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issue 14 14 November 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, UMAG, news in brief, exploiting goodwill and commitment?, a bishop remembers Lancaster in the 1960s, rumours of departmental closures, letter **************************************************** 1. EDITORIAL Welcome to the latest issue of subtext. Late autumn is upon us. The recent long spell of warm days and cool nights have trapped sugars in the leaves, raising the levels of red pigments, and ensuring the colours of campus landscape this year have been a joy to behold. As the excitement and enthusiasm of the new academic year with its influx of students recedes, and students and staff slip into their routines of work, study and play; as assignments and mid-term assessments start to loom large, and earlier concerns about marking loads start to assume a tangible reality, two recent documents caught the eye. The first is the strategic plan for the 2006-11 period; the second is the phone book for 2006/07. Both are worth perusing if you have the time. In their very different ways each offers a view of the University. The former is glossy, brightly coloured, high-level and unashamedly positive and aspirational. The latter is largely black and white – or shades of grey - and, understandably, bulkier being packed with detailed information. It seems to embody a harder, functional representation of the University, which perhaps for many staff is closer to the reality of their working lives. The contrasts between the two documents are hard to escape but they are intended for different audiences. There are similarities, though, and one could be said to be the focus on staff. The strategic plan draws attention to the strong sense of pride and commitment evidenced amongst staff employed at Lancaster. The phone book reveals the large numbers of fixed term contract staff now in post and where they are to be found – largely in the research and teaching areas. What it cannot communicate are the growing levels of dissatisfaction many of them feel with regard to pay and career prospects and the way they are often treated by the University. Placed side by side, these two documents aptly illustrate what might be termed the multiple rhetorics and realities of organization. It is a theme implicit in several of our contributions below. For example, the continued exploitation of commitment and goodwill when it comes to wider institutional roles such as University Dean and College Officers or the claim to have and encourage open structures of decision making and accountability, set against the reality of a senior management body whose role is unclear, to say the least. The staff surveys in 2003 and 2005 indicated that for many of us Lancaster is seen as a good place to live and work, but here we need to again be mindful of the (widening?) gap between rhetoric and reality. Many staff experience this gap every working day as they cope with heavier workloads; as revealed in the surveys, they also perceive many of our senior management as being insulated and isolated from their concerns. The organization continues to rely on individual and collective goodwill and dedication, way beyond what it has a right to ask or expect. The danger is that it will be dissipated. The surveys also revealed concerns with and about senior management structures and processes. In the first of a series of extended commentaries we seek to explore such concerns, focusing initially on the University Management Advisory Group (UMAG). We think it appropriate to try and shine some light on what would seem to be an increasingly significant managerial decision-making body. **************************************************** 2. UMAG It is known by many in the University that UMAG (the University Management Advisory Group) has wide ranging decision-making powers that impact on the working lives of many of us here. Most probably assume that it has an clear and constitutionally legitimate place in the University's constitutional structure. But to what extent is this really the case? In the following discussion article, we show how UMAG came into being as a response to particular events in the University's history, but has since drifted into becoming a permanent feature of the University's governing structure and assumed wide-ranging powers and roles. As a result, its constitutional position and remit remain ambiguous, and the time is now ripe for further investigation of this powerful body. A little history The predecessor of the current body arose out of the financial crisis of the mid-1990s. Many, who acknowledged the size of the task, viewed what was then known as the Vice-Chancellor’s Strategic Advisory Group as a necessary 'evil'. Dealing with bankers and other external bodies was difficult. What mattered for them was the security of their investments and our resolve and ability to pull the situation around. The existence of a senior management group was important because they could relate to it. It represented - if only symbolically - that the institution was capable of being 'managed' out of crisis in the only way which made sense to them, i.e. top downwards. We emerged from our parlous financial state more quickly than anticipated, but with those systems of tight, centralised control still in place. Moreover, the ambiguous position of what by 1998 had become UMAG was still unresolved. Two observations, perhaps, are