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issue 42 October 16 2008 ***************************************************** 'Truth: lies open to all' ***************************************************** Every fortnight. All editorial correspondence to: subtext-editors [at] lancaster.ac.uk. Please delete as soon as possible after receipt. Back issues and subscription details can be found at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext. The editors welcome letters, comments, suggestions, and opinions from readers. subtext reserves the right to edit submissions. subtext does not publish material that is submitted anonymously, but is willing to consider without obligation requests for publication with the name withheld. For tips to prevent subtext from getting swept up into your 'junk email folder', see http://www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext/dejunk/. ***************************************************** CONTENTS: editorial, pay rise, colleges and bars, Paul Fletcher, New IAS Director, do not read the news, Council, Senate, graduology, Terry Eagleton, blackshirts, letters ***************************************************** EDITORIAL We welcome all readers back to the new academic session. As ever, the coming year looks set to provide much that will provoke subtext comment and amusement as well as serious concern. One of our recurring themes over past issues has been to raise the question of the very idea of a university. Indeed, it is a question to which we keep returning precisely because the idea of a university is now so contested. So many of the challenges we face arise from competing conceptions of what a university should be. Two developments, one recent and one prospective, bring the issue again into sharp focus. Last Wednesday, Senate agreed to new procedures for the appointment of senior officers, such as Pro-Vice-Chancellors and Deans (see Senate Report, below). In brief, application procedures have been streamlined (with still less direct academic participation), and appointments are to be opened to external candidates. Far from being a routine procedural change, this in fact signals yet again a fundamental change in the university's self-conception. In the past, integral to this conception was the notion of a university as a self-governing community of scholars. Senior officers (other than the Vice-Chancellor, and subject in each case to Council ratification) were appointed by us and from among us and were answerable to us. But this, it seems, now falls foul of current business practice and legal requirements (although the case that this is so is, as ever, flimsily made). We scholars are apparently not to be trusted to appoint our own heads (rather like the way in which Court was not trusted to elect our own Chancellor). Academic participation in these appointments is to be minimised, and the appointees themselves may well, in future, come from outside the university and, potentially, from outside our profession. A Pro-Vice-Chancellor with a successful career in retail management behind him or her now seems a much closer prospect. As we have seen in the university’s numerous clashes with Pro-Chancellor Bryan Gray, such people often have little understanding of our academic core values and modes of operating, seeking to impose alien practices that are often not in the interests of true scholarship. Dealing with this at the level of the Pro-Chancellor has been difficult enough; having to do so at the level of Pro-Vice-Chancellors and Deans is a daunting prospect. The ramifications of this shift are so enormous that one can only wonder with exasperation and frustration at why so many Senators (including student representatives) did not see fit to vote it down. Recent events at Oxford suggest that any similar proposal there would rightly have been given short shrift. Speaking of destructive proposals which are against our ethos and which endanger the integrity of our profession, we should also alert readers to current discussions on employment procedures, currently enshrined in Statute 20, in which they are integrally linked with the definition of academic freedom. We understand that the intention is to decouple this link, which in itself reveals a fundamental ignorance of the special nature of the academic profession and the heightened scholarly need for security of tenure. That this is no longer understood is another revelation of a quite different conception of the university held by those in positions of leadership. So it seems that the conception of a university that many of us hold dear continues to be steadily eroded from within. Such erosion will no doubt gather pace with the new arrangements for the appointment of senior officers. subtext continues its commitment to highlight these erosions for those with the stomach to pick up the baton and fight. ***************************************************** PAY NOW, BYE LATER? When the University and College Union struck the three-year index-linked pay deal with employers in 2006, neither its members nor their employers expected that the final instalment would be as high as 5%, as announced in the memo sent to all University staff on Tuesday. But rising