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issue four 13 February 2006 ***************************************************** 'Truth: lies open to all' ***************************************************** Every fortnight All editorial correspondence to: subtext-editors at lancaster.ac.uk Please download and print or 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. CONTENTS: editorial, governance rules, special valentine, weather forecast, competition, competition winner, letters ***************************************************** EDITORIAL A story goes that an eminent professor once gave his students an assignment to break a rule. To complete the assignment, students were supposed to commit some form of social or legal transgression, but he reportedly left the assignment open to interpretation. After some reflection, one student decided to complete the assignment by disrupting one of his professor's other classes. The student walked into the class and stood there while the professor was in the middle of teaching. The professor asked the student what he was doing. 'My assignment', the student said. 'Not in my class', the professor replied, and promptly failed the student. There is no moral to this story but it raises questions about the ways that we treat our students, and how best to encourage them to question norms. It can seem quite logical and appropriate to challenge ideas in an essay, or as part of in-class debates and discussions, but it becomes more controversial in a public forum. Translating practice from the university classroom into daily life raises challenges. There can be questions about the best ways or most appropriate forums to challenge norms, as though there is a predetermined code of conduct that in itself is not open to challenge. Perhaps an essay can only follow particular rules. Perhaps dissent in public can only be expressed in particular ways. Yet surely we as a university can be more open-minded. If our students disrupt a classroom and challenge prevailing norms, one reaction is to follow the lead of the eminent professor and fail them. Another reaction is to follow the lead of the University of Lancaster, and prosecute them. Something has gone awry if those are considered credible options in a learning environment. The student in the eminent professor's class was not taking part in an obvious protest. The George Fox Six protesters were not taking part in an obvious learning activity. However, it is exceedingly difficult to draw rigid lines around our classrooms, and decide authoritatively on their function or role, or what is being gained or lost in the context of a university. Both activities lead to questions about the best ways to respond to the transgression of norms. Broader implications linger, since similar clampdowns could happen to other students, or to staff. To what extent are we, as university staff, free to express our views? Is it acceptable to challenge ideas and, if so, in which ways, and in which forums? The idea of dissident voices is a recurring theme in this issue. Below, a subtext reporter writes about changes in the University's governance rules, and reflects on issues of discontent and dissent. We are especially pleased to bring readers information about changes in governance, from exclusive interviews with Lord Taylor of Blackburn, and the newly elected Deputy Pro-Chancellor, Professor Stanley Henig. The value of alternative viewpoints is underscored in this week's letters. ***************************************************** CHANGES TO THE UNIVERSITY'S GOVERNANCE RULES On January 28, the University Court received revised proposals on University Governance. The revisions to the proposals were necessitated by the rebellion of the members of Court at its previous meeting against the reduced representation of local and regional 'stake-holders' and members of the University community. Lord Taylor of Blackburn, a member of Court and a friend of the University since its early days, commented on the shortcomings of the October proposals: 'Unfortunately in Lancaster,' Lord Taylor told subtext, 'the working party looking at proposals for the management of the University did not take into account the democratic traditions of the past along with the sensitivity of the various bodies that made up the University.' The revised proposals have gone some way to addressing those concerns. 'I'm pleased to say,' Lord Taylor continued, 'that this has now been achieved and lessons have been learned, and even though within the next two years work has got to be done to dot the I's and cross the T's, the ingredients and formulas are there.' Stanley Henig, a member of Court recently elected as the University's Deputy Pro-Chancellor, and a member of the working group that re-drafted the governance rules, explained that the University had responded to initiatives from the Committee of Chairs of University Councils, the Higher Educations Funding Council for England (HEFCE), and the Department of Education and Skills that advocate standardising university governing bodies - which often involves shrinking them. This presents a problem for 1960s-era universities, such as Lancaster, which have Courts and governing Councils including members of the local and