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issue
89 3
May 2012 ***************************************************** '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 editorial,
news in brief, shops in Alexandra Square, books, misconduct, REF, Birmingham
and us, business process review, 1994 and all that, local businesses, guitar
music, letters. ***************************************************** EDITORIAL The
new VC has kept his promise to keep us all in the picture about how the
potentially toxic bundle of proposed major changes bequeathed to him by his
predecessor are progressing. (Let us not forget, in this context, how on
Professor Wellings' arrival at Lancaster, he
identified 'improving communication' as his primary concern. Recall how we
all cheered at that news, and then remember how the cheers died away when it
turned out that what Prof Wellings meant by
'improving communication' was 'increasing the size and number of signs that
direct people to the Management School'.) Some of Professor Smith's emails
have, in fairness, been clearer than others, to the extent that one suspects
a number of different hands at work, or at least different degrees of haste
one was largely incomprehensible (to us) management-speak, and another
suggested an unedited transcript of a last-minute Dictaphone message but
unquestionably we are in receipt of greater openness, and trust it will
continue. The emails have, amongst other things, informed us that the
Business Process Review has been parked in a convenient siding pending an
assessment of its progress to date. (A review of the Review, in fact.) And,
most recently, we learned that we are not after all to carry on down the Livercaster route. And UMAG's constituent members have
been re-jigged, no doubt for the better. As far as we can judge there are now
19 members of UMAG, which places it firmly in the third stage of C. Northcote Parkinson's guide to the growth of such
institutions. Subscribers will perhaps be aware that according to Parkinson
this third stage hovers somewhere between the ideal (5) and the chronically
inefficient (over 20). Still, the new culture of openness may serve to blunt
some of the inefficiencies. We look forward to further bulletins with
interest. ***************************************************** NEWS
IN BRIEF UMAG The
expansion of UMAG, reported to Senate on 2 May, was first announced in the
VC's email of 2 April. The new members are the Deans of undergraduate and
postgraduate studies, the Directors of Finance, HR and Facilities, and the
president of LUSU, and the only departure is that of the Director of
Planning. The first meeting of this enlarged body, on 16 April, was attended
by seven more people than the last meeting of the old UMAG on 2 April (see https://gap.lancs.ac.uk/Committees/umag/Minutes/Pages/default.aspx
for the not very illuminating minutes). So apparently UMAG will become more
effective by being made bigger, while Senate (see below) must be made smaller
to become more effective. If there is an underlying logic to this, it escapes
subtext. ******* Livercaster At
the Senate meeting on 2 May the VC explained that in the previous two weeks
it had become clear that it was just too difficult to resolve the legal and
practical difficulties involved in moving towards some kind of federation
between Lancaster and Liverpool. He and Liverpool's VC had agreed on this,
and the decision had been taken without acrimony on either side. In response
to a question the VC emphasised that this did not preclude the possibility of
discussions on closer links at some future date. In the meantime we should
continue to think strategically, and senators should keep in their diaries
the 15 May meeting announced by the University Secretary announced on 26
April. This is to be a joint meeting of members of Senate and Council, who,
the VC suggested, didn't get together often enough. The short notice of this
meeting, originally intended to have a specific focus on the Liverpool link,
suggests that the idea of calling it came to someone relatively late in the
day (but better late than never). ******* Complete
University Guide Readers
may have noticed that Lancaster was ranked ninth (as it was last year) among
UK universities in the latest edition of the Complete University Guide. We
are thus in a top ten that is otherwise made up mainly of members of the
Russell Group. Whatever reservations it is proper to have about such guides
(and there are some oddities in this one when one looks at the finer detail
of Lancaster's individual subject scores), it is reasonable to think that
they are based on something real and that Lancaster's consistently good
ratings in recent years are evidence that we are doing some things right. In
which case, why the continual pressure for change? If it ain't
broke
******* Shaping
the Future Lancaster's
characteristic institutional restlessness was commented on in Marion
McClintocks excellent 'Shaping the Future', reviewed in subtext 84. A
reception to launch the book is to be held in Blackwell's bookshop on 10th
May quite a few months after its publication, perhaps because in the
interim there was no bookshop to hold a reception in. ******* Senate
effectiveness review The
working party on the effectiveness of Senate has produced its draft
recommendations. The headline proposal is probably that the size of Senate
should be reduced from 97 to 59, which would mean among other things that
Heads of Departments would no longer be members ex officio instead there
would be elections 'through a methodology to be determined' of six members of
the Faculty of Health and Medicine and eight from each of the other
Faculties. College representation is also to be cut, and consequentially the
proportion of the membership made up of senior management will increase.