relevant here. First, the university community often assumed (wrongly, in hindsight) that UMAG 'de facto' was the senior management decision-making body and hence all kinds of issues (large and small) continued to be referred upwards, often unnecessarily. Second, despite their skepticism the Deans, in particular, began to advocate it should have a wider membership, namely themselves. A not unreasonable suggestion, perhaps, but one which when subsequently implemented had important repercussions, including their lack of ability to distance themselves from the way UMAG was perceived as operating. In discussions with their Faculty colleagues they could no longer just 'blame' the centre. UMAG Today Its current composition and inevitably the way it operates seem to be a reflection of the present Vice-Chancellor and the advice he was given as he settled into his post. It has grown in size, particularly since the inclusion of Faculty Deans in 2004. The Director for Research and Enterprise Services is also a member which some might consider anomalous; all the more so given that Academic Services are not represented. These sit alongside the Vice-Chancellor and (four) Pro-Vice-Chancellors, together with the University Secretary and the Director of Resources. With one exception, all members have arrived during the current VC’s tenure, with a number being his direct appointees. What appears to be creating growing unease is not UMAG’s membership as such, but the way it appears to be operating (or not?). We offer two contrasting examples, both of which have received comment in previous issues. The first is the decisions surrounding the George Fox 6 prosecution. Here we understand that the Vice-Chancellor consulted with a very small number of individuals, including the University Secretary, before taking a decision that many believe did the University considerable harm. It was subsequently reported to UMAG as an item of 'any other business'. The second concerns the recent decision to change the line management arrangements for the Centre for Employability, Enterprise and Careers, as reported in the last issue of subtext. Done with no prior consultation with those most affected, it created an understandable degree of anger and resentment. It is still unclear whether this was a personal decision of the Vice-Chancellor or of UMAG. In their different ways both illustrate weaknesses in our system of governance and management. The role of Vice-Chancellor is a powerful one. The issue is about how he is to be held accountable for the exercise of his considerable authority, even if the means by which he acts appears on the surface to be through his senior officers. Furthermore, the constitutional role of UMAG in our structures needs to be discussed and clarified. Its origins may have been as an 'advisory' group to the VC but it now appears to have taken on a life of its own as an executive decision-making body. If it has, this process has occurred without any proper discussion or corresponding constitutional change. So what does it do? This is not an easy question to answer. As ever, subtext aims to assist understanding by offering some observations. We start with the Staff Handbook. Here its remit is defined as being a support to the Vice Chancellor and the University’s governing bodies. So far so good, though Senate may not quite see it in these terms. It goes on ... 'It acts as a conduit of information from and to the standing bodies and members of the university, takes an initial view of new or controversial business, particularly in regard to the routing of it, presents policy statements, especially of strategic moment, for discussion and comment, and takes decisions within its competence.' [subtext is currently seeking to identify the person who wrote this – suggestions please in confidence to the editors.] A conduit for information it may believe itself to be, but opaque seems a more appropriate description when it comes to its activities. Whether it takes decisions within its competence or not, and what these decisions are, is difficult to ascertain. In the past, UMAG-watchers were helped not just by Inkytext but by minutes which were posted on the web. They offered some insight into what was discussed and possible outcomes. Recent years, however, have seen a significant change in that formal minutes seem to have been replaced by a brief report of proceedings. What can be gleaned from recent reports reveals a senior management group often burdened with administrative matters. These may be important in their own right but it would appear to indicate that the Heads of the Academic and Resources Divisions and their respective activities tend to dominate proceedings. Academic strategy and direction, including the RAE, seem strangely absent by comparison. This, of course, could be because it is deemed to be addressed elsewhere: within departments and faculties, the sadly attenuated APC, when it meets, and Senate. It is an open secret that confidentiality and cabinet-style, collective decision making, though practised before, has been reinforced under the present Vice-Chancellor. Once a decision has been taken or a recommendation has emerged, all members are expected to own it and to endorse it in public. Certainly any dissent that might occur is rarely, if ever, recorded. A fact that might help explain some of the silences and glum faces of UMAG members witnessed at Senate and Council. They may not agree but do