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issue 33 11 February 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. For tips to prevent subtext from getting swept up into your 'junk email folder', see http://www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext/dejunk/. ***************************************************** CONTENTS: editorial; new dean; war on terror; court report; doctorates and completion rates; urban myth; letters. ***************************************************** EDITORIAL: IN PRAISE OF FEBRUARY Joy of joys. Just as dread February is upon us, it has a change of heart and gifts us a week of spring. High pressure settles over the country, and banishes the seasonally inflicted lows that we were bracing ourselves for. For Februaries in this part of the world are usually joyless and unforgiving - dark, cold, wet and dreary, as if the year has simply turned its back on us. Stagecoach buses drive past, full (we can only assume, since all the windows are steamed up), and splash dirty puddles up our legs as they do so. Sunshine is a distant memory (or did we only dream that it ever existed). The only choice of weather seems to be fourteen different unkindnesses of rain. The early Romans didn't see the point of naming this time of year, when
everything is suspended. Their agrarian calendar went from March to December
and then just stopped until March came again. Why measure a part of the
year when there's nothing to do? Then in the 8th century BCE the Roman
King Numa Pompilius invented two new months to fill the gap, with February
named after the purification festival Februa. So at last the time of endless
waiting for the restarting of the year, for light and growth, had a name. The denizens of Lancaster emerge blinking into this light, unsure how to react to the sudden grace. Some stick to their winter clothes, unable or unwilling to acknowledge the gift of unseasonal sun, to 'cast a clout ere May is out'. Others, reckless, strip to tee-shirts. Anglers punctuate the canal, reminding us of different, almost forgotten temporalities. There are no country rhymes now that can help us to discern the rhythms
of our changing and unpredictable climate. We're in uncharted waters.
But as it came in on a high, chances are that February will go out on
a low. So enjoy it now. APPOINTMENT OF NEW DEAN: TONY McENERY subtext readers will no doubt be aware by now Tony McEnery has been appointed Dean Designate of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. We send our congratulations to Professor McEnery, wish him well, and hope that he will provide us with as little copy as possible. Tony McEnery will undoubtedly be familiar to many readers, especially those who have been at Lancaster for some time. But for others, we thought it would be helpful to provide some background information on the future Dean. Professor McEnery's association with Lancaster is longstanding. He arrived in October 1983 as an undergraduate in Law. He was also, however, a beneficiary of Lancaster's distinctive three-subject Part I system, and at the end of his first year, he switched to Linguistics. On graduating, he spent a number of years in accountancy and in IT before pursuing a masters degree at Leicester which combined his interests in Linguistics and IT. But, before long, he returned to Lancaster, initially to take up a research post and read for a PhD. But in 1992, he was appointed to a full time permanent lectureship in Linguistics. Apart from spells overseas as Visiting Professor, he has remained at Lancaster ever since. He quickly established a strong research reputation, with publications in computational linguistics and corpus linguistics. Shortly after becoming a Reader, he served as Head of Department from 2000 to 2005. By all accounts he was a remarkably effective Head and left the Department of Linguistics in good health, although it has also to be said that he was seen as a divisive figure by some. During this time, he also played a prominent role in Faculty affairs - being instrumental, for example, in setting up the dedicated Faculty IT support team. In 2004, he stood for the newly created post of Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, following the creation of the Faculty as the result of a merger. At that time, many speculated that the merger might involve a rationalisation of departments by means of closures and/or mergers. Tony McEnery emerged firmly as a figure who would fight to defend departments' autonomy and would undertake to represent departments to UMAG, rather than the other way round. Tony Gatrell, by contrast, spoke much more openly on the need to examine the possibility of rationalisation and gave the impression that he was looking to pursue a more managerial agenda. In spite of Tony McEnery garnering considerable Faculty support, it therefore surprised few when Tony Gatrell was appointed. Shortly thereafter, Tony McEnery temporarily left Lancaster in order to take up the post of Director of Research at the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), working with the newly appointed Chief Executive, Philip Esler. It was known that McEnery's sojourn at the AHRC was temporary, but some wondered whether or not he would return to Lancaster at the end of his term of office. He did so in 2007, however, and, as we now know, he applied for a second time for the post of Dean. As reported in our last issue, and as Faculty members will have seen from his statement and presentation, the central theme of his application was the need for the Faculty to see what its challenges are and for it to face the need for significant change - a rather more interventionist agenda than the one that he proposed four years ago, and one which may raise some concerns. However, circumstances are rather different today, and the choices faced by Lancaster clearer - for example, whether Lancaster should focus on developing a business-facing and more regional identity, or on retaining its status as an international research university. Professor McEnery's time at the AHRC may well have given him a clearer sense of where the most rewarding direction for the arts and social sciences at Lancaster may lie. We look forward with interest to seeing how the Faculty develops under his deanship. ***************************************************** UNIVERSITIES AND THE WAR ON TERROR subtext has run a