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subtext issue
76 26
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/. 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:
students elected to city council, new V-C appointment process, new chancellor
for Cambridge?, in virtual contact, recent construction on campus, REF -
latest news, university league tables and all that, letters. ***************************************************** EDITORIAL At a
time of year when the demands made on our time by exam scripts make research
an increasingly precious indulgence, many of us are acutely aware of the
duality of our role as both researchers and teachers. Many, indeed, have commented that the two
activities make for an incongruous pairing.
In later years, the writer Clive James used to wince at the thought of
his revered teacher, the medieval English scholar George Russell, having to
condescend to read the inadequate musings that constituted his latest
essay. Others have looked back with
deep sympathy at the novelist Kingsley Amis having to set aside his latest
masterpiece in order to tackle an inordinate mountain of undergraduate exam
scripts in Swansea in the 1950s. Yet,
for all the tedium of final assessment in particular, most of us would have
it no other way. We are teachers as
much as we are scholars: the two activities cannot ultimately be prised
apart, and we take pride in the achievements of our students and in their
future careers. And yet the pressures
from the forthcoming REF seem increasingly to be pushing universities into a
false separation of these intertwined activities. Although not currently on the agenda at
Lancaster, there are all too definite signs of other universities moving in
the direction of identifying only an elite within
their staff as research-capable. subtext has consistently held that the RAE and
particularly the REF exercises do not simply measure but actually distort our
research and our professional relationships.
We trust that Lancaster will continue to uphold its policy of
expecting almost all its staff to be active researchers while also proud and
dedicated teachers and examiners. ***************************************************** A
report on the meeting of Council held on the 20th May will be included in the
next issue of subtext. ***************************************************** STUDENTS
ELECTED TO CITY COUNCIL subtext offers its congratulations to four
undergraduate students who have been elected to the Lancaster City Council in
last month's local government elections.
Paul Aitchison (PPR/History) and Jonathan
Dixon (Physics) were both elected for the University Ward, while Josh
Bancroft (PPR) was elected for the Scotforth West
Ward and Mark Bevan (PPR) for the Poulton Ward. All four are members of the Labour Party
(the two University seats were held by Liberal Democrats last time). Paul Aitchison,
18, has the further distinction of being the youngest Councillor ever to have
been elected to the City Council. ***************************************************** NEW
V-C APPOINTMENT PROCESS As
was reported in the Senate Report of the last issue of subtext, Senators
rebelled at the prospect that their representatives on the V-C Search
Committee would be chosen by the Pro-Chancellor in consultation with the
University Secretary and insisted that they be allowed to elect their
representatives, as had happened in the past.
The ensuing election resulted in Claire Powne
(University Librarian) and Gavin Brown (Director of Undergraduate Studies)
being elected onto the Committee. They
will join Harry Thomason and Lois Willis, both of whom will sit on the
Committee as representatives of Council. But
assiduous readers of LU-Text will also have noticed that Sue Cox, Dean of the
Management School, is to be a member of the Committee, in spite of the fact
that she is not a member of Council and has not been elected by Senate. By what means, therefore, has she become a
member of the Search Committee? On the
grounds, it seems, that she is representing UMAG, which seems questionable
given that the University's own web site comments that UMAG 'is not
constituted as a formal committee of the Senate or the Council and does not
take decisions on matters that are the responsibility of these bodies'. How
has this come about? The original proposal presented to Senate made no
mention of UMAG, which leads us to speculate about what has gone on. Presumably, Bryan Gray, Pro-Chancellor,
wanted to appoint Professor Cox, but when Senate resolved to elect its own
members, he then invented the category of a UMAG member of the
committee. If this is indeed what
happened (and of course we can only speculate), then we may well ask why it
is that Professor Cox (her many obvious qualities notwithstanding) should be
thought by Gray to be such an indispensable member of the committee. It also raises questions about an
appointments process that is evidently open to manipulation by the
Pro-Chancellor. Surely, the time has
come for these procedures to be properly formalised so as to prevent a
Pro-Chancellor from (a) depriving Senate of the right to elect its own
representatives and (b) packing the committee with his own nominees. If
these procedures are indeed to be properly formalised, attention should also
be given to student representation on the Committee. At present, there is none, and one wonders
why this is. It may be that the LUSU
President put up a fight for such representation - and lost. But then again, given his record over the
last year, perhaps not. Meanwhile,
word has been reaching us of Heidrick &
Struggles, the headhunters appointed to 'assist'
the Search Committee. One reader
alerted us to an article in the New York Times, which sheds some light on
their workings: 'Whenever a job comes with significant social duties, the
spouse is of great interest', said Melanie Kusin,
an executive recruiter at Heidrick & Struggles
who specializes in the fashion and cosmetics industries. 'And there are a lot of subtle ways to
gather information without courting trouble,' she said. 'If the spouse is really terrific, the
candidate's references may drop that unbidden into a conversation,' Ms. Kusin said.