energy and food costs, combined with the crisis in the global financial system, have sent the Retail Price Index soaring at the very moment at which the final instalment was being calculated. Good news for us wage-earners - and for the UCU, who can claim this as the result of clever bargaining on their part. But this is a blow to the institutions, who have been relying on the annual instalments remaining at around 3%. Some universities and colleges are phasing the award, others say they may not honour it (though they might not get away with that), but our own management has announced they will implement the increase in full, without phasing. How will the unanticipated expense be absorbed? The memo hints that the pain might still fall mainly in the payroll area. What can this mean? There are certainly rumours of a de facto freeze on promotions, and the planned Redundancies Committee might be seen as a handy instrument for managing difficult financial times. But, despite the memo's bullish tone about Lancaster's financial situation, one suspects that the Lancaster's ambitious capital building programme might also take a hit on projects for which contracts are not yet let - the new Sports Centre being a likely casualty (see Council report below). ***************************************************** COLLEGES, BARS AND SUMMER DEVELOPMENTS The summer saw a major organisational change in the way the colleges operate, pertaining particularly to the bars, perceived by many as being the centre of college social life. The operation of the college bars had for some time been subject to review, and many expected that they would be taken out of the direct control of the colleges and given over to the university's commercial director of trading activities, David Peeks, on the grounds that they were not financially efficient. As it happens, only four college bars were so treated: Cartmel, County, Grizedale and Pendle. The fact that only four were subject to take-over and the particular bars chosen was the cause of some puzzlement. The rationale for a partial take-over was by no means clear and not all of these bars are perceived are perceived as commercially 'failing' (The County bar, in particular is notably successful. It is suspected that Mr Peeks was unwilling to take on responsibility for the entire bar network in one fell swoop, and that he was also unwilling to take on only the least commercially successful bars – hence the configuration that was announced. There is little doubt, however, that the arrangements are transitional, and many believe a full bar take-over to be in the offing. There is also no question that those who work in the colleges – both junior and senior members – perceive it as yet another demoralising attack on the colleges. That this is so was evident from the front page headline of the year's first issue of SCAN: 'How the Uni plans to break the college system'. The loss of control over the bars is perceived as the latest in a cumulative series of actions that have left the colleges feeling demoralised and under-appreciated. Mention is also made of the woeful provision for college social space as the college buildings themselves are refurbished. Refurbished colleges have lost their senior common rooms (rooms used, in practice, for a whole host of college functions for both senior and junior members) and those that still possess them have lost control of them and they are now centrally bookable. Other rooms devoted to social space as well as administrative offices and meeting rooms are both fewer in number and smaller. It has often been said in the past that the colleges operate on a shoe string. Now, it appears, that shoe string itself is getting shorter. Once again, the University appears to be operating on the basis of double-speak. In its publicity, it is happy to trumpet the appeal and value of the colleges, but in its actions, it undermines them at every turn. More significantly, we should all start asking ourselves whether the small gains university management perceives itself to be getting from these reforms is worth the demoralisation, alienation and cynicism that they provoke among both staff and students (alumni of the future). While the University excels in all sorts of ways, its treatment of people who give so much to the institution leaves much to be desired. ***************************************************** PAUL FLETCHER, 1965-2008 subtext was deeply saddened to hear of the sudden death of Paul Fletcher over the summer. He died after a severe heart attack in July while attending a conference in Sydney, Australia, leaving his partner, Deborah Sutton of the History Department, and their baby daughter, May. A Lecturer in Religious Studies since 1997, Paul was an early subscriber and supporter of subtext and a consistently assiduous reader of it. He held strong views on the idea of a university and was deeply opposed to many of the developments in higher education generally and at Lancaster in particular in recent years. His contribution to the University went well beyond his immediate department, and he was a good citizen of the wider University in a very tangible sense. His activities ranged from inaugurating and attending reading groups