number of 'think' pieces over the last few years, and a theme common to most of them has been the need for reflection on the purpose of a university. We have invited reflections on what universities are for in relation to a wide range of issues: the commercialisation of research, freedom of expression, involvement with the arms trade, the privatisation of language teaching, and so on. But one question we have not touched on so far is the role that academia ought or ought not to be playing in what since 2001 has been referred to (and not without controversy) as the 'war on terror'. As reported in subtext 5, there was a point at which the then Education Secretary Ruth Kelly and others seemed to be using the language of 'unacceptable behaviour' on campus to imply a kind of moral equivalence between democratic protest by anti-capitalist students and Islamicist terrorism. But generally such questions have seemed remote from the concerns of a small, provincial university like Lancaster. However, there are various ways in which our working life at the University might not be as immune as we imagine from the complex geopolitical dynamics unleashed by the September 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre. Take the relationship between staff and students, for example. After fears of 'home grown' Islamicist terrorism were prompted by the London bombings of July 2005, university campuses came under the spotlight as possible 'fertile recruiting grounds' for Islamicist extremism. As we reported in subtext 13, in 2006 the Department of Education and Skills drew up proposals which recommended that university staff inform on Muslim and 'Asian-looking' students who they suspect of engaging in extremist activities - a proposal that was met with opposition by the then Association of University Teachers on the grounds that lecturers should not be expected to spy on their students (http://tinyurl.com/ygjexe). More recently, Bill Rammell suggested that universities should 'consider rejecting demands for separate prayer and washing facilities to prevent their campuses segregating along religious lines and risking a climate where illegal extremist views can flourish' (http://tinyurl.com/2kz44r). Even the process of postgraduate admissions is being shaped by the concern about an international terrorist threat. On 1 November 2007 the government introduced the Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS), in order 'to stop the spread of knowledge and skills that could be used in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their means of delivery' (http://tinyurl.com/3yj2g5). Individuals from outside the European Union who apply to undertake postgraduate study in certain science, engineering or technology disciplines in the UK have to fill in a specific form, and undergo a vetting process. Concerns have been raised that the resulting delays in the application process will divert overseas students elsewhere, to the detriment of UK science (http://tinyurl.com/337ehv). What about the pursuit of knowledge? Even Bill Rammell's speech of 22 January acknowledged the importance of protecting universities' right to autonomous research and free debate. But research can be subtly shaped through many processes, including the differential availability of funding. Recent years have seen the main channels for European science funding increasingly steered towards military research, largely due to the influence of the Group of Personalities (GoP), a 25-member advisory body seeking to create a European military research system similar to that of the USA. Their main achievement so far has been the creation in 2007 of the European Securities Research Programme (ESRP), which is diverting money away from civil priorities by drawing its funding from the EU's main funding channel for academic research, the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7) (see the report Arming 'Big Brother' from the Transnational Institute at http://tinyurl.com/2ua23s; for an analysis of the increasing militarisation of science research by Scientists for Global Responsibility, see http://www.sgr.org.uk/arms.html). And it is not just the hard sciences that have seen their disciplinary priorities and norms put under pressure by the discourse of the war on terror, and the resultant strengthening of militarised visions of the future. In September, the US government announced a $40 million expansion of the Human Terrain Team programme, which deploys anthropologists, social scientists and software programmers with combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq, at salaries up to $400,000. Anthropologists have raised concerns that such 'mercenary anthropology' violates anthropologists' ethical codes and threatens to reverse all the hard work the discipline has done to cast off its problematic nineteenth-century colonial origins (see article in Wired at http://tinyurl.com/28utez). An earlier attempt by the UK Economic and Social Research Council to initiate a research programme on Islamic extremism met with similar criticisms, forcing them to withdraw and reformulate their call for proposals. Are any or all of these issues affecting life at Lancaster? Are we being appropriately vigilant against violent extremism without stifling debate or acting in a discriminatory manner? Is ATAS starting to affect our postgraduate intake in any way? Is the balance of our research being pulled towards military and security applications, so that we too are playing our part in reinforcing a particular version of the future, at the expense of others? Discuss. ***************************************************** UNIVERSITY OF LANCASTER COURT: 'YOU’VE ALL DONE VERY WELL' Saturday 26th January saw the 44th annual meeting of the University Court. It was a somewhat subdued affair. Probably much to the relief of senior University Officers, for once the meeting did not attract any student picket line or gathering outside the George Fox building. Gordon Johnson, one of the Deputy Pro-Chancellors, was in the chair and opened the meeting in his usual assured and succinct manner. Minutes were proposed for confirmation and co-options to the Court agreed before some had settled into their seats. We moved smoothly to the annual report of the Pro-Chancellor on the activities of University Council over the previous year. The message was a positive one of continued