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subtext ***************************************************** ‘Truth: lies open to all’ ***************************************************** Issue 132 30 April 2015 ***************************************************** Fortnightly during term time. All letters, contributions and comments to: subtext-editors@lancaster.ac.uk subtext does not publish material that is submitted anonymously, but will consider requests for publication with the name withheld. subtext reserves the right to edit submissions. Back issues and subscription details can be found at www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext For tips to prevent subtext from getting swept up into your 'junk email folder', see: www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext/dejunk/. CONTENTS: editorial, staff survey, flowers, irony, fees & rents, recruitment, senate, trail, sandwich, weathered, history exam, alumna, logo, intranet, power, lost and found, shart attack, link, concert review, letters. ***************************************************** EDITORIAL Subscribers may recall that the editorial in subtext 131 characterised the closure (inter alia) of the Department of Continuing Education as a cynical, mean-minded, short-term, penny-pinching act of vandalism. What we neglected to mention was another change made during the same period along similar lines. Time was, if a non-academic member of staff wanted to ‘audit’ any undergraduate course, they were permitted to do so. So, if a member of University House admin staff had an interest in, say, Plato, and as a result wanted to, say, attend second year Religious Studies seminars, then they could approach the Dept to see if there were any spaces available. Of course there were conditions, but assuming there was space then for the payment of a small fee (if memory serves it was then £400) in principle attending the seminars was no problem. As any member of staff who has tried in the last few years will know, this is no longer possible. Like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, non-academic staff working in the University are surrounded by ‘water, water everywhere / nor any drop to drink’. Some staff are sometimes permitted to take courses which are judged to have some direct relevance to their job, which in practice restricts them to courses in the Management School. (This is called ‘Staff Development’, which can, one suspects, only be true in the narrowest of terms.) Certainly the idea of non-academic staff paying a small fee to follow an intellectual interest is a non-starter. (In a University, of all places, imagine that…) This, in our opinion, is ridiculous. A thoroughly unscientific survey of academics who taught seminars which included non-academic staff confirms that it was an overwhelmingly positive experience. There a number of up-sides. 1) The Dept receives a small amount of cash that otherwise they wouldn’t get. 2) The workshop that the staff member attends benefits from their enthusiastic interest and life-experience. 3) Staff do not write the essays or sit the exams so there is no additional marking for the tutor. 4) The staff member does some interesting study which they enjoy. 5) Staff would inevitably be happier and more satisfied, and while their studies might not feed directly into their job description, they would, by definition, be better informed and intellectually motivated. 6) Such study also breaks down the entirely artificial, unnecessary and destructive division between academic and non-academic staff (and, indeed, between non-academic staff and students.) Further, the disassociation that many staff members feel as revealed in the recent SSS would, we confidently predict, be significantly ameliorated if staff were able to attend academic courses. And what of the downsides to this apparently unanswerable group of obvious benefits? Well, the only cost to the University is the time that staff would spend attending the course as opposed to doing their job. In practice, this time loss is minimal. Most FASS undergraduate courses, which is where one would anticipate most of the interest being shown, would require a student to attend something like two lectures and a two-hour workshop for around twenty weeks a year. The staff member contributes their lunch hour, so they only ‘owe’ the University one hour a week. If their Manager wants to play hardball, then the time can easily be made up by arriving early or leaving late; in practice back in the day we found that most managers took the view that so long as the staff member’s output was not affected, they didn’t mind how the work got done. If that meant occasionally taking work home, that was deemed by all concerned to be an acceptable compromise. If this right (or is it a privilege?) were put in place again, then both Managers and Departments will, of course and quite rightly, want to insert caveats. For a number of reasons it’s just not possible for some courses to permit this. There is a limit to the number of people who can be allowed to do it at the same time, and so on. All of this is obvious and true, and of course it has to have rules and clear-arrangements and be managed properly. However, we would suggest that, subject to whatever rules were felt to be appropriate, if the University were to allow non-academic staff in principle the right to join any undergraduate course regardless of subject and relevance to their job title, it would be entirely beneficial. It would also be generous, and it would be a good example of treating staff as valued and grown-up people rather than fractious worker bees. subtext occasionally gets letters saying ‘it’s all very well for you lot up there in the cheap seats, all you do is carp and snipe, if you were in charge what would you actually do?’ Well, that’s one thing we’d do, right there. Why on earth not? ***************************************************** STAFF SURVEYED The staff survey results have now been published. It appears that staff working in Facilities are very poorly represented, which is something that might be a matter of concern for the University. That aside, it does appear that things at Bailrigg are rosy. Lots of positive noises are emanating from management about the results. This is unsurprising, and we should of course congratulate ourselves when things appear to be going well. However, subtext would, as always, like to offer a word or two of caution about the methodology of the survey. Surveys like this one, based entirely on agree/disagree questions - the so-called Likert scale - are from a researcher's point of view the weakest type. Researchers are extremely loath to use research that only uses agree/disagree questions, especially when the answers are then used to make sweeping claims, and most things one would want to ask about a University do not fit this methodology. To make matters worse, the results are conflated to provide a distorted picture. Example: The question ‘I feel valued by the University’ is reported as have a 54% agreement rating. This is bad enough, but the reality is that only 16% actually said that they ‘agreed’ – the figure is inflated by the inclusion of those who ‘tended to agree’. Indeed, the ‘tend to agree’ category is surely provided precisely to avoid such a generalised and therefore meaningless conclusion. The same conflation is used elsewhere – once unpicked, one realises that only 11% agreed that the University ‘is interested in my wellbeing’, not the 58% claimed, and only 13% agreed that UMAG ‘manage and lead the University well’ – not 59%. Whilst senior management acknowledge there is an issue regarding communication even this is ‘sugar-coated’ – in answer to the question: ‘On the whole, communication in the University is effective’ 14% agreed, not 61%, and in answer to the question ‘…change within the University is managed well’ 15% agreed not 63%. This sort inflation has the same effect on information as it does on currency; it devalues it. Staff surveys have become a methodology to show how Human Resources provides value to the organisation, rather than anything to do with the needs of the University. (‘Discuss, with examples.’) Of course, it’s tricky. Most staff surveys won't get you to where you want to be, and if the University asked the questions it really wanted to and let the results be public then UCU and Unison and Unite would use the responses for their own purposes. On their own, staff surveys don’t often identify the problem; still less do they supply the answer. A yes/no response certainly won't get to the root of them. In his talk at his All Staff Open Meeting in the Great Hall on Monday 23 February 2015, the Vice-Chancellor focused on the high level results from the staff survey, along with the University’s plans for acting on them. He identified areas for immediate improvement and attached quick solutions to them. One of these ideas was to actively promote the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). Apparently only 35% of University staff were aware of this service and its benefits. He prefaced his remarks about the EAP by saying it had been introduced because the University acknowledged that staff were not comfortable talking to their line-manager or HR. One might perhaps prefer to ask the deeper question; why are staff not happy talking to their bosses? One might also wonder why the qualitative material hasn’t been released. If the University must use staff surveys, then a question at the top of their agenda (and it is surely a matter of concern that this is not even listed under areas for improvement) that arises from their own survey should be: Why do 15% of staff report being bullied, harassed and discriminated against? Especially since, if you felt discriminated against or were being bullied or harassed at work, would you fill in a questionnaire that was going to be circulated to the person doing the bullying, harassing and discriminating? ***************************************************** FLORAL TRIBUTE subtext is firmly of the opinion that the gardeners and grounds staff do not get enough recognition regarding the work they do. It is this time of year when one really appreciates the effort taken to making the campus a pleasant place to work. When the sun is out it can be a very bonny space. Also, when next in town take the time to have a look at Dalton Square and have a gaze at the symmetrical beds of yellow flowery loveliness. ***************************************************** NO IRONY INTENDED subtext learns of a junior researcher in a Department near all of us who requested to be put on an internal email list in order to keep abreast of developments in the Department and/or maybe even offer some constructive ideas for change. She was keen to contribute fully to the working life of the Department. Excellent enterprise and collegiality you might have thought. Well, no, apparently not – what she got was a dressing-down wherein she was told by her Manager in no uncertain terms to shut up and know her place. Not, one might think, the best way of handling such a situation. The recent Staff Survey (see above) tells us that just over a quarter of staff think