regional community - people who would be called 'stakeholders' in current parlance. Current arguments have involved a reduction in the membership of Council, which had over 40 members in 2001 but which has now reduced to 32. Under the revised rules, the number will be reduced still further to 22 - but this is less drastic than the October proposal, which could have meant a Council dwindling to 15 members. There has also been considerable discussion about how someone becomes a member of Council. Under the revised rules, a nominations committee will recommend candidates for membership of the University Council; Court may make recommendations to the nominations committee, indicating which of the nominees would be suitable as Deputy Pro-Chancellors. An important feature of the revised proposals is that the Court will be strongly represented on the nominations committee; indeed, it will appoint more members than any other appointing body to that committee (though see also James Groves' letter below). Although the rules may seem arcane, the issue is, as Henig summed it up, whether there are sufficient 'checks and balances' in the system to ensure that the University's governing bodies remain representative of a diversity of views rather than a single view. Supporting the revised proposals, Henig said the challenge now was ‘to make the new model work.' REFLECTION Some of the points under discussion here doubtless appear obscure to much of the University community, and subtext feels that this tells its own story. In an institution in which official documents never cease to state the desirability of 'transparency' and 'accountability', much of the manoeuvring that has concerned these governance rules has taken place in relative obscurity. The absence of open and clear lines of communication between the University community and its governing bodies is a two-way matter. Until the sense of disempowerment and frustration broke out in October in response to the George Fox Six case, few members of the University community knew or cared much about the University's governance processes. By the same token, few members of the University Court and Council had any idea of the rumblings of discontent within the community about the increasingly heavy-handed authoritarianism of the University's management. Court normally gathers once a year, but how many current readers know when? It is concerned with governance, not management, and takes up only those matters that come to its attention because they have been raised by a responsible body such as the University's Senate. Subtext observes that the recent period of discontent has precisely coincided with the rough treatment of dissident voices raised in Senate — which has not recently, in any case, been a body which has consistently sought to check management authority. Thus, the silencing of faculty dissent ensures that problems that ought to be of concern to the University's oversight body remain obscure. Far from the light of transparency, this results in a chill, damp cloud of discontent sinking onto the community of students and staff. For that reason, subtext welcomes the recent attention that has been visited on the University's governance structures, and notes the presence of pickets at the October Court meeting. These events helped to establish a brief episode of mutual recognition between ordinary members of the University community and the members of governing bodies who have the interests of the community at heart but do not often hear directly what we think. ***************************************************** WALLUPS' WORLD: A SPECIAL VALENTINE My Dearest Nigel, You may not have seen my eyes fixed on you from under the brim of my hard hat as you passed the construction site each day. You would not have guessed that inside this fluorescent jacket, and underneath this tough exterior, a heart is yearning for you. I depend on you, Nigel Wallups, and on your dreams. Big visions, big projects, big building sites, big contracts (coming my way, dear?). Those others, the ones who don't create the buildings but just work and study in them, they don't deserve you. One day they'll come to see you as I do, when the campus is bursting with its new Unit for Advanced Info, QinetiQ Quadrangle, Commerce College, Applied Know-how Lab, and the Institute for Third Mission Medicine, expanding ever onward, bolder with every step. Then there will be happy customers gazing at you with adoring eyes as you pass and we'll forget all about the critics and rebels as if they were a dream. You'll show them all, when you stride across a ten-crane campus, and maybe one of these days, or years, you'll notice me . . . and I'll be with you all the way, now, tomorrow, and forever. One day there will be two sets of muddy footsteps winding their way from Alex Square . . . to eternity. I'll never leave you, Your Valentine. ***************************************************** WEATHER FORECAST Subtext is pleased to bring readers the Lune Valley Enterprise University weather forecast. It will be sunny every day. A small grey cloud of discontent may affect some areas in the morning, but all problems will vanish by mid-afternoon. ***************************************************** COMPETITION The Lancaster