progress. Council had grappled with various issues, including the student experience and the role of the Colleges, the complex discussions surrounding the re-financing of the residences agreement and the development of a 'People Strategy' consistent with our overall ambitions. The comment that effective performance management is being established alongside a recognition of the need to manage work-life balance seemed to produce one or two wry expressions from some staff in the audience, but doubtless all could take comfort from the remark that we are a successful institution because of the people who work here and the students who come here. The Vice-Chancellor’s report – his sixth, doesn’t time fly! – was, as we have come to expect, fluent, polished and detailed. It also acknowledged the contribution of all his senior colleagues. It ranged over sustainability and capacity – we now have a new estates masterplan for the campus and a land bank for the future should we need it – and continued financial stability and progress, reflected in our enhanced Standard and Poor’s credit rating from A- to A. Apparently, the latter says a lot about how we are viewed externally, which is important should we wish to borrow more in order to fund the continued investment in campus facilities. Student experience was reviewed in a similarly upbeat manner, as was the list of academic achievements. Both pointed to the conclusion that it had been another good year for Lancaster, at least from the perspective of D floor in University House. The report prompted a number of questions and observations, including one about the curtailment of the Scott Gallery’s opening hours that produced a flicker of discomfort. Generally though the Vice-Chancellor seemed in a more relaxed mood than previous years. So much so that even the now obligatory question about the future of college bars was handled with good grace as he repeated his previous remarks that he was supportive of each college having its own bar but that the management and efficiency of their operations was a separate issue. The University’s accounts for the year ending 31 July 2007 were introduced by the chair of the Finance Committee, who remarked on another excellent set of results. We have a strengthening balance sheet and continuing improvement in key financial ratios. As young Mr Grace often said in the 1970’s television series Are you being served? 'You’ve all done very well'. The Director of Finance and Resources, Andrew Neal, could not have put it better and very sensibly admitted that most of his highlights had already been mentioned. One matter he did touch upon, however, is the revision of the Financial Strategy, for the period 2008 – 13. The significance of his understated comment that he expected a 'lively debate' within the University might have been lost on some present, but not those who have had sight of its challenging financial targets and very ambitious borrowing strategy. As time became more pressing, LUSU President Tim Roca took centre stage. His presentation was accomplished and delivered with style and flair. His focus on the positives combined with constructive criticisms might have produced one or two grimaces from senior officers on the top table, but it added a welcome sense of perspective to this annual event. There were problems with accommodation of students at the start of the current academic year, whatever the senior management might say. From the student viewpoint there are ongoing issues regarding our relationship with UPP and a need for consultation with LUSU to be real and meaningful. There is a need for the collegiate system and what it embodies to be better understood and supported if it is to prosper. Whilst his hope for a shared vision and partnership with the University struck some as unlikely, six months of office has given him a healthy dose of scepticism, should one be needed. As he remarked, 'there is communication – sometimes - but we are just not listened to'. The report of the Council Working Party on Tuition Fees was dealt with quickly. They had stuck firmly to their original remit and concluded that the level of evidence was not yet there to enable an assessment of the impact of tuition fees on the university and its region. However, it was a work in progress. The group is to continue in being so as to monitor information and evidence as it becomes available and would be reporting back to Court in the future. Attention then turned to the Report of the Court Effectiveness Working Party. In many respects this was the key substantive agenda item for members of the Court, but attracted disappointingly little comment on its main recommendations. This could have been due to the time – lunch was beckoning – or the fact that the chair of the Working Party, Deputy Pro-Chancellor Stanley Henig, introduced it briskly, pointing out this was the first examination of the effectiveness of Court since Lancaster had been established. The lack of commentary about its key recommendations, including important potential changes to Statute 8 and a new ordinance that has real significance for Court's future powers, make-up and meetings, did not seem to invite debate or evoke comment. He sought to reassure those present that the wish was to be inclusive and that there would be a further opportunity for the group to reconvene and consider comments and proposals received before, during or after the meeting. His cause was helped by Lord Taylor of Blackburn, with all his experience of the University and the Court, jumping up to commend the report to the meeting with a proposal that its recommendations be accepted. This suggestion didn’t find immediate favour, though. Some stakeholders were rightly determined to have their say, usually querying or challenging why they should be removed. However, it should make the last meeting of the Working Group interesting as they strive to be inclusive, as promised. The final agenda item, which might have provoked more comment if dealt with earlier in the meeting – it seems no chances were being taken - was the approval of the University Council recommendation that the Pro-Chancellor should be reappointed for a further five years from 1 August 2008. Having been informed in no uncertain terms that the Nominations Committee had acted within its powers and proper process had been observed, Court voted to approve the recommendation. This