'Whenever I call a candidate's house, eventually I invariably get the
spouse and always try and stay on the phone as long as possible,' she said.
'It can give you such a different window into who that person is.' Good to see that that they're so in line
with the university's equality and diversity policy. On the other hand, those who have so far
met the Heidrick & Struggles representatives as
part of the consultation process have reported themselves to be pleasantly
surprised by their knowledge and appreciation of HE
and their sensitivity to the internal politics of the university. Let's hope
this is reflected in their search process. Incidentally,
it is worth reminding ourselves that in 2002, the then V-C Search Committee
discussed whether to employ headhunters and decided
against. This time, the Committee was
denied such a discussion, the decision having already been made in advance by
the ever-present Bryan Gray. Perhaps Heidrick and Struggles, in their search for the best
candidate, might want to add to their list of 'essential qualities' the
ability to deal with an over-mighty and interfering Pro-Chancellor. ***************************************************** NEW
CHANCELLOR FOR CAMBRIDGE? While
we at Lancaster are occupied with the appointment of a new Vice-Chancellor,
Cambridge is currently engaged in appointing a new Chancellor. The current Chancellor, HRH The Duke of
Edinburgh, is to retire at the end of June, shortly after his 90th
birthday. Previous Chancellors have
held the post for life, but His Royal Highness evidently believes that 90 is
a reasonable retirement age, and who can blame him? On 20th May, the Nominations Board
announced that it would be nominating Lord Sainsbury to be the Duke's
successor. An immediate reaction might
be that Sainsbury is not quite in the mould of the great statesmen and
scholars who have held the post in the last hundred years. These have been: Lord Rayleigh (Nobel Prize
winning physicist), Balfour and Baldwin (both former Prime Ministers), Jan
Smuts (former Prime Minister of South Africa), Lord Tedder
(distinguished wartime Air Chief Marshal), Lord Adrian (Nobel Prize winning
physiologist) and the Duke of Edinburgh.
All of these (except Baldwin and Tedder)
were members of the prestigious Order of Merit (OM). One cannot help but feel that Lord
Sainsbury, former Chairman of Sainsbury's supermarkets and junior minister in the Blair
government, is not quite in the same league as these august personages. There is, however, provision in the
university's Statutes and Ordinances for any other person to be nominated for
the Chancellorship, provided that the nomination is supported by 50 members
of Senate and is submitted no later than 28 days after the board's own
nomination. An election by all members
of Senate would then take place. So
perhaps a more distinguished candidate may yet appear. Given that the Cambridge Senate consists of
all MAs and PhDs of the University, there may well be enough Cambridge
Senators at Lancaster to nominate an alternative candidate. An interesting thought. ***************************************************** IN
VIRTUAL CONTACT Many
subtext readers will have been involved recently in efforts to increase their
student contact hours to meet the new University norms - and, it is said,
consumer demand. But more recent developments suggest that the ingenuity
devoted to maximising hours while minimising pain may have been misplaced.
The pioneers of Teaching, Learning and Assessment who insisted that students
wanted more contact hours and had to be given them are now working on a
strategy for E-learning that may lead to a redefinition of 'contact' to include
being 'active in a virtual environment', and not just being 'co-present in
some definable physical space'. As reported in subtext, the creaking old
LUVLE system is to be replaced - not necessarily by Moodle,
but certainly by some system bought in from a commercial provider, not
developed in-house like LUVLE. This is
scheduled to happen from the start of 2012-13. The new system will allow for
podcasts, video-streaming and other at-a-distance teaching and communication
technologies, and for enhanced interactivity.