There are other proposals, including an effort to formalise UMAG's relationship
with Senate and that there should be four meetings a year, with an additional
meeting specifically to discuss academic objectives in relation to the
Strategic Plan. Whether
this newly constituted Senate will be more effective (and effective for what?)
remains to be seen; what does seem certain is that it will be less broadly
representative and (even) more compliant with the wishes of central
management than Senate has been in recent years. If the proposals are agreed,
that is: the consultation is open until 21 May, and we would urge readers who
have a view to express it. ******* Town
and gown One
evening recently a group of some 25 City Councillors from Lancaster visited
the campus, at the University's invitation.
They were welcomed by Andrew Neal, Chief Operating Officer, at the
LICA Building. Next they went to the
Charles Carter building - the more able-bodied walked from one to the
other. The visit finished with a meal
in the Infolab restaurant. During the evening the visitors were hosted
by students as well as staff. It seems
they were impressed by what they saw, and at least one councillor felt there
could be benefit on all sides if both the University and the City made more
effort to foster interaction. ******* Gregson lectures There
are to be weekly lectures in the Gregson Institute
over the coming year 7 p.m. on Sundays, £2.50 for members, £3.50 for non-members. This is the kind of thing the
university used to do, before the demise of Continuing Education, though
perhaps the Gregson's list of topics has an even
greater variety, the first three lectures being on Alzheimer's disease,
walking across the Sahara, and British bats. ***************************************************** SHOPS
IN ALEXANDRA SQUARE subtext has commented in several previous issues on the
tribulations suffered by the shops in Alexandra Square. Rents have been going
steadily up, and the Square renovations have hit trade hard, forcing at least
one shop to close. To this can be added the ongoing impact (hard to quantify
precisely, but attested to by all the shopkeepers we've spoken to) of the
Underpass fiasco. The shops in the Square rely substantially on passing
trade. The buses used to drop people off in the Underpass, so every passenger
passed through the Square. Now they don't. Despite the fact that the shops
can produce evidence of plummeting incomes since the start of the work on the
Underpass, the University appears to be taking the view that it's a seller's
market if the shops don't want to pay the ever-increasing rents, they can
take their business elsewhere. Waterstone's has
already done exactly that, and we understand that several others may be
forced to close in the near future. Is it really all about the money? ***************************************************** BOOKS Further
to the above, even though Waterstone's no longer
have a physical presence on campus, Course Convenors have
received the usual invitation to send course reading lists to them. While we
understand that Waterstone's didn't want to leave,
nevertheless they did, and Blackwell's are now here. If we want a bookshop on
campus then we should support Blackwell's in any way possible. At the very
least, if we do send lists to Waterstone's, we
should send them to Blackwell's too. *****************************************************
MISCONDUCT Subscribers
who enjoy an occasional look at the Daily Mail may have noticed an article
last month on the website concerning recently published figures on academic
misconduct (perhaps an unfortunate phrase in itself).
Some may feel that in many respects it is the archetypical Daily Mail
university-bashing story. Those who missed it might like to have a look at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2109527/Major-universities-reveal-explosion-student-cheating-years.html.
Nice too to see a couple of ex-students commenting on it sensibly. Put
simply, in response to an FOI request, of the top twenty universities,
Lancaster reported the highest total (194) of academic misconduct cases. For
'academic misconduct' the Daily Mail encourages its readers to read 'yet more
of the sort of deliberate widespread systematic cheating that we've been
complaining about for the last century or so', an impression ameliorated only
slightly if one reads the whole report. However, let's remember that a single
case of forgetting to reference a short and inconsequential quotation in an
essay is technically plagiarism, and can be reported. Is it really possible
that in Cambridge and Bristol across an entire cohort of students this only happened
once in the whole year? Perhaps instead of being the worst we are the best
one might equally say that Lancaster should be commended for its willingness
to hold the line on plagiarism, for its assiduousness in chasing such cases
down, and for being more honest than most in reporting them. This is bad
journalism and selective use of statistics. Without clear definitions of what
'misconduct' means, broken down into categories and set against historical
trends, these figures are effectively meaningless. We commend this article to
any media students looking for a case study in How Not To Do It. ***************************************************** REF,
BIRMINGHAM AND US Departments
have been holding 'Mock' REF interviews, in order to get an idea of where
their staff are in terms of their research, and so
gauge their own likely position in a year's time. Most Departments are doing