surprised no one. Lunch was being served. ***************************************************** DOCTORATES AND COMPLETION RATES subtext would hate to be thought derivative, but we did think it worth bringing to the attention of readers an article by the Cambridge philosopher, Simon Blackburn, in a recent issue of the THES, relating to doctoral completion rates (http://tinyurl.com/2fyenk). As we know, departments where the 4-year submission rate falls below 70 per cent, both for those award-holders surveyed in the current survey and also the aggregate 4-year rate for the last three years of the survey, will be ineligible to submit candidates for doctoral awards for two years. Using philosophical logic, Blackburn shows how easy it is for departments (especially small ones) to fall foul of these criteria. Indeed, Law at Cambridge and Classics at Oxford have already done so. As Blackburn observes: 'With small figures, statistical fluctuations will trigger inflexible 'target-driven' punishments. Every so often they will also place an extraordinary burden on some individuals. Each of my fifth-year students [in his example] carries the fate of perhaps six prospective postgraduates on his or her shoulders. Larger departments, of course, will see less fluctuation, but the logic is still inexorable.' In light of this, Blackburn suggests some prudent defensive strategies: 1) Avoid British students: you will need to recruit overseas students when the statistical fluctuations go against you, so start now. 2) Avoid challenging PhD theses: better safe than sorry - keep your students away from pursuing new directions, having to acquire new skills or new languages. 3) Make sure that final-year students do not get jobs. Too much time spent preparing lectures and preparing to move home will only detract from achieving the timely completion rate. 4) Make sure that they are not good enough to get Junior Research Fellowships. If they do, they may be tempted to spend more time improving and expanding their theses - something to be avoided at all costs. 5) Do not approach as a potential examiner anyone with a reputation for insisting on high standards. 6) 'get on the phone or encrypted e-mail to more pliable colleagues. We each need the statistics. So you pass my students and ... We're in this together. The time for pedantry is past: if corners are cut, the arguments shaky, the scholarship a bit thin and the grammar could have been better ... well, mum's the word. There are probably better students in the pipeline, waiting for support, and they will not get it if we are too pernickety now.' Commenting on this piece, an overseas scholar writes: 'I was totally shocked to learn about this policy when I came to interview for a [chair] at a British university. This kind of bean-counting is very typical of the economic mentality which seeks the security of spurious quantification over assessments of quality. I could not see [myself] taking a position teaching in such a program, which treats students as identical widgets coming off an assembly line.' Meanwhile, the AHRC observes: 'submission rates within 4 years have improved significantly among departments with funded students since the introduction of this policy' (http://tinyurl.com/2s96r3). There are two responses to this: first, what has the impact been on the quality of the theses themselves (Blackburn's 'defensive strategies' should clearly give us pause for thought here)? Secondly, if this is indeed the case, universities have only themselves to blame for their meek submissiveness. How wonderful it would have been if the universities had collectively agreed to flout these inane rules in protest, thus leaving the AHRC with no one to whom they could give their money. But, of course, to hope for such is to live in the clouds. ***************************************************** URBAN MYTH: LIVING ON THE PERIMETER Students arriving at Lancaster in 2008 expect - and get - good living
conditions. It would be hard to sell a room these days that wasn't both
networked and en-suite. But it was not ever thus. Back at the turn of
the decade there were at least two students living in camper vans on the
University perimeter road. Every day the two vans drove to different parking
spots, and they had both paid for a permit. As a result it wasn't quite
clear to Security exactly what law the owners were breaking, though they
were darn sure that a law was being broken somewhere and that the students
were going to be moved on. A merry dance around the ring road ensued. ***************************************************** LETTERS Dear subtext, Regarding your piece in the last issue about the Cambridge don checking his applicants' Facebook entries - I find it interesting that this sort of behaviour has finally reached University level. In technical circles it's been virtually impossible to get a job without someone checking up on you online. Traditionally this has involved sticking your name into Google and having a good look around. This is just another reason why I feel people need more education about how the net works. Anything put online generally stays online, archived somewhere, so if it's associated with your real name then that association's never going to go away. This is especially bad with services like Facebook, where it's expected you'll be signed up under your name, and peer pressure towards using the service pushes more and more people to reveal more personal details about themselves (and from memory of reading the Acceptable Use Policy of Facebook they have the perpetual right to use any data, including pictures, you give them, although they graciously let you continue owning it). Slashdot (http://slashdot.org/) has covered a number of situations in the States where people have been fired for posting pictures of themselves to Facebook, so it's not entirely unexpected to see it being added to Google as a method of checking up on people. Anyway, give it a go with yourself some time. See what you can dig up about yourself from Google, Facebook, MySpace, LiveJournal, etc. using only your real name. Regards, and thanks for writing the excellent publication, Paul Tipper (Computing) ***************************************************** The editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical
order) of: Sarah Beresford, George Green, Gavin Hyman, Bronislaw Szerszynski
and Alan Whitaker. |