and departmental seminars; serving on the board of the IAS; planning, organising and running international conferences; membership of faculty teaching committees; attending regular inter-disciplinary meetings with colleagues in college bars; serving on Part I Review Committees and playing football for the University staff team. While many of these activities are essential for the maintenance of a vibrant intellectual life in any university, few gain any recognition by the prevailing audit culture. Yet Paul refused to be swayed by this, and happily involved himself in any activity he believed to be of intrinsic worth - all of this on top of the usual full load of teaching, administration and research. In all these multifarious activities, he was appreciated across the University for his warmth, wit and dedication. A memorial service was held at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Lancaster on Saturday 11th October. The Cathedral was packed by a congregation of family, friends, colleagues from right across the University community as well as current and former students, many of whom travelled long distances to be there. Tributes were delivered by Paul's younger brother Martin Fletcher, by his best friend from undergraduate days Matt Godfrey, and by his closest university friend and colleague Mick Dillon. These were deeply moving and each of them achieved the feat of both vividly affirming our own memories of Paul and at the same time revealing – to many of us – new unknown aspects of his protean character. The service was followed by a reception in the cathedral hall that was convivial in a way of which Paul would have approved. Paul's partner, Deborah Sutton, wrote an obituary which appeared in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/sep/11/3). ***************************************************** NEW DIRECTOR APPOINTED FOR THE INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES Professor Michael Kraetke has recently been appointed as the next Director of the IAS. He will take over from the current, founding Director, Bob Jessop, on 1 January 2009. Kraetke was chosen in September by an appointments panel which was chaired by Deputy Vice-Chancellor Bob McKinlay and which included an external academic and members from across the University (although not from the Management School, which has raised some eyebrows). He is currently Professor of Political Economy at the University of Amsterdam. His academic interests include Marx (among other roles he is an editor of the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe), Marxian political economy and its contemporary relevance, taxation and fiscal sociology, the comparative history of the welfare state, the social economy, basic income policies (in theory and practice), and other economic and social policy issues. As well as working within a broad Marxist perspective, Kraetke also has wider interests, both theoretically and empirically: he is active in scholarly associations concerned with Leibniz, Hegel, Polanyi, Benjamin, Gramsci, and Schumpeter. The new, high-profile appointment is intended to help take the IAS to the next stage in its development. Although often listed alongside InfoLab21, the Lancaster Environment Centre and LUMS's Lancaster Leadership Centre as a 'flagship' or 'centre of excellence' at the University, IAS has always been the poor relation by far in terms of resources. For example, Bob Jessop has only been receiving a modest buyout from his duties in Sociology, which has necessarily limited his IAS role. By contrast, Kraetke, while taking up a Chair in Political Economy in the Department of Sociology for the remainder of his time, will be expected to devote at least 50% of his time to the IAS - a significant increase in the directorial role. The new Director was reportedly appointed on the basis of his vision of the future of the IAS as an interdisciplinary flagship for the Faculty, LUMS, and the wider university. His interdisciplinary background was also a significant factor: with a first degree in mathematical economics, three MAs (in economics, political science, and sociology), a PhD in fiscal sociology, and a Habilitation (second doctoral degree) in political economy, he was seen to have a wide understanding of the different styles and modes of research in different disciplines. Having studied in Germany and France and taught in Amsterdam for many years, he is fluent in English, Dutch, French and German and conversant with Italian and Spanish. In addition to his previous attachment to two of the top German research institutes (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, the largest social research centre in Europe, and the Max Planck Institute for Social Research), he is also frequently invited to advise governments and the European Commission on issues of economic and social policy. He comes with a wide-ranging set of international contacts in China, Japan, Latin America, Continental Europe, and North America and has plans to use international research collaborations to develop the international profile of the IAS. subtext wishes Professor Kraetke well in his task of transforming the IAS into a major academic force at Lancaster and beyond, and