their faculty or service area is managed well. One might suspect that the researcher might not now consider herself to be part of that fortunate group. This suspicion will only be reinforced by the fact that, shortly after the refused request for inclusion on the email list, the unfortunate researcher was dragged in to the Manager’s office to be given another shellacking. It seems she’d missed a meeting, the details of which (yes, you’re way ahead of us already) were circulated through the same email list in which the researcher had requested she be included. You could not make this stuff up. Unfortunately, we don’t need to. ***************************************************** FEES AND RENTS UPDATE Readers of subtext will recall our coverage (subtext 128) of the unprecedented defeat suffered by University management at the hands of disgruntled Court members over the decision to increase post-graduate fees and on-campus rents. After the passage of the opposing motion, it then found its way onto the University Council. The Chair, Lord Liddle, openly suggested that the motion be voted down, and voted down it duly was. It was a tragic, pathetic, but in no way surprising outcome, with some small victories. Most notably and commendably, the University is to invest far more money into Postgraduate bursaries. Some rather more false-hearted concessions which are promises to begin setting fees and rents further in advance and with greater student ‘consultation’, and to offer tuition fee discounts to students who achieve a 2:1 or a 1st. The former is tokenistic, and the sting isn’t removed from the tail if people know further in advance that they’re going to be out of pocket – it isn’t the lack of consultation that people have the biggest problem with; it is the fact that it was done at all, and all this will serve to do is preclude a greater number of people from sharing classified information. The latter is a howling great cop-out, which does nothing to support students during their studies and serves to save graduates at least a couple of grand over the course of about 20 years at little to no noticeable cost to the University. In fact, the saving will accrued over a shorter period of time by wealthier graduates who are likely to pay off their loans more quickly. However, those who have been jostling against the University haven’t thrown their hat into the ring just yet; someone with a mischievous streak has plastered a number of authentic looking (and authentically pasted!) posters around the city bearing our shield, each with a different slogan relating to tuition fees. Here is one: http://tinyurl.com/kh5vvu8. There were more sighted, although they appear, unsurprisingly, to have been removed. Meanwhile, in the town hall, councillors are planning to write to the Vice-Chancellor expressing their concerns with the present levels of fees and rents. One councillor is staying well out of it, citing the minding of one’s own business as a reason to leave the University to it. Someone should explain to said councillor that the vitality of student spending power on the local economy. subtext cannot help but wonder where the city council’s delegate to university council has been in all of these discussions; nobody from that body seems able to recall any effort on his part to be an effective voice against the decisions. ***************************************************** SPEECH Longstanding subscribers will have noticed that subtext occasionally publishes a request for new members to join the collective. This is one such request. New blood is always welcome. Contact any of the collective or drop us a line, without obligation. Down the years we have also occasionally approached likely individuals directly, and over a coffee bribe have broached the idea of joining our small but happy band of scribblers. A variety of reasons are given as to why people do not wish to enlist – some more creative than others. One reason offered, which is perhaps relevant to issues surrounding the recent Staff Survey (see above), is the concern that being associated with such a bunch of mild subversives as the subtext collective would have a detrimental impact on their careers. We have no evidence whatsoever that this is the case at Lancaster, and of course let it be said immediately that this is something that should be celebrated – it is a matter of regret that there are a number of HE institutions that do not support (read: ‘do not allow’) the existence of such publications. One might wonder, however, why such a perception should be present at all? Why should this type of self-censorship or need for self-preservation exist in a University? Whist it is obvious why colleagues might fear bringing up certain sensitive issues that might be traceable directly back to them, the innate protective instinct appears to be so powerful that it inhibits free speech generally. We welcome subscribers’ views on this topic, which we will publish anonymously if requested. ***************************************************** SENATE REPORT (29/4/2015) Unusually, the VC chose to kick off this Senate with news of a Lancaster failure. In York on the weekend we lost at Roses. Despite the best efforts of our athletes, the psychological advantage of having more supporters, familiar surroundings and not having to sleep on a lecture theatre floor helped the home team on their way to a victory – next year, the tournament shall be held in Lancaster, so we can expect to come up roses once again. However, there was one bright light shining through this gloom that Professor Smith was happy to report – victory