In other words, it will allow students to learn as much as before, but
with less contact with teaching staff. The
principles of e-learning are not new, but the technologies to enable it are.
And if more students begin to work longer hours in part-time employment, more
will make use of them, and fewer will be free to attend lectures, or will see
the point of them. ***************************************************** REVIEW
OF RECENT CONSTRUCTION ON CAMPUS Anyone
who has moved, well, almost anywhere on campus recently will have met
diversions, barriers and hoardings because of construction work. Recently the completed work to Alexandra
Square was revealed for all to see and walk on, and the new Charles Carter
Building was opened. As with any
recently-completed construction, there will be a number of small snags to be
corrected and last-minute tasks to be undertaken, but at least we can now get
an overall impression of these two projects. Charles
Carter Building Shoe-horned
into a space between Pendle and Grizedale Colleges
and the first phase of the Management School, the Charles Carter Building
proves to be a good neighbour to them.
The height and mass fit well with its neighbours, the asymmetrical
front and rear facades, combined with the verticality of the fenestration,
are pleasing, while the dark brickwork cladding chimes with the Grizedale College buildings. The building forms a much-needed sense of
enclosure to the second Grizedale courtyard, and the
generous open portico to the south supports two upper floors while giving a
sense of both space and semi-shelter to those on foot. The building has won an RIBA award for the
North West, which also brings it into contention for a national RIBA award - a pleasing accolade. The
interior rather disappoints. The
spacious front concourse is flexible and bright, but the main focus of
attention is the large bulk of the centrally-placed lift shaft, sheathed in
stark grey concrete. For those
preferring to eschew the lift, there are stairs strongly reminiscent of those
in a multi-storey car park, minus the graffiti. Meanwhile, the seminar and meeting rooms
are positioned somewhat apologetically around the edge of the ground
floor. Upstairs, there is an open-plan
office area for research students, few of whom seemed to have found it. Those who have sit in open space or in
glass-fronted rooms, and there is a disagreeable hint of early lunatic
asylums, where a superintendent sat at a central hub from which he could view
inmates' behaviour, about the way in which those studying are on view and
under scrutiny. On
the positive side, academics' offices are bigger than the standard issue of
recent refurbishments, and the energy-efficient heating and ventilation system
works well. The visitor will also be
struck by the sheer size of all the doors, which are on a scale that suggests
that the intellectual giants of the Management School have bodies to match
their brains. On the other hand, the mixing bays, if that is what they are,
are furnished with tables of little more than six inches in height: it would
be easier to use them from a kneeling or reclining position than from a
conventionally seated one, though there are also low-backed settees,
apparently designed with visual appeal, not comfort, in mind. Even odder is the location of the cleaners'
cupboards, which can only be reached through a disabled- accessible
lavatory/shower room. It's hard to
believe that no-one noticed this when the layout of the rooms was being
designed, but harder still to believe that someone did notice, and decided it
wasn't a problem. No doubt users will
adjust in time. There
is a surprising absence of internal signage, and a lack of signs of ownership
by the building's inhabitants that makes the occasional scribbled-on box lid
of returned work a welcome diversion, but perhaps this is due to be rectified
soon. Doubtless they will find ways to
take the building over and make it their own - but it may take some effort. In
view of Charles Carter's legendary modesty, to put his name over the entrance
door in large capital letters seems insensitive. Rather than plain CHARLES CARTER, surely it
should at least be 'Charles Carter Building' (as with George Fox Building),
or possibly 'Carter House' (like Gillow House)? [see letters, below - eds.] ****** Alexandra
Square Alexandra
Square has always been a long rectangle.