hopes that he is able to maintain and strengthen the collaboration between FASS and the Management School that is so important for its success. ***************************************************** DO NOT READ THE NEWS Is it illegal to know what's happening at the University nowadays? Anyone who innocently clicked on LU News 403 as it arrived in his or her inbox on 19 September was immediately poked in the eye by a prominent announcement concerning an item that had appeared in the previous issue. The earlier item, by mentioning the existence of an industrial 'CASE' studentship with Jaguar & Land Rover, had apparently been 'in breach of the Non-Disclosure Agreement in place between Jaguar & Land Rover and Lancaster University in publicising confidential information without the required prior consent of Jaguar & Land-Rover'. Jaguar & Land Rover had insisted that all recipients of the earlier item should be informed that they insisted that there was 'no further exposure of this project resulting from this announcement'. A slightly more informative description of the PhD project in question appeared briefly on webpages on the LU News and FST websites. Presumably, those members of the University who were reckless enough to read these pages before they were deleted have since been rounded up for interrogation and memory erasure. One can still find 'ghost' versions of these apparently innocuous pages at web caching sites such as that provided on Google searches - however, subtext would rather not risk litigation or midnight raids by suggesting that you look for them. Besides, curious readers may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb: an even longer description advertising the studentship has been posted at http://www.jobs.ac.uk and the Times Higher Education website. Presumably applicants for the studentship are allowed to read this? subtext is not sure. Of course, perhaps this incident is nothing more than an opportunity to enjoy seeing the Press Office having to appear to get cross about an announcement it had itself circulated. But it does make one wonder what's going on here. Surely, universities are supposed to be about the pursuit of knowledge, and surely that pursuit crucially depends on the free sharing of knowledge and ideas. If the blurring of distinctions between academic and commercial worlds are going to throw up more and more of these non-disclosure agreements, will not this start to impact on the capacity of the academy to produce new knowledge in the first place? ***************************************************** COUNCIL The University's Council met on 3 October and heard a presentation by Professor McEnery on the work of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. This was in the more critical style that has been a feature of recent presentations by Faculty Deans; a key message was that performance had not improved commensurately with new investment, and that more needed to be done in the areas of research income, knowledge transfer, and the quality and size of the undergraduate entry. LICA was presented as a key investment in developing the postgraduate portfolio and in knowledge transfer, which, Professor McEnery remarked, was harder to make sense of in FASS than in other faculties. A 'knife' would be applied to areas that failed to improve their undergraduate intake. The first priority was to achieve budget targets, mainly through gap savings in the payroll. Council members are likely to have taken away an impression of new broom enthusiasm and a newly directive style of Faculty management. The Vice Chancellor's report covered much the same ground as his report to Senate the following Wednesday (see below). Changes in the Department of Continuing Education were not formally a matter for Senate, since it was not intended to close any department, or for Council, since there were no proposals for compulsory redundancies. At the national level, he noted concerns about the funding of USS and the pay rise based on the September RPI. He predicted redundancies at some universities, and said that UCU was making some of its staff redundant. Generally, in view of the global economic outlook, he predicted that the next eighteen months would be 'challenging'. The Director of Finance and Resources, Andrew Neal, reported that the University's financial results for the year just ended were positive, showing a surplus of 4.6% of turnover, increased cash inflow, and a current asset ratio well ahead of target. He had taken steps to shift some assets into safer investments. The Vice Chancellor reiterated that pensions and pay needed to be considered together, and said that increases under these heads represented the biggest risk facing the University. The report on Phase 5 of the residences project also noted the impact of general financial turbulence, making time-scales difficult to predict. Neal reassured Council that there was sufficient funding for all Phase 5 projects - except perhaps the Sports Centre (the written Finance Committee report presented to Council also said that 'the Sports Centre project could potentially be delayed until clarity on the financial position was available'). Council members seemed content to leave the more