their best to perform these interviews in a non-confrontational way, although
it is perhaps unfortunate that staff whose research is not deemed up to
scratch are being described as 'vulnerable'. One
wonders exactly what they might be vulnerable to (and see
below). The arguments about the worth and use of the REF have been rehearsed
many times, and we won't be doing it again here. However, in thinking about
how the consequences of the REF might affect colleagues at Lancaster, we
thought an update on the situation at Birmingham might be useful. Subscribers
may remember that last summer Birmingham University were reported as having (i) a policy of not submitting in their REF return any
staff members whose research was rated under 3*, and (ii) forcing any member
of staff who was not submitted onto a teaching-only contract. Other
universities were reported to be watching this situation with interest. While
the Birmingham Vice-Chancellor has since apparently stepped back from this
rather stark policy, and has issued a joint statement with the Union (UCU)
(for this statement and a reminder of the issues, see http://stop11starorout.wordpress.com/),
the fact remains that Birmingham's position continues to be that they 'cannot
afford to fund non-REF rated research activity'. It is hard to see how this
circle can be squared satisfactorily. Lancaster's position is, at the moment,
more temperate, but interesting times lie ahead. We understand UCU's position
to be that forcing non-REF submitted staff onto teaching-only contracts
represents an un-negotiated change to conditions of service and as such is
unacceptable. That seems clear, and there was a time when this would have
been enough to put people's minds at rest. However, some University
administrators see no difference between this situation and that of other
recent admin-related cases where the nature of a job is deemed to have
changed to such an extent that the University can make the member of staff
redundant, redefine the job (and the salary), and them invite the member of
staff to re-apply for the job. The University is of course unwilling to make
emphatic commitments at this early stage; until it feels able to do so, staff
will continue to feel insecure. ***************************************************** BUSINESS
PROCESS REVIEW The
Vice-Chancellor's email of 20 April to all staff signals a stop to the BPR
programme, except for work on the Finance and Procurement strand where
implementation has already started. Of
all departments, the Finance strand will impact most significantly on those
in the Faculty of Science and Technology, because their research and student
projects generate the greatest volume of orders, for the equipment and
consumables that are needed. The exigencies of the academic calendar allow
students only a few weeks to carry out their practical work, so if something
gets damaged or broken it needs to be replaced very quickly. This can only be
done effectively by people with local knowledge who are in direct contact
with the staff and students concerned - if the job had to be passed to
someone in University House, the process would be too slow, errors would
inevitably creep in, and there would be needless delay. Even
at this early stage, anomalies in the operation of the BPR to date are
starting to come to light. Some science departments are keeping their finance
assistants, but others have been told their finance staff are 'in scope' and
will have to move to University House. Yet there is probably more similarity
than difference between the jobs done by these staff members. Naturally, the
departments whose finance staff are 'in scope' are fighting a vigorous
rear-guard action to keep them, since otherwise the student projects, which
form an important part of their undergraduate programmes, may cease to be
practicable. Consultation
with Heads of Department about the BPR process as it impacts on the tasks
carried out by their Finance Assistants is, it seems, only just beginning.
This seems an unwise way of proceeding, because the BPR decisions that have
been made so far were based on inadequate information, and some of them are having to be reversed. We can only hope that these
discussions are not too late to avoid making decisions that seem likely to be
highly damaging. ***************************************************** 1994
AND ALL THAT As
reported in subtext 88, the VC told the March meeting of Court that he wanted
to consider what benefit Lancaster gained from its membership of the 1994
Group of 'research-intensive' universities. subtext
agrees that this is a question worth asking. The 1994 Group whose
membership has shrunk over the years, as members have been invited to join
the Russell Group and have accepted is a curious mixture of different
kinds of institutions. As well as some which look roughly the same kind of
university as Lancaster, such as Bath, East Anglia and Sussex, there are
others which are much more specialised, such as the Institute of Education,
the School of Oriental and African Studies, and perhaps Goldsmiths (all parts
of the University of London). So this is far from being a homogenous group,
the common factor perhaps being that all its members are in the ante-room of
the Russell Group, waiting for an invitation to cross the threshold. The
group has premises in central London, employs staff, and publishes policy
statements and research papers to which senior Lancaster figures have
contributed (see http://www.1994group.ac.uk/researchprojects).