As with much of the original campus, after 45 years it had begun to
look rather tired, and renovation was overdue. Following the recent works, it certainly
has a more modern look. The steps will
continue to be a good space on which to gather in sunny weather. But the rectangle has become much more
elongated, hemmed in on the north side by a more gradual flight of steps in
front of the Learning Zone, and on the south by large planters. The Square still has the feeling of an open
space in which events could take place, but it is a much more restricted
one. As it is the central space of the
campus, this is unfortunate. At
least there is now a waterproof membrane under the paving, which should
eliminate the chronic dripping which made waiting for a bus in the underpass
a damp experience. The
old square had a criss-cross herringbone pattern in the paving which was
attractive, if rather muted by wear and dirt, and gave relief to the eye as
it travelled over the length of the space.
In recent years, the pattern was brought back to life every June by
cleaning, but there must be a limit to how many times this can be done. The new paving is of a higher quality
(granite from China, apparently), and it should retain its appearance for
longer and need less maintenance; yet its grey colour seems more unremitting,
particularly during and after rain.
Although there are variations in the tone of the grey colour, viewed
from one end it looks completely uniform.
Let us hope that planting will bring relief to the eye in due
course. ***************************************************** REF
- LATEST NEWS News
is reaching us of REF policies at other universities around the country. In particular, Birmingham academic staff have received an e-mail from their
Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Transfer. It seems that Birmingham has taken the
decision only to submit staff to the REF who have
four outputs which have an aggregate score of 11 and they are expecting that
a significant proportion of staff will not be submitted. They anticipate the development of a
teaching-only career pathway for those who demonstrate 'excellence in
teaching'. Furthermore,
the e-mail states that: 'There will be occasions when an individual's
achievement of a REF score of less than 11 points is consistent with a valued
research performance, for example where someone contributes essential
expertise to an excellent research project without being able to claim
substantial credit for this in the REF.
In these cases, Heads of College have been asked to advise the
Vice-Chancellor in relation to the individual's research career and their
overall contribution to the University.'
Presumably, the point of this last statement is to provide a way for
those academics without four submissions with an aggregate of 11 at this
particular point to continue operating on a combined research/teaching
contract. All
of this is entirely consistent with subtext's previous predictions, namely, a
much more selective approach to staff submission to this REF, and the likely
consequent division of academics into 'research' and 'teaching' staff. At
Lancaster, there has been no official word as yet on the possible development
of 'teaching-only' contracts, and we can only hope that we will not move down
this path. As we have commented
before, just because someone will not have four outputs of 3*/4* quality at
this particular point, it by no means follows that they have not done in the
past or that they will do in the future. But
what is clear is that this REF will have significant career implications for
individuals. With so much at stake, it
is worrying that so much will depend on the 3*/2* boundary. Those above that threshold will bring in
money while those below it will not.
Yet, as anyone involved in the last RAE will testify, determining
precisely where the boundary between 2* and 3* lies is extremely difficult,
not least when it is remembered that both are deemed to be of 'international'
significance. The
decisions on the 2*/3* boundary in particular will be taken by internal and
external assessors during the internal 'mock' exercises of the individual
institutions. They will no doubt be
aware of the very heavy burden of responsibility they will be bearing in the
making of these inevitably subjective decisions. This
REF looks set to entail a major change in the nature and shape of academic
career paths as well as in the relationship between teaching and research in
university life. These changes will be
brought about for purely tactical reasons and without any sustained
intellectual reflection on the relationship between teaching and research. And all this is being done for the sake of
research income that looks set to become decreasingly significant in the
developing context of university finance.
***************************************************** UNIVERSITY
LEAGUE TABLES AND ALL THAT We
can all feel a glow of pride that Lancaster University is currently highly
ranked in league tables: it's always encouraging to be a member of a
successful team. As LU-Text noted
last week, in the recently-published Guardian table Lancaster is placed 7th,
of 120 institutions in the UK. The university
is 9th in the Independent Complete University Guide, and 10th in the Times
ranking, two tables which use very similar criteria. Internationally, Lancaster comes in at
124th in the THE Education World University
ranking. The benefit of these good
results for the University's marketing is recognised by their being
prominently featured on the home page of the web site (it doesn't mention the
Sunday Times ranking, where Lancaster is 19th in the UK). These variations are an inevitable result
of the different baskets of measures used by the ranking organisations, and
the various ways they combine the results of the measures to arrive at a
single numerical score. In
fact, the value of league tables of universities has been widely questioned,
because they combine into a single score a range of measures which, although
most are relevant to the student experience, are nonetheless disparate. Most of the tables include the most recent
RAE result in the scoring (the Guardian is the exception to this), but it is
not obvious that good research performance contributes to the delivery of
undergraduate degree courses, at least not in students' early years. Indeed, it could be argued that for various
reasons a good RAE result may be negatively correlated with such measures as
degree completion rates. But league
tables have become embedded in our culture, at least in the English-speaking
world, so we have to live with them, and no doubt universities will continue
to exploit them to their advantage if they can do this without it becoming
too obvious. A
possibly useful development on the horizon is a table reported to be under
development in the EU, which will allow users to put in their own criteria,
with the aim of supporting student choice.