Ultralow Temperature Group studies 'the behaviour of materials at the lowest accessible temperatures' (http://www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/physics/research/condmatt/ult/ultpage.html). Beyond the Physics Department's excellent research on this topic, subtext is curious about the creation of cold microclimates within the university. We ask, in this issue's competition: where is the coldest place in the University of Lancaster? ***************************************************** SUBTEXT COMPETITION WINNER In our competition in subtext 3, readers were asked, 'What might be on a new coat of arms for the university?' We have a winner, Mike Cowie of CELT: 'The crest shows two unhappy looking academics, one male and one female, holding up a platform above their heads. Standing on the platform is a big fat bloke in a suit, representing the weight of administration. Also on the platform, on either side of the administrator are a builder and a smart businessman. Both are smiling broadly. The administrator is shown handing an academic scroll, representing the University's credibility, to the business man, and the business man is handing back small change and shiny beads and trinkets in return. The administrator is handing a huge wad of cash to the builder with his other hand, and in return, the builder is shown handing the University a lump of cement back, but bits of it are falling off, and falling on the academics, representing the disruption caused by all the building work. On each of the administrator's shoulders are two small figures, an angel and a devil. The devil is shown shouting into the administrator's ear; the angel has been gagged, and cannot advise him. The crest is displayed over a repeating background motif of two crossed wires, representing the general confusion that exists throughout the institution.' As a special prize for the winning entry, Mike receives a letter Q from
the QinetiQ name brand. He may choose whichever Q he wishes, and we will
gladly store it for him in the subtext warehouse -- alongside the motto,
mounted on the wall. LETTERS Revised Council Still Undemocratic Dear subtext, Is there room for democracy in a modern university? This Friday's meeting (10 February) of the University Council (which may have happened by the time subtext 4 comes out) sees the first formal vote on proposed changes to the Council's composition. These will reduce the number of elected lay members from eight (seven by the Court, one by the alumni) to zero, increase the number of lay members appointed by the Council's Nominations Committee from six to eleven, and decrease Council's overall size from 32 to 22. At present, 21 out of 32 Council members (66%) are elected - by students, by Senate, by Court, by the assistant staff or by the alumni. It is proposed that this be reduced to 8 out of 22 (36%). Exactly one half of the Council will have been appointed by a Nominations Committee chaired by . . . the Chair of Council. There will - perhaps - still be dissenting voices, but not in any significant quantity. When draft proposals - which were even worse - were presented to the special meeting of Court last October, people were rightly disgusted and for a while it even seemed possible the Pro-Chancellor would resign on the spot. Such radicalism was not to last! A revised paper was presented to Court on 28 January, but proper discussion was not permitted by the Chair of Court, despite his assuring the special meeting that 'the Court would have the opportunity to have its views expressed if the revised proposals did not meet the wishes of all concerned'. The item was last on the agenda and no votes were allowed, despite a call for at least an indicative vote on some of the issues raised. If Court consented to the changes that day, it was a very manufactured form of consent. Does any of this really matter? It depends, I guess, if you want to be governed by people appointed through a 'skills audit' process, or by people that are elected. James Groves + - + - + - + - + - + - VC’s Pay: Transparency and Accountability?
First, congratulations on a very promising start to a very necessary
service to the academic community in Lancaster. I was particularly impressed
and moved by the tribute to the contribution of Marion McClintock to the
University over the past thirty odd years. May I join the editors in congratulating
Marion on her well-deserved MBE. [Eds: The committee that determines the VC's pay is a sub-branch of the Human Resources Committee. The VC is an advisor to the Human Resources Committee. The sub-branch incorporates the functions of what used to be the Remuneration Committee. It is responsible for reviewing the salaries of senior staff, including the VC, and in so doing it draws on appropriate benchmark data. Four lay members form the sub-branch of this committee that decides on the VC's remuneration. Information on the Human Resources Committee, its membership and responsibilities, can be found at: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/acadreg/restricted/staff/ii-2-6.htm. Subtext asks if anyone has further information about its composition, criteria for increased salary, or any other relevant details.] + - + - + - + - + - + - Commercial or Incompetent?