not feel able to say so in public. The Deans may say one thing within their Faculties but can no longer be a source of constructive challenge within Senate or other senior committees. They are there to represent the 'management' view - an unfortunate, if not unforeseen, consequence of their joining UMAG. How has all this come about and does it matter? Undoubtedly, the seeds of today’s more centralised, top-down management structures and processes were sown in the financial crisis of the 1990s, and the finance-driven remedies required to get us out of it. As an institution we had to adopt harsh financial disciplines and we did so successfully, so much so that we accepted developments we might otherwise have challenged. More recently, we have appointed a Vice-Chancellor who believes in leading from the front, actively managing the institution and it being actively managed. From his first months here he has encouraged the University to move forward on many fronts, worked unstintingly on its behalf, and few would doubt that a lot has been achieved with more to come. He also appears more comfortable working through senior administrators. So, is there a cause for concern regarding UMAG? At the risk of sounding churlish, subtext would suggest there is. First, as a matter of principle, we should know who (or what) is exercising decision-making on our behalf, what the checks and balances are, and particularly how they can be held to account. Second, the vagueness surrounding the remit and constitutional position of UMAG needs to be resolved, and through open debate and discussion. Third, the advantages of more centralised decision-making are not immediately obvious or compelling, at least to those who will be managed, and do not sit well with Lancaster’s values and culture. **************************************************** 3. NEWS IN BRIEF subtext hasn’t always found reason to congratulate the Vice Chancellor but we do so for his recent 53rd birthday (1st November). We hope he found some time to celebrate and that cream cakes were in evidence on D floor. ****** It appears that it is not only academics who feel alienated by illiterate management jargon. Both subtext and its readers have for some time been pointing out absurd examples of this in University literature and government documents. According to a BBC report, Investors in People said that the proliferation of phrases such as 'blue-sky thinking' and 'brain dump' was damaging to British industry. About a third of the 3,000 workers polled said they felt inadequate when wordy terms were needlessly used. Others believed bosses were being untrustworthy, or hiding something.' Susan Bassnett, a Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Warwick (and a former member of staff at Lancaster) was quoted in the Guardian (7th November)as commenting that so much of what she heard at management meetings was nonsensical and that managers often used jargon to obscure what was really going on. The report may be found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6118828.stm ****** Further evidence of the increasing pressures within higher education was revealed in a recent poll. Bureaucracy, an overwhelming workload, poor management and external interference are the main reasons why nearly two thirds (62 per cent) of lecturers think about moving to work abroad. Equally worrying is the revelation that over half of the respondents (52 per cent) to a YouGov poll, commissioned by UCU(the University and College Union), said they had considered quitting the profession altogether and moving to work in the private sector. The survey of more than 1,000 UCU members also revealed that almost half (47 per cent) have suffered ill health because of their job and even more (55 per cent) would not recommend a career in higher education to their children. A spokesperson for Universities UK welcomed the survey and stated that it '... does remind us that that there is still work to be done in this area.' Employers' body UCEA were less constructive saying somewhat cryptically that 'the changed skill mix needs to be taken into account when trying to draw inaccurate comparisons to other sectors with regards to excessive workloads. Nurses and other NHS professionals are now trained to take on workloads previously assigned to doctors only.' For further reading, see the UCU press release and links to the full results at: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=1888. ****** subtext sends its best wishes to John Hughes, Professor in the Sociology department and Principal of Cartmel College, as he embarks upon retirement. John suffered a lengthy period of ill health, culminating in the amputation of one of his legs earlier in the year, a particularly cruel fate that he endured with typical high spirits and good humour. (Suggestions that he might undergo a course of counselling following the amputation were unequivocally dismissed.) Shortly afterwards, he retired from his chair in Sociology, though it was hoped that he may have been able to continue as Principal of Cartmel until the college's 40th anniversary in two years time. That has turned out to be impracticable, and the Principalship of Cartmel has now been advertised. Among many other things, John deserves particular credit for overseeing the successful relocation of Cartmel to its new home at Alexandra Park. ****** Marion McClintock, University Archivist, has now been commissioned by the Vice-Chancellor