technical aspects of the report to the relevant committees, as they were in relation to the register of risks and the record of achievement against Key Performance Indicators. The Vice Chancellor presented the results of the third Staff Survey. These showed very little change in most categories, though there had been some negative change in response to two recent developments – job evaluation and the red-circling of some posts, and the introduction of minimum student contact hours. Areas for development included transparency of career progression, recognition of excellent performance, appraisals and review of performance, and perceptions of environmental, diversity, well-being and bullying issues. ***************************************************** SENATE The first Senate meeting of the new academic year took place took place on 8 October, during the chaotic and high-risk environment of a global banking meltdown. But in Lecture Theatre three of the Management School, the atmosphere was calm and broadly optimistic, business as usual. At least until the last item. The VC began by reporting from the University's UK Annual conference and gave us the headline budget for the coming year. The pay settlement this month is likely to be around 5% - good news for our pockets in the short run but prompting somewhat sombre warnings about the unpredictable future for pay and pension benefits. In response to a direct question from the floor, the VC was not prepared to guarantee that reduction in future payroll costs could be achieved without redundancies – a 'dismal' thing to say, he admitted. Other difficult news included the slow restructuring of the Department for Continuing Education. The Deputy VC brought the Senate up to date on developments for DCE and while it is clear that things have not gone well, there seemed to be a general feeling among Senators that there is now little room for manoeuvre, and so in the next two years the Open Studies Programme will slowly be wound up. Other news included congratulations to Edge Hill University on becoming an autonomous degree awarding institution (with a reassurance they will not be directly competing with LU) and a list of nominations for honorary degrees to be awarded by Lancaster. However, an honorary degree from Lancaster does not protect you from the financial crisis, as one of the 2007 recipients, Sir Tom McKillop of Royal Bank of Scotland has just discovered. There was also a paper explaining new Home Office regulations on immigration for students arriving in the country to study for more than 6 months. These include the introduction of IDs from November 2008 and other changes that are happening at a speed that will make it difficult to mesh with our own admissions systems. However, the University Secretary seemed to be particularly frustrated with the Home Office and was clearly unhappy about the enhanced policing role for academics that such measures will likely entail (even after extensive consultation in which the universities' views have been made plain to the Government). The Deputy VC, Bob McKinlay, announced a new teaching partnership with a private company in India which will award Lancaster degrees and deliver them on a green-site campus, starting with Management courses and later developing Law and Art and Design degrees. McKinlay was very enthusiastic about this development and presented it to Senate as a great and unproblematic opportunity that will create a halo effect to prompt more students to come to Lancaster, England. There were a number of queries about practicalities and quality assurance of the programme as well as a question about whether the private, fee-paying students on this new campus will contribute to our widening participation profile. Although Professor McKinlay skirted the issue, some Senators were caught wondering whether another institution had dropped out leaving Lancaster as a second choice, hurriedly inserted into the frame. Risk assessments were being conducted by KPMG on the University's behalf, but given the lack of ability of the major accounting firms (of which KPMG is one) to spot the impending financial meltdown, we cannot be overly optimistic that they will spot all the risks. Interesting after having clearly stated that the Indian partnership would involve little upfront investment from Lancaster, when the Deputy VC was invited to reflect on lessons learnt from our previous foray into international partnership, with Sunway College (which seems to be going OK, at the moment), he was keen to stress that we should have invested more at the early stages – some readers may notice a slight tension here. However after some discussion, the proposal was accepted on a vote. The Dean for undergraduate studies presented a paper on student feedback, prompted by results from the National Student Survey that found this to be a concern with Lancaster students who are marginally more dissatisfied than average. Legibility of staff handwriting was a frequent complaint, alongside the time it takes work to get back to students. Some useful points were made, including how good formative feedback links in with anonymous marking. There was agreement that we need to analyse and understand why bad