Readers may be reassured that the University is not becoming wholly prey
to commercial interests by considering the economically inefficient ways
in which contract researchers are treated. These experienced, skilled
and often highly motivated workers (amazing how motivating it is when
your job regularly disappears) are commonly discarded at the end of contracts,
and forced to leave and take their skills, contacts, ideas etc elsewhere.
This is clearly not the act of commercially motivated management as it
basically means training and investing in a workforce and then failing
to employ them and allowing competitors to reap the benefits. Therefore,
our management cannot be commercially motivated. Jane Hunt + - + - + - + - + - + - Time to Act
I'd like to reply to two articles that picked up on my letter concerning postgraduates. Rhona O'Brien's comments rang very true. In my time as an officer of the National Postgraduate Committee I spent 2 years looking at these issues. In that time (and since) the only significant change is the introduction of more graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). Many are arguably not paid any extra for teaching. Ground level pay appears to be zero. On the plus side you pay no tax. Another change has been postgraduates' getting more involved in the union. This brings me to Dave Boyle's letter. While David's information is most welcome, the attempt to pass the buck to the postgraduates is not helpful. The postgraduates at a general meeting in 2004 declared that they wanted a postgraduate sabbatical officer. Postgraduate representative posts are no longer standing vacant. All this has been done. And it's been done by very busy people. Let's not forget the difference in workload between a first year and a master's student, and note the difference in the amount they are paying to be at Lancaster. For postgrads, their work does come first. For many, simply earning enough to eat and pay rent is their priority. At this level of need, who has time for politics? The postgrads through their campaigning and officers put the issue on the AUT agenda. The union was first against it, but 2 years later has come to grips with the issues and is behind the postgrads. Do they have to cut service provisions to other areas and make some of their own places redundant to get the university to act in its own interest? That can't seriously be the university's position. I was told that for a university of our size, 6 sabbatical officers seems to be about right. York has 6 sabbatical officers in their union, and they also have an independent graduate association with a sabbatical president. Maybe 6 is right, plus or minus 1. In the long term maybe we should follow York. For now let's create a post so that someone with the experience of being a postgraduate can have the time to follow up on all the problems affecting postgraduates that so far seem to be ignored. The graduate students agree. The union agrees. After Court the VC told me he agrees, but it's just a matter of priorities. It seems to be just a matter of inertia. As for the union's needing review... it was reviewed last year. The postgrad report is one outcome. It was the union's top priority for change. The union opted to work with the university and discuss it rather than going straight to referendum. Please, let's drop the games and make some progress. Andre Oboler + - + - + - + - + - + - The Boundaries of Solidarity
Issue 3’s letters raised two important items: LAUT's call for industrial action and Rhona O'Brien's letter on postgraduate teaching assistants’ working conditions. For many years postgraduate students have been a significant part of Lancaster University's teaching force. PG tutors are a very vulnerable group: for many their survival through the degree depends on teaching (many students are self-funded or partially funded), others are anxious to get teaching experience and good CVs. They rarely challenge their working conditions, because often there simply is no other option. While teaching rates vary across departments, seminars are usually paid between £25-33 per hour. This rate not only includes the time spent attending the lectures and preparing the seminar, but also essay and exam marking. Payment for lectures, set by some departments as £100, in other departments is as low as £25! And postgraduate tutors are hired on short-term (3 month) contracts which do not provide sick leave. This means that if a tutor gets sick, s/he either continues teaching, or loses her/his income. Sometimes it's the *only* income for a Teaching Assistant (TA). Two years ago AUT decided on industrial action. Some TA's were asked not to cross the picket line and 'support their lecturers'. Did their lecturers (and other AUT members) support them and if so, in what ways? Would full-time members of staff be prepared to support TA's in a similar situation? And if AUT members do vote in favour of industrial action, how do more senior members of staff propose to protect TA's? This year AUT calls postgraduates to join the