Each candidate will presumably be able to generate their own league
table of universities, based on their own particular priorities. More dubious is the new World Reputation
Ranking [http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/],
based on a survey of the opinions of 'more than 13000 experienced
academics'. Even the tables put
together by newspapers try to use fairly objective measures, but a survey of
opinions, even of a very large number of experienced people, sounds like a
different thing altogether. The importance
of league table position for marketing has had a beneficial effect at
Lancaster, for example by encouraging the University to improve facilities in
teaching rooms and to build new sports facilities. However, it is a continual worry that it
may be having too large an influence on academic matters. The proportion of 1st and 2.1 class
degrees, which figures in most rankings, could readily be manipulated by
moving the class boundaries. On a
national scale, there is a greater concern: that the success of private
American universities in the international league tables is encouraging the
UK government to allow the establishment of more private institutions
here. This is a worry partly because
it represents a complete change of ethos, but also because it is
misguided. As Howard Hotson points out in a recent article in the London
Review of Books [http://tinyurl.com/feesmistakes], US universities figure
more prominently in these tables simply because there are more of them - the US population is five times that of
the UK. Hotson
shows that by any reasonable measure the UK university system is far more
successful than the US one, and the last thing we should be trying to do here
is to imitate the American pattern. ***************************************************** LETTERS subtext
75: Charles Carter and de mortuis nil nisi bonum Dear
subtext, The
older I get, and I don't seem to be getting otherwise, the more embarrassed I
am to concede that Charles Carter did a cracking good job as founding
VC. The embarrassment comes from the
view I had of him shaped, and colored, by his bad
conduct in the Craig affair, and his later opposition to my becoming
Principal of Grizedale (or perhaps hesitation would
be fairer: whichever, I was told that his 'unease' was easily overcome by the
staunchly Tory Lady Fitzherbert-Brockholes of Claughton Hall who felt that a vote was a vote was a
vote). But
let's let it all pass. His modesty was
legendary, breached only by his knighthood, but his actual rule was that no
building (or even ell) could be named after a living person. That rule was breached in the naming of the
Nelson Mandela Coffee Bar, and then applied to my suggestion of naming the
little passageway opposite Furness Foyer the 'Woolrych
Gate', after History's founding chair and the best first boss I ever had. But
neither the rule nor Carter's legendary modesty is breached by having a
building named after a dead former VC.
But
surely it would have been better to rename University House 'Carter House'.
He actually ruled that roost, and Carter House sounds a lot more modest than
'The Charles Carter Building'. A nice,
domestic, Quakerish ring to it. Otherwise
the only thing to say about subtext 75 is that I wholly endorse the Tunisian
comment. Cheers, Bob
Bliss, Dean, Pierre Laclede Honors
College, University of Missouri-St. Louis ****** Looking
at students Dear
subtext, From
your latest edition: 'An
unscientific and anecdotal walk around the University doesn't reveal many
mature students, nor many Black or Asian faces.' The
mature student resident in this household would like to point out that you
obviously didn't venture into the Management School in your unscientific
walk. Though I'm also not clear if you
are excluding Chinese students from 'Asian', even if you are (and there are
quite a number of them on campus, but it is true few are British Chinese), a
quick trip down the Spine will reveal that there are fairly substantial
numbers of students with origins in the Indian Subcontinent, many of whom are
Home students. The
mature student's wife would also like to point out that you cannot actually
distinguish mature students from members of staff by just looking at
them. Katie
Alcock, Psychology ***************************************************** 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. |