to write the long-awaited second volume of the University History. Hopes that this would happen have been expressed on numerous public occasions, and it is good to hear that formal plans are now in place. The volume is expected to appear in 2011, and will encompass a 50 year period from the 1961 announcement of the founding of the University to the present. ****** Following on from the report on job moves in University House in the last issue, we can now report that the new Postgraduate Admissions Officer (replacing Heather Willes, who has moved across to become Undergraduate Admissions Officer) is Catherine Pacey, who will be joining us from the University of Manchester. ****** The effective functioning of the University depends upon a certain number of academic staff giving up a proportion of their departmental duties in order to take on wider University posts. These include such appointments as the University Dean and College Principals. In order to 'compensate' departments for the partial loss of the services of the staff member in question, they are given a sum of money to be spent in such a way as to relieve the staff member of a proportion of their duties. This sum of money is what is known as a 'buy-out'. This system has long been a creaking one. There are a number of problems that come into play here. First, certain Heads of Department are notoriously reluctant to allow any of their members of staff to take on these wider University positions, for fear of the detrimental effect that this will have upon their own department. In many cases, this reluctance is the result of pressure being exerted from above on Heads of Department themselves. But this only highlights the schizophrenic behaviour of management in this respect. On the one hand, they need staff to operate the college system, for instance, in which they claim to take pride. But on the other hand, they preside over a management and financial structure that forces Heads of Department to discourage their staff to take on these roles. The practical outcome is that members of staff are in many cases in the unenviable position of having to fight with their immediate superiors (and often unsuccessfully) in order to perform tasks that are essential to the University's effective functioning. The second problem that emerges is that even when the buy-out in question has been agreed, there is no guarantee that it will be used in the way intended, namely, to relieve the member of staff in question of a proportion of their duties. An internal transfer from one budget head to another occurs, usually to the Faculty or administrative section, but is not always passed on in full or at all to the relevant department or section. As Faculties and administrative sections – and sometimes departments - seek to stay within budget the temptation to snaffle the funding for other purposes can be overwhelming. It is further the case, therefore, that having fought for the opportunity to serve the University in a wider role, the member of staff in question now finds him/herself punished for doing so by being substantially overworked. Given this double-beating that volunteers often have to endure, it is a wonder that anyone volunteers for these roles at all. The fact that they do is a tribute to the generous goodwill of the members of staff in question, who are in almost all these case motivated by commitments to traditional University ideals. But what looks like self-sacrificing goodwill through one lens looks alarmingly like exploitation through another. It is becoming increasingly obvious that something needs to be done. Not only are conscientious individuals being exploited, but important University offices are now being left unfilled. If the colleges, for instance, are as important to the University as it claims, then management have an obligation to ensure that appropriate structures are in place to enable (and indeed encourage) staff to serve them. Finally, it is worth pointing out that the problems discussed here are, in fact, only one side of the coin. There are, for instance, many onerous University jobs that carry no buy-out at all. There are, on the other hand, substantial buy-outs for jobs whose duties are relatively thin. subtext hopes to extend the discussion of buy-outs to these areas in a future issue. **************************************************** 5. A BISHOP REMEMBERS LANCASTER IN THE 1960s The Bishop of Norwich, The Right Revd Graham James, is an alumnus of this University. He was translated to the Bishopric of Norwich in 1999 and took his seat in the House of Lords in 2004. In a recent article, he recalls his time as an undergraduate at Lancaster in its more turbulent - and some would say more stimulating - days. Subtext readers may be interested in this brief snippet: 'I went to the University of Lancaster in 1969. For Part I in my first year I read - in equal proportions in those days - English, Sociology and History. Those were the days at Lancaster when, if you were brave, you went through a picket line to get to your tutorial, only to discover that your tutors had gone on strike and set up the Free University of Lancaster in local snack bars. That was especially so in the English Department, dominated by the Marxist interpretation of literature at the time. In seminars on linguistics I learned about the way people were oppressed by the language they were made to use by those who ruled them. In the Lancaster Sociology