industrial action, and also join the Union itself. In an AUT letter to subtext, proper pay for postgraduates is mentioned in passing. Yet this is *not* the reason for industrial action. In the email send last week to postgraduate students, AUT described the action as a matter of lecturers' salaries (that have fallen by 40%). Yet TA pay was not mentioned anywhere in the letter, and postgraduates were called to support the action in the following way: 'This is particularly pertinent to PhD students considering a *future* as an academic. Do you want to see academics pay rates fall even further in the future? Or do you want to receive a decent salary in return for the years of study you have put into gaining the highest qualifications possible?' Nothing in AUT letter indicates that postgraduate tutors have *current* employment contracts as academic teachers; nothing indicates that this industrial action is also about *their* condition as workers. Rhona O'Brien’s letter called postgraduate tutors to join the AUT. But I wonder: are we joining as a potential 'support force' when lecturers' salary needs the union protection, or are we joining as fellow workers? And what are the boundaries of union solidarity? Adi Kuntsman + - + - + - + - + - + - Work Underway to Improve Low Rates of Minority Recruitment
In the final paragraph of subtext 2's editorial you raised the issue of black and minority ethnic students in HE, and asked what Lancaster was doing on widening participation. Interested readers can see the new work that is planned, using new fees income from next academic year, in section 8 of our access agreement at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/ugfinance/ (see link under Guidance and Information). The first part of the access agreement outlines the range of work we're doing already. This may come as a surprise to some, as it's not generally as much talked about as other aspects of the University's work, although staff from very many departments are involved. We know from informal contacts that many staff are interested in supporting work on widening participation. One way of doing this, and sharing information, is to join the recently set up Widening Participation Practitioners' Network (WPPN). It's for staff working in all sections of the university interested or actively involved in work relating to widening participation. This might include: * pre entry activities with schools, The network is open to all staff - if you would like to be added to the WPPN email list to receive information about widening participation then please email a.houghton at lancaster.ac.uk Rosemary Turner Ann-Marie Houghton + - + - + - + - + - + - In response to the above correspondence from Rosemary Turner and Ann-Marie Houghton, subtext editors raised several questions regarding the University 'minority ethnic' student recruitment targets (found via the website in the letter above). The targets show a proposed year-by-year increase in the recruitment of 'minority ethnic' students, which the University’s own assessment recognises is low and needs to improve. To explain the questions and why the responses are of interest: one should not assume that all 'minority ethnic' students have been equally disadvantaged, historically and currently, in accessing higher education. Lumping together all 'minority ethnic' students in a single figure may not, therefore, tell the whole story about 'widening access'. Higher recruitment numbers for one ethnic group may mask an absence of progress in another. It has been found that where recruitment for any group is low, retention and degree completion rates for that group are often low, which is why those figures are also worth collecting. SUBTEXT: How does the University define 'minority ethnic'? Does it include only home students, home and EU, or home and all overseas students? ROSEMARY TURNER: Figures in the Access Agreement are for UK students. SUBTEXT: How are the figures gathered? (For example, do they come from UCAS, student self-report, or some other source?) RT: UCAS data. SUBTEXT: For the purposes of recruitment targets, are all “minority ethnics” considered in the aggregate, as a single group? RT: At the moment, minority ethnic groups are considered together. SUBTEXT: What is the census date for the data? Do the target data refer to the whole student population at the census date, or only those in the entering class? RT: Data [are] for entry at the beginning of the academic year: [they are] for first year students only. SUBTEXT: Will the university gather comparative data on rates of retention, attrition, and completion? RT: We don't pull out this information at the moment but are aiming to gather data on retention from Part I to Part II; degree classification; post-first-degree destination. ***************************************************** The editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order) of: Lenny Baer, Steve Fleetwood, Patrick Hagopian, Gavin Hyman, John Law, Maggie Mort, Rhona O'Brien, Ian Reader and Bronislaw Szerszynski. |