had been secured in the VCs’ croquet contest. No doubt we now can expect crossed mallets to be added to Lancaster’s new escutcheon. Of less significance but of some importance was the news that Lancaster had done well with HEFCE grant funding for 2015/2016: £27.7M, some £2.3M ahead of forecast. This increase had been largely achieved through our REF performance. In contrast, many of our competitors had done much worse, with Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool suffering major cuts. As always in these announcements, it’s not enough that Lancaster succeeds – others need to be seen to fail. So it was with the news that Lancaster would be near to achieving its 2020 carbon emission reduction targets, one of the 44 out of 106 HEIs to do so. Finally, there was Lancaster’s rise to 9th in the Complete University Guide, achieved through improved student employability stats, increased spend per student and (again) REF performance. Next came a proposal from the Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research), Professor Decent, to change how we do things on the research committee. Upon his arrival at Lancaster, he was very surprised to find that the research committee is something of a ‘sausage fest’. As such, he asked that the Senate approves gender quotas. All very honourable, although some semantic pettifogging arose from the proposal’s use of the word ‘usually’ when laying down requirements for a set number of women on the committee. Some senators asked that the terms of reference be shorn of such ambiguities, while Professor Smyth (FST) pointed out that the regrettably small number of women in her faculty could lead to an overstretch in their workloads should quotas be introduced – a way of offsetting this, she added, would be to strike a decent gender balance in the academic workforce going forwards. Another clause sought to change the way in which Senate appoints its delegates to the committee – while previously it was the case that only senators could be nominated and approved, Professor Decent was requesting that eligible nominees include academics who aren’t members of the Senate (good), and that he be given sole authority to identify and put forward candidates for approval (not so good). Mr Rowlands (LUSU) suggested that all senators should have the opportunity to nominate members of the University for candidacy, in an effort to imbue Senate with some more authority and to broaden any such search exercises. Sadly, it was a proposal that was not well received by the rest of the body, with many Senators essentially saying that the Pro-Vice Chancellor is in a better position than they to identify the best candidates. The Vice-Chancellor chimed in to add that while Mr Rowlands’ proposal was ‘democratically satisfying’, super-academics are very busy people who tend to run a mile from such posts when they learn that they have to stand in an election, before adding that he wasn’t trying to ‘steer’ Senates thoughts on the matter (yeah, right…). Alas, it was not to be, although Mr Mang (LUSU) had greater success in amending the proposal; to the acceptance of the proposer (although not to the Senate – as ever, no vote was taken on any proposed amendments; the ‘spirit of the room’ was, as ever, determined by the Vice-Chancellor), he secured an extra PGR student representative on the committee. This was followed by an update from Professor Bradley on the situation with COMSATS in Lahore. At the last Senate meeting he had reported that the validating authorities had withdrawn recognition of the dual award with Lancaster, thus putting into question the future of the partnership with COMSATS. It would also appear that some of the students were taking legal action against COMSATS as a result (see further below). All this had drawn the attention of the QAA which had asked of Lancaster a number of procedural questions. Satisfied with our answers, the QAA does not intend to pursue this further. The COMSATS experience has prompted the University to take a closer look at our management of international partnerships and an Inquiry Group chaired by the Deputy VC has made a number of recommendations for tightening our systems. Old Senate hands will remember with fondness the rip-roaring pioneering days when ever-expanding international partnerships were seen as the future for Lancaster. Scarcely a Senate meeting went by without the triumphant announcement of a pending deal with partners from the Amazon basin to the plains of Kazakhstan, including, memorably, with the training arm of the Greek Post Office. Alas, those heady days are no more. No one even mentions China these days. Finally, a reminder from the Director of Academic Quality and Enhancement that our QAA review visitation would be taking place between 2nd and 5th of November this year. HoDs were asked to make sure that all departmental websites were up to date, to make themselves available during the visit and to show patience with the bombardment of information requests they were bound to receive. We can be confident that the staff, as always, will do what’s required. ***************************************************** TRAILING ALONG A number of Departments invite visitors to spend some time, whilst on Campus, to have a stroll around the trim trail and woodland walks around Campus. We are not aware of any visitors taking up this offer – certainly none have been spotted. The trail which covers a route of 2.6 miles and comprises a series of fixed, timber exercise stations designed to improve cardiovascular fitness and test upper and lower body muscular strength. Various