor, ISS building. ************************************** Dear subtext I have noticed that WH Smith in Alexander Square which now occupies the former premises of Robinsons newsagents sells so-called 'Lads' Mags'. Given that the University has publicly committed to ensuring gender equality, it is deeply disappointing that the University continues to facilitate the selling and display of Lads' Mags. If the University is genuinely serious about gender equality, it should 'lose the Lads' Mags' from the entire campus, for the following reasons: By selling Lads' Mags and papers with Page 3-style front-cover images, Lancaster University is wide open to legal action – from both staff and customers. Shops are workplaces. Displaying these publications in workplaces, and/or requiring staff to handle them in the course of their jobs, may amount to sex discrimination and sexual harassment contrary to the Equality Act 2010. Similarly, exposing customers to these publications in the process of displaying them is capable of giving rise to breaches of the Equality Act. Lads' Mags and newspapers that sexually objectify women are deeply harmful. They promote sexist attitudes and behaviours. Portraying women as sex objects provides a 'conducive context' for violence against women. Lads' Mags dehumanise and objectify women, promoting harmful attitudes that underpin discrimination and violence against women and girls. Reducing women to sex objects sends out a dangerous message that women are constantly sexually available and displaying these publications in everyday spaces normalises this sexism. Customers using university shops, children accompanying parents, and the employees who work in the shops, should not be subjected to this material. Every retailer which stocks Lads' Mags is vulnerable to legal action by staff and, where those publications are visibly on display, by customers. There are, in particular, examples of staff successfully suing employers in respect of exposure to such material at work. Such exposure is actionable where it violates the dignity of individual employees or customers, or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them. A national campaign has been launched to stop the sale of Lads' Mags (http://www.losetheladsmags.org.uk/). Major supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Asda and WH Smith have already been written to by leading equality lawyers. The Co-op have already agreed to cease selling Lads' Mags and Tesco have agreed to meet with the organisers of the campaign to discuss removing Lads' Mags from their stores. I understand that LUSU have also agreed to stop selling Lads' Mags in all LUSU controlled shops on campus. Yours Dr Sarah Beresford Dept of Law *********************************************** The editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order) of: Sam Clark, Rachel Cooper (PPR), Mark Garnett, George Green, Ian Paylor, and Martin Widden. |