practice occurs when it does. As is often the case, a working party has been set up. Tucked away at the end of the agenda was an innocuous looking document entitled 'Appointment of Senior Officers' and this prompted the most excitement of the day. The proposal put to senate was for appointments for Deans, ProVCs and College Principals to be externally advertised rather than selected from among existing members of staff. The appointment panel would be chosen by the VC, removing participation by members elected by Senate as in the past. The reason for these changes was presented as being to increase fairness and diversity in the appointments and do away with the possibility of vote rigging since there would be no votes to cast. A number of speakers raised various objections to the proposal, with one of them pointing out how Senate was again being asked to vote away some of its rights to have a say in the governance of the university like 'turkeys voting for Christmas'. The possibility that any of these posts could now be filled by non-academics was raised and confirmed. A question regarding the mechanisms by which the views of staff could be formally linked into the process was skilfully if misleadingly diverted by the VC into a discussion of how Professors were appointed. Moreover, despite being clearly raised, the question of what happens to these indefinite appointments once they have served their fixed term of office as Dean or other role was not answered. The University Secretary, Fiona Aiken defended the proposal robustly though at one point admitted that she was 'making it up on the hoof' when pressed on the detail of the proposal, and at times looked to the VC to help deflect difficult questions. But it's OK as she passionately believes that a professional management is needed for the university and this is the way forward. One amendment was successfully passed: this removed mention of college principals from the proposal, and was prompted by a detailed analysis of the power of line-managers to veto prospective College Principals (hardly a way of ensuring diversity and equity) from this month's Senator of the Month (the Principal of Bowland College, Joe Thornberry). The remainder of the proposal split the Senate chamber with 18 votes to 14. Furthermore, with numerous abstentions, this can hardly be said to have been a ringing endorsement. ***************************************************** INTERDISCIPINARY LANCASTER RESEARCH TEAM SOLVE MOST SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS In the largest cross-faculty research collaboration ever carried out since the University was founded in 1964, a team of researchers led by subtext has carried out a major piece of post-disciplinary research into the conferring of degrees. The origins of this initiative go back to 2007, when the subtext collective was dismayed to find the Wallups's World oeuvre was not accepted as their RAE submission. How could we improve our research standing, we wondered. Then in subtext 40 we speculated about which was the exact moment in the degree ceremony at which graduands became graduates – and there we had our research problem. We decided to use gradation 2008 (18 ceremonies over 5 days) as a experimental laboratory to explore this and other questions, thus establishing the field of graduology. The first research question we addressed was the moment of graduation. Tradition has it that this occurs when the Chancellor or another officer of the university utters the sentence 'I confer upon these members of X College the degrees for which they have been presented'. However, this claim has never been empirically tested, and is anyway far too imprecise to count as a scientific statement. So, using patented hand-held degree-detectors, we discovered on Monday in fact that the exact moment of conferral occurs after the end of this 'operative phrase', as it is technically known. A team from Creative Writing found that the length of this interval is closely linked to the rhythm, or prosody, of the operative phrase. It appears that degrees land exactly one 'foot' after the completion of the phrase (which ends on a trochee, if you're interested). The length of the interval is thus inversely proportional to the speed at which the phrase is spoken. The Chancellor tended to speak more slowly than the Pro-Chancellor, thus stretching out the silence before the degrees landed to an elegant 1.8 seconds. Various hypotheses were tested as to how this pause (now known as the 'Bonington caesura') might be explained. In layperson's terms, the favoured hypothesis is that the assembled witnesses have to be sure that the utterance has totally finished. However, it has to be said that the only corroboration for this theory mainly comes from an old VHS tape of a Lancaster ceremony held in July 1992, when the Bonington caesura seems to last for a full five seconds. The theory (1992 being the year that the film Wayne's World was released, popularising a number of comic catchphrases) is that the assembled throng was waiting until they were absolutely sure that the then Chancellor, Princess Alexandra, wasn't going to add a sarcastic 'not' at the end. On Tuesday a visiting team of winetasting postgraduates