leaflets and web-postings tells us that walking the full circuit takes around 1.5 hours but the trail has been made to suit the many different users, so you can hop on or hop off at several different points via gated entrances making use of the clear signposting, board walks and wooden steps to facilitate access. Originally planted in 1841 as sporting woodland for the Bigforth Estate, the 150 year old trail is described as an important habitat for plant and animal life, including 120 bird species and three bat species. Has anyone ventured round? subtext would be delighted if someone could offer a review of the experience. Members of the collective are too lazy – sorry, far too busy writing this stuff - to find the time but would very much welcome a contribution on this topic. ***************************************************** SANDWICH A mention in subtext doesn’t usually result in anything much happening, but we notice that following the piece in issue 131 on the sandwich shop at the top of Moor Lane near the Gregson Centre, the place now boasts posh new pavement café furniture, new professional signage listing their wares and a smart table and chairs set indoors. The owners still indulge in some witty word play on hand painted boards – jolly nice place. Other sandwich shops are available. ***************************************************** TIMELY MEMORIALS Those who are familiar with the quieter nooks and crannies of the University will have come across memorials to students and staff who are now, sadly, no longer with us. These usually take the form of a bench, a tree or shrub, or sometimes a room, with a dedication on a metal plaque, and paid for by families, colleagues and fellow students. Unfortunately, the depredations of time, weather, extravs and campus redevelopment can cause them to deteriorate or, in some cases, disappear altogether. The question arises as to what should be done with these memorials, and who should be responsible. This was the issue faced by Cartmel College when it moved from its old site at the north end of campus to Alexandra Park in 2004. Their solution was to take all the memorial plaques with them to be reattached to something appropriate in their new home. After some discussion, it was agreed that an ornamental sundial, mounted on a stone plinth, would be ideal. The rescued plaques would be attached to the plinth and a more permanent memorial for deceased Cartmellians created. All associated expenses would be borne by the College. However, this fell afoul of the Estates Masterplan, which envisaged that in time there would be a ‘memorial wood’ dedicated to all those Lancastrians and others who had passed on. Great idea, said Cartmel, but actually we would also like to be able to remember our own people in our own way. No you can’t, said Facilities, it does not fit the requirements of the Masterplan. Those who may have been tempted to go ahead anyway with installing the sundial were deterred by the fate of the new College barbecue, which also did not meet Facilities’ specifications and was duly demolished. And so the situation remains to this day. Cartmel still has its memorial plaques and still wants its sundial, Facilities tells them to wait for the memorial wood. Most of us would welcome a memorial wood and indeed it would be a fitting and lasting way of remembering those who have contributed to the University. But surely an important part of the ethos of a college system is that remembrance is also local. Would it not be possible to have both, or is that completely out of the question for a Top Ten university? ***************************************************** PART 1 HISTORY EXAM 1993, QUESTION 1 History 111 ‘A Social History of France 1815-1914 ‘What, in general terms, may French men and women in the 19th century have thought about when they had sexual relations with each other?’ Some thoughts that come to mind about this question; would this question be set today? If so, would it be set as part of a first year exam? And last, don’t you just love that phrase ‘in general terms’? ***************************************************** ALUMNA NEWS Your travel correspondent bumped into an old colleague travelling up to the University during the Easter vacation. Nothing remarkable in that, but she retired last year and was coming back regularly to see out her PhD students and complete some work on a research project - hence the bus journey. Such gestures of goodwill and continued loyalty to the University are not uncommon and must, apart from anything else save the University a not inconsiderable amount of money. Contrast that to the recent shoddy mean-spirited etc etc treatment and lack of loyalty shown to retiring staff with the ending of the conferring of ‘continuing membership’ on retiring staff. ***************************************************** LOGO More thoughts on the new University logo. 