Membership obviously costs something, though subtext has not been able to
find out what. Are the benefits, as the VC is also asking, sufficient to
justify the cost? ***************************************************** LOCAL
BUSINESSES WINDY HILL BAKERY The
news that a Sainsbury's Local store is due to open at the top of Penny Street
in October (100 metres or so from the Tesco Express in King Street), plus the
longer-term news about the development of the Canal Corridor site (see last
issue), makes subtext think it would be a good idea for us all to support our
local independent shops more. To that end, we thought we'd start to run an
occasional series extolling the virtues of different outlets shops, bars,
restaurants, breweries, whatever. We
thought we'd kick it off with a plug for the Windy Hill Bakery, at 20 King
Street, opposite the Indoor Market. The bakery opened in early 2011, and is
open from Tuesday to Saturday. They make delicious cakes and pasties, and
stock some delicatessen-type goods and wholefoods,
but the main attraction is their bread. They
have a core range of loaves that are available every day - Wholemeal,
Sunflower and Pumpkinseed, Sesame, White, Malted, Poppy and Sourdough but
they also have some special loaves that they bake on certain days. On Tuesday
it's Barley Rye, on Wednesday Dark Rye, on Thursday Linseed Spelt, on Friday
it's the Rye Sourdough then on Saturday they pull out the stops and add all
of the above (except the Spelt) plus Pugliese,
Baguettes and Oat Bread. As the seasons change, they'll also be replacing
some of the breads with other ones. For
such speciality breads, the prices are very reasonable. The present writer's
favourite is the Sunflower and Pumpkinseed loaf lightly toasted,
the different flavours come out a treat. The only catch is that they do sell
out (and close) early: to have a good chance of getting a loaf you really
have to get there by 1.00 and by 12.00 or so on Saturday but if you've
set your heart on a particular favourite you can always ring them on 66029
and they'll put it on one side for you. ***************************************************** GUITAR
MUSIC IN THE GREAT HALL The
final concert of the International Series held in the Great Hall featured the
Chinese guitar virtuoso Xuefei Yang, playing the
well-known Concierto de Aranjuez
by Rodrigo, followed by her own transcription of J S Bachs E manor violin
concerto. It is easy to be negative about transcriptions, which often take
music that is written with the particular demands of an instrument in mind
and transfer it to another for which it is not really suited. However, the
music of Bach is probably the most readily adaptable, and Xuefei
Yang's arrangement of the violin concerto was very successful. The slow
movement was quite moving - the audience were absolutely silent as they
enjoyed her excellent performance of this unique music, in which she drew a
remarkable range of colours from her instrument. In the Rodrigo, her playing
was brilliant, certainly of virtuoso standard. There was a good audience in
the hall, who were quite right to have decided to
come to hear these remarkable performances here on the campus. The
orchestra for the concert was the Lancashire Sinfonietta,
our local professional orchestra, and on this showing it deserves to be much
better known. They are now Lancaster University's Orchestra in Residence, so
there should be many more chances to hear them (the next opportunity is part
of Roses Week ...). The
concerts presented at Lancaster University this season have made up a most
interesting and rewarding series. Every concert has offered something new or
unfamiliar, but also some music that is readily approachable,
and the performances have been of a very high standard. We look forward to
finding out what is on next season's programme. ***************************************************** LETTERS Dear
subtext, You
report (subtext 88) that the Lancaster VC has decreed that external examiners
for MA courses should only be from the self-elected Russell and 1994 Groups.
This apparent 'we will not accept examiners from institutions in groupings we
consider below ours' policy could have interesting ramifications if other
universities followed suit. How about Russell Group universities, with their
smug self-regard as the 'elite', deciding that they will not select examiners
from beneath their peer group, thereby decreeing that Lancaster academics are
not of sufficient status to be examiners at their institutions? Policies
meant to apparently enhance self-perceived status can have a habit of
backfiring. Perhaps a rethink is advisable. Better still, a declaration that
what institution a person belongs to, is no signifier of quality or
reliability as an examiner. As we all know, you can get excellent scholars
and examiners from institutions ranked low on the academic totem pole - and
some pretty dire ones from the so-called elite. Ian
Reader University
of Manchester ******* Dear
subtext, I
read with bemusement the report that your new Vice-Chancellor is insisting
that all external examiners for Lancaster's MA degrees must be affiliated to
Russell Group or 1994 Group universities. As a Lancaster graduate (BA, MA and
PhD) working in a post-1992 university, I am clearly one of Professor Smith's
undesirables. But appointing externals solely on the basis of their
institutional affiliation would seem to indicate a lack of confidence in the
academic qualifications of those scholars; which in some cases might well
mean undermining Lancaster's own degrees. Under Professor Smith's policy, my
Lancaster credentials count for nothing in the face of my appointment at a
post-1992 university. But there are all manner of reasons why one would
choose to work in a post-1992 institution. Many of my fellow Lancaster PhDs
do, and what is common to us all is that we have aimed to instil Lancaster
values in our own students, departments and universities. By rejecting me as
a potential external examiner, Lancaster is sending a signal that it values
its own qualifications less than a prestigious institutional affiliation.
Hardly an astute move. I would expect better from a university with
Lancaster's history. Dan
McIntyre University
of Huddersfield P.S.
By way of disclosure, I should make clear that I am not currently an external
at Lancaster, though I have examined Lancaster PhDs and am an external
examiner at the University of Nottingham, a Russell Group institution which
does not appear to share Lancaster's newly developed prejudices. ***************************************************** The
editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order)
of: Rachel Cooper (PPR), Mark Garnett, George Green, David Smith, Bronislaw
Szerszynski and Martin Widden. |
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