from UCLAN confirmed that the choice of speaker can have a qualitative as well as quantitative effect. As leaked in last week's Times Higher Education, they confirmed that the degrees by our present Chancellor have fennel undertones and an oaky finish, whereas the Pro-Chancellor's lacked a certain integration but were excellent at removing tarry stains from carpets. Later in the week the research focus shifted from the giving to the receiving of degrees. This was prompted by the finding that on Tuesday afternoon a row of parents seated just behind the graduands seemed to have picked up a few extra GCEs during the ceremony. At first we wondered whether this was just observer error – that the parents had got carried away with the pomp of the ceremony – but the awards were confirmed as genuine later that day by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. This surprising finding made us wonder whether the conventional way of thinking about the 'felicity conditions' for a successful degree conferral was fundamentally flawed. We formed the hypothesis that the perlocutionary power of the operative phrase might be far more important than the gerundival status of the recipient (put simply, we wondered if the ceremony has such powerful juju that it can confer awards even on those who have not fulfilled the criteria for them). We set to work to test this revolutionary idea. In an experiment carried out on Wednesday at a secret location on campus, a team from Biological Sciences confirmed that they had been able to confirm awards on mice, although they said that anything higher than a diploma tended to fade after a few hours. Rumours that a team in Catering successfully conferred an honorary doctorate on a cauliflower have no foundation whatsoever (it was a cabbage – cauliflowers are of course above such things). However, a seagull that flew over the Great Hall during one of the ceremonies on Wednesday morning was spotted that evening trying to teach A-Level Eng Lit to a confused gaggle of plovers in Hest Bank, which suggested that it had somehow picked up both a BA AND a PGCE as it buzzed the university. But it later turned out that it had accidentally picked up its teaching qualification while unloading over the University of Cumbria that afternoon. As is often the case with scientific research, a few other serendipitous events produced our more interesting data on this topic. For example, in one ceremony on Thursday the Chancellor stumbled over the operative phrase and, rather than conferring each degree on the appropriate graduand, accidentally conferred all of them onto the officer of the university who had presented them, sending him immediately into anaphylactic shock. However, our postgraduate helpers swiftly carried him off to the Standing Academic Committee (whom we kept standing around outside looking academic, in case of emergencies). They scrubbed him down naked in a cold shower for two hours while sniggering and accusing him of cheating and plagiarism (and also muttering something about his mother that we didn't quite catch – a highly effective debasement technique, apparently). This seemed to do the trick, debasing him very nicely back to the point where he only had four BScs and a BA, which is what he possessed before the ceremony. Or that's what he said, anyway - but as he dropped the threatened lawsuit (after the SAC put their clothes back on), we didn't pursue the matter further. Our full findings will be published in a number of multi-authored, peer-reviewed articles in Science, Nature, Pet World, and Catering Weekly, but we are more excited about the knowledge-transfer potential of our findings. For example, we are negotiating a deal with the Student Registry which would allow them to use our hand-held degree-detectors to speed up postgraduate admissions. The Alumni Programme are very interested in our findings about the fading of awards; we are helping them develop a programme whereby they can offer alumni top-up ceremonies to be carried out at home for a small fee. And we're busy trawling through all the spam collected by ISS over the last year to find a list of bogus American colleges to whom we can sell methods of conferring completely valid degrees on those who haven't remotely fulfilled the academic criteria for them. ***************************************************** TERRY EAGLETON COMES TO LANCASTER subtext recently heard of a talented university public relations officer working at a reputable British university. It is said that his gift for spotting the publicity chance was such that hearing that the car of a famous pop star had broken down on a road near the university campus, he immediately went into action. Inviting the pop star onto campus for a warming coffee while her car was being repaired, he was able to secure on the newspaper headline: 'POP STAR MAKES LINKS WITH UNIVERSITY'. One couldn't help being reminded of this story when reading of Terry Eagleton's appointment to the Department of English and Creative Writing. 