'Policing a brand' is the term used to define the process of ensuring clear and consistent brand communications to your customer. Apparently, building a strong and successful brand is the key to ensuring your customers both recognise and trust your business, while failing to control how your brand is presented to the market can create consumer confusion and damages the strength of its message - see: http://tinyurl.com/mfngxw2 We are told by those pesky Mad Men that your brand makes a promise to your customers and you must live up to those expectations or take the consequences. Some companies hire or appoint a member of staff whose specific responsibility is to ensure that the face of the business is 'on brand' at all times. subtext is very sorry to report that Lancaster University is just not cutting the mustard in this regard. The top of the Chaplaincy still looks like the old logo (in fact the entrance to the Chaplaincy Centre retains the old logo), those old cufflinks are still on sale, the marketing team via departments are distributing swoosh emblazoned material to prospective applicants (which is proving very popular with would-be students), the signs outside the examination halls asking passers-by to be quiet do so on the authority of the University, represented by…the swoosh, and there continues to be places within the University that are not on-message – see: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/fassintranet/ subtext would never advocate the sort of overzealous brand policing that we witnessed a couple of years ago at the Olympics, but surely if you are going to do something do it right? Some interesting additional comments come from Rachel Cornish, Associate Fellow at Warwick Business School, regarding re-branding. She urges that you ensure that you do not lose sight of the core values of your organisation, and if you must rebrand, ensure that testing is done with your existing customer base (all key stakeholders) to ensure the change will be an improvement. She describes this stage as critical, as indeed it would seem to be. Having done the deed it is essential that you then measure the results – i.e. in that influential focus group that none of us had anything to do with, how many of those three posh kids who apparently said they preferred the shield over the swoosh actually then came to Lancaster? ***************************************************** INTRANET We note in the most recent issue of LU Text that the new staff Intranet is being rolled out. (It doesn’t actually say ‘rolled out’, but we’re hip to the jargon.) Um, no doubt this will all be entirely wonderful, but did we miss a memo somewhere? Did everyone else know about this and just not us? We’d love to know more about the untold benefits we can look forward to… …was what we wrote before reading the VC’s beginning of term letter to staff, in which he tells us a bit more about it. Apparently there was a ‘100 strong’ staff committee feeding into its creation. Did this include any of our subscribers, and would they like to tell us about what happened? ***************************************************** POWER The University is justifiably proud of its success in reducing its power usage. However, without again belabouring the point about statistics, unless comparative data is included, it doesn’t actually mean very much. (That’s certainly not to dismiss it – just it’d be lovely to think that it’s all true.) But for those who want just to see the good news, here’s the link. twitter.com/LancasterUni/status/588341538645680132/photo/1 ***************************************************** LU TEXT LOST AND FOUND More of our beloved institution’s media presence that has been tragically overlooked by LU Text: Lancaster continues to spread the values of western education across the globe: http://tinyurl.com/k74ztxw It really hasn’t been looking good for COMSATS recently, has it: http://tinyurl.com/nyu7gxy The SU President is seeking to have her conviction overturned. subtext wishes her well in her appeal: http://tinyurl.com/mnhtbzm Some further reading on the Council’s deliberations over fees and rents: www.tinyurl.com/ka3nlmb ***************************************************** SHART ATTACK FROM: Mike M. Shart, Vice-Chancellor, Lune Valley Enterprise University (LuVE-U) TO: All staff SUBJECT: Rhododendrons Dear staff members, The sportsing fever which has swept across our campus over the past few months ought to have made you astutely aware of the 51st annual Rhododendrons tournament, a sportsing competition between Lune Valley Enterprise University and our friendly rivals, the Foss Facilitators of Success University (FFS-U). Presently, the results are still being interpreted and a full breakdown is soon to follow, but for now I am pleased to present to you all a general overview of our performance. At present, LuVE-U is firmly at the top of the rankings for: power croquet; mens’ underwater tiddlywinks; blindfold javelin 2nds; unicycling (inc. unicycling while juggling chainsaws); shark-jumping; collegiate pole dancing (clothed); advanced gurning and endurance thumb war. While we have not quite achieved leadership in all of the sports, we are comfortably in second place for all disciplines in which we are not quite leading. Furthermore, while the overall score of 225.5 – 139.5 to FFS may at first appear to be a cause for disquiet, I would like to remind all staff that such a broad and non-specific interpretation is both unhelpful and distorting: once the data has been fully interpreted we shall have a far clearer picture of our performance – you can all look forward to a detailed analysis of, for example, the impact divided by reach of the power of excellence-seeking sportsing performance enhancement objectives, in which I am confident we will be world-leading in the top 90 of the 100 leading universities in the North-West. Until then, I shan’t try and steer the LuVE-U community into a perception; I shall simply say that our success last weekend is indisputable, and will go a long way to establishing our University as a sportsing powerhouse on par with our main competitor institutions, Oxford and Cambridge. Yours, Mike M. Shart. ***************************************************** LINKS Another in our series of Interesting Links You May Want To Follow – yes, it’s Princeton and it’s American, but it’s also an excellent idea. www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/04/princeton-votes-for-academic-freedom?utm And fans of Laurie Taylor who missed this will probably enjoy - sometimes things are almost beyond parody. Almost. ***************************************************** COMIC RELIEF The final event of the 2014-15 International Concert Series in the Great Hall was a concert in aid of Comic Relief, devised by comedian-musician Rainer Hersch. An accomplished pianist and a Lancaster graduate (in Economics, not Music), Hersch began his career in arts management, at the same time moonlighting as a stand-up comedian. Gradually stand-up became a larger and larger part of his professional life, until finally he gave up arts management to concentrate entirely on comedy. He appeared in the Concert Series four years ago, in February 2011, as a solo performer; but this time he had assembled an orchestra (members of the Haffner Orchestra and the University Music Society) and a choir (Lancaster Singers) to perform alongside him. The audience was recruited to participate by clapping and barking in the Hornpipe, and by singing along in ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’. The well-known Pachelbel Canon was enhanced by the inclusion of excerpts from ‘Let it Be’ and ‘Puff the Magic Dragon.’ The Anvil Chorus from Verdi's opera Il Trovatore was performed with a full-size anvil on stage (remarkably, the anvil was almost perfectly in tune). As befits an economist/musician, Hersch gave us some useful statistics on operas - specifically on the percentage of the cast of characters that meet their deaths in operas by various composers. Apparently, the league table runs : Mozart - 41%; Rossini - 43%; Puccini - 47%; and Verdi a whopping 60%. Also on the programme was the baritone Rodney Earl Clarke, who gave excellent renditions of songs from G&S and from Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia. His calm personality provided exactly the right counterpoise to the energetic Rainer Hersch. This, and his resonant speaking voice, is no doubt why the BBC included Clarke in its team of presenters of the 2014 Last Night of the Proms. This was a very enjoyable evening, bringing a fitting end to what has been an excellent season of Great Hall concerts - and most of the performers gave their services, so the concert raised a tidy sum for Comic Relief. ***************************************************** LETTERS Dear subtext I was a member of the first cohort of psychology students in Lancaster in 1976, and retained links with Lancaster, teaching open college students and suchlike, becoming a full-time member of staff in 1988. I played a small part in helping the management school grow from a few small departments to its current strength, but suffered a stress related cerebral haemorrhage in 1998 and retired on medical grounds. I rejected the offer of an emeritus professorship as it did not feel appropriate, but gratefully accepted what I thought of as an honour, namely being made a life member of the University (and, incidentally, decided not to take legal redress for an incapacitating work-related condition). I came to an arrangement whereby I swapped the use of a room for the supervision of students, and as a representative of the wider community I served on council for around 10 years. Inevitably senior staff changed and history becomes forgotten and the arrangement was broken. Throughout this unpleasant time, however, I felt that my life membership of the University recognised the contribution that I made to it and indicated that my work was still valued in some way. I had not appreciated until now that my life membership (and by implication, I) was seen by the higher echelons not as an honour, but as an annoying minor drain on resources. I am sure there are others with similar stories. I find it amazing that the University wants to jettison years of goodwill for the saving a few pounds. The University is spending time and effort building up its student alumni. Retired staff tend to have more money and good connections than students do. Does it not realise the benefit that can be obtained from staff alumni who feel valued for the work they have done and who retain a positive connection with the University? All the best, Monica Lee ******** Dear Editors, Our university has spent a bit of money (and garnered a bit of good publicity) on power-saving, carbon-capture, and other Green issues. Unfortunately we are not best sited to take advantage of solar power. But for most of the year Lancaster is blessed (if that is the word) with an unusual amount of one natural resource. Perhaps we could put our shiniest and most eager engineering and ecological geniuses to work finding out how to exploit this work from 2008: http://phys.org/news120216714.html "Scientists [...] have recently developed a system that recovers the vibration energy from a piezoelectric structure impacted by a falling raindrop. The system works with raindrops ranging in diameter from 1 to 5 mm, and simulations show that it’s possible to recover up to 12 milliwatts from one of the larger “downpour” drops." For those who learn better from seminars than the written word I present a 4.5 minute lecture from 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUGcmFxn3p8 Simon Slavin ***************************************************** The editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order) of: George Green, James Groves, Ian Paylor, Ronnie Rowlands, Joe Thornberry, Johnny Unger and Martin Widden. |