Department at the time there was a division between those for whom for want of better terms I shall call functionalists and conflict sociologists. The functionalists believed that society cohered as the result of the functions of our customs, traditions and behaviours. It was noticeable that those who thought in this sort of way wore suits and had short hair and were extremely polite. In that part of the department I was always "Mr James". But there were other sociologists who seemed to think that society existed only through the heat and friction created by the conflicts within it. They were scruffy, called you by your first name, took drugs, and one had a sex change before such things were very successful. Class conflict, political conflict, religious conflict and racial conflict created the heat, but of course one side was right and the other was wrong. It struck me that if the powerless became powerful and the powerful became powerless we would simply have the same situation but with different baddies. You will understand why I read history in Part II.' Source: 'Mission and the Parish-Shaped Church' in 'Theology' 109 (2006), p. 7. A copy may be found in the University Library. **************************************************** 6. RUMOURS OF DEPARTMENTAL CLOSURES For some years now, rumours of pending departmental closures have abounded. At any point in time over the last five years or so, there has always been at least one academic department perceived to be sitting on a trap door that was to be opened at any moment. The most high profile recent instance was, of course, the threatened closure of the Art Department. As all now know, after lengthy processes of negotiation, Art was instead merged with Music and Theatre Studies to form the new Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts. Then the spotlight was on Religious Studies: retiring staff were not replaced, and it was rumoured that existing staff were to be hived off to other departments (Sociology, Politics, Philosophy, etc.), with the department itself becoming defunct. Now, the hot seat is being occupied by yet another department: the Department of European Languages and Cultures. Exactly the same pressures are being exerted, the same rumours are circulating, and the same feelings of demoralisation are pervasive. Departments have in fact been closed or transferred at Lancaster, most recently Chemistry. But we have to ask of the motives behind these current rumours, and the effect that such negativity has upon existing staff. The idea that a departmental closure is imminent is demoralising for everyone, but particularly for those directly concerned. It has to be said that the reasons given for such pending closures are rarely derived from long term strategic thinking, and are usually attributed to short-term problems that can be expected to correct themselves (or be corrected by hard working staff). These include down-turns in undergraduate applications, a low record of attracting research funding and other such transient phenomena. Could it be that the threat of closure is a management technique designed to stimulate academics into correcting these short-term problems? Quite possibly, but it has to be recognised that such tactics also bring with them significant negative results as well. Demoralised staff inevitably start looking for jobs elsewhere, and it is the senior and well-respected scholars who can most easily get them. In the current case of DELC, it is understood that the Vice-Chancellor has warned the Faculty Dean off any precipitate moves towards closure, following the very respectable admissions figures achieved by DELC this year. This is in the wake of its apparently successful scheme of Subject Awards. It would indeed be ironic if the University were to phase out most of its language teaching provision at the very moment that government policy is attempting to encourage language learning at University level. Another rumour sometimes heard is that the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences must sacrifice at least one of its departments because the Faculty is 'too big'. In which case, perhaps the sensible thing would have been not to merge the two predecessor faculties in the first place. **************************************************** 7. LETTER Dear subtext, As the competition was about the banners around campus, and alluded to the financing of the new buildings, am I right in thinking that I won't be able to own it for the next 38 years? As I don't have that long to wait, I'm developing my own board game in the mean time, which I call 'Publicly Funded Monopoly'. It starts with all the houses laid out on all the streets (renamed as parts of colleges), and each person plays an administrator. The object of the game is for each player to acquire full sets of colleges. Every time a player gets a full college set, they knock down all the houses and put up hotels in their place, the bank pays, and the rent that the other players have to pay if they land on the college doubles. This continues until the bank runs out of money, and then the game is over for everybody, and the player with the most cash wins. Michael Cowie, CELT ***************************************************** The editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order) of: Lenny Baer, George Green, Gavin Hyman, Ian Reader, Bronislaw Szerszynski and Alan Whitaker.
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