'TERRY EAGLETON COMES TO LANCASTER'. This sounds like good news indeed; Eagleton is a distinguished and engaging scholar, and could add much to the intellectual life of the University. However, what does this amount to in practice? Apparently, it entails him delivering two public lectures and leading two postgraduate seminars each academic year. One wonder what salary package has been agreed for this onerous round of duties. ***************************************************** BLACKSHIRTS COME TO LANCASTER Members of staff received the following message from Estates Management: 'We have recently appointed a "Space Planning Manager", Helen Storey, who will coordinate the work of a small team of students. These students will be employed by Estate Management to check the usage levels in centrally booked teaching rooms. They will be wearing black sweatshirts bearing the text 'Space Survey Team', and they are tasked with checking the usage levels in the least obtrusive manner possible, utilising viewing panels and windows where these exist. For rooms where there are neither viewing panels nor windows, the employees will need to enter the room for a few seconds; they will aim to be as sensitive and inobtrusive as possible.' It prompted the following response from a subtext reader (with apologies to Franz Kafka, author of 'The Castle'): 'Someone must have been telling lies about Professor K, for without having done anything wrong one morning he confronted boys in black shirts, spreading across the campus and hunting for rooms which the Professor was not using. Professor K tried to continue as before but something had changed; he felt he was being watched, even when he was not. The new doors allowed them to look in. Was he using his room? Had he personalised it? Were all the chairs in use, or had K introduced other chairs? Was K supposed to report to someone, was there a room where he could ask whether what he had done was wrong, where he could ask what was required from him? From the Castle all that he heard was a murmur of words that he did not recall being used before in the rooms he inhabited. "Efficiency" came the murmurs; "space must be used efficiently". 'He asked the Priest what this meant, but like him the Priest had encountered the boys in black shirts - "have you booked your time in the confessional?" they had asked, and banished the Priest from the booth. Professor K hoped that there was a system for finding him another room, but when he asked he was told he was already too late. Returning, he saw the boys again. The black shirted boys stared silently and wrote on forms, before silently absenting themselves. He saw them again the next day, but he could not be sure if they were the same boys or others who looked like them. 'Sometimes a fearful figure known as the Winder came from the Castle to examine the world of the others, the hopeless others, those who did not understand "efficiency". The Winder walked through the campus, stopping to point at a roller-blind in another office; "I hope you haven't fixed that in place". The Winder liked things to be demolished and rebuilt; he liked to renew things. "We must move you to another place," Professor K had been told. But when he had asked why, or what the new place would be like, his questions had just evaporated in the air. The Castle did not answer questions, unless they were questions it had asked itself. The Winder did not answer questions, unless they were questions he had asked himself. The Winder knows best. 'Looking out at the Tree, Professor K fiddled with something on his desk. Since the accusations and the questions about rooms had begun, he was finding it hard to think. Everywhere there were men in yellow jackets, with brightly coloured hats, working. But these people laughed at Professor K, and pointed and licked their lips as young women walked past. They travelled without worries and left their transport where they wished. Who were these people? How had the Castle found them? They were not the people Professor K had expected, but the Winder gave them orders and sometimes they followed them. 'One day, as the water poured down the corridor, and the Castle murmured "efficiency" Professor K was confronted by three men. They asked him politely to gather together his things, and walked with him towards the Castle. As they walked, Professor K attempted time and again to see his companions more clearly. Had the Winder sent them, had Professor K been using his rooms inefficiently? Professor K entered a room marked Performance Review in Progress. 'Later, only the Chief Justice emerged from the chamber, licking his lips and wiping his small clean hands. Before long someone else, someone more efficient, was using K's rooms.' ***************************************************** LETTERS Dear subtext, It was witty of Robbie Smith to include the faulty use of a gerund ('upon
the student discovering', rather than 'upon the student's discovering')
in her suggestions
about new gerundives - presumably as a way of taking the snooty gerund
down a peg or two. [Eds: subtext would like to make it clear that it does not condone cruelty to parts of speech (though we have been guilty of splitting the odd infinitive).] ***************************************************** The editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order) of: Sarah Beresford, George Green, Gavin Hyman, Bronislaw Szerszynski and Alan Whitaker. |