subtext

Home
Archive
Subscribe
Editors
Contact

 

 

 

 

 

subtext

issue 68

2 December 2010

*****************************************************

'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/.

*****************************************************

CONTENTS: editorial, news in brief, the sciences will hurt too, UK VCs on Browne, university council, senate report, jubilee science park, 1966 and all that, letters

*****************************************************

EDITORIAL

'subtext 68' - is it just us, or does that have a kind of insurrectionary ring to it?  It may be numerology, it may be coincidence, but in this issue we report increasing unrest about the coalition government's plans to slash its funding of university teaching and transfer the costs to students.  In advance of MPs' vote on the proposals later this month, pressure to get the proposals rejected or amended is stepping up.  Cardiff Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Willott is widely expected to vote against the proposed rise in tuition fees, and may even resign her government post as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Chris Huhne.  There are rumours that Vince Cable has been wobbling on the £9,000 fees cap, and considering lowering it to £7,000.  Campaigning groups have been set up by academics, including the Campaign for the Public University.  But it has been students and school pupils who have been taking the lead - and we should all be paying attention.

It all started of course with the official national demonstration on 10 November (see last issue).  Then on 19 November we saw a local 'manifestacion' of the growing angry mood as around 100 students attempted to disrupt Lancaster University Council to call Vice-Chancellor Paul Wellings' bluff after his plea for 'constructive debate'.  But it was on Wednesday 24 November that things really started to get interesting.

On that day around 50,000 students and schoolchildren staged walk-outs and improvised demonstrations in town centres up and down the country, organised through Facebook and Twitter.  Lancaster itself saw about 300 schoolchildren from the city and surrounding towns marching noisily around the town centre several times.  Thousands protested in Westminster.  Eight UK universities saw sit-in protests overnight - and on the Thursday morning, students were still demonstrating in lecture theatres and other sites at Edinburgh, UCL, Oxford, Cardiff, SOAS, Newcastle, Manchester, Plymouth and Essex.  As subtext goes to press some occupations are still continuing. 

The National Union of Students, which quickly distanced itself from the occupiers of 9 Millbank on 10 November, clearly realised they were in danger of losing any claim to represent the student body.  So on Sunday 28 November NUS president Aaron Porter performed a volte-face, apologising for his earlier 'spineless' lack of public support for university occupations http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/28/student-leader-apologises-over-dithering).  But there was still an overwhelming sense that the NUS were at best trying to catch up with a runaway grassroots phenomenon.

Monday 29 November saw an interesting new tactic, as a flashmob of UCL students occupied a Top Shop store on Oxford St, using the slogan 'you marketise our education, we educate the market'.  A number of sympathetic members of the public were moved to join in.  Another national day of walk-outs and marches took place on Tuesday 30 November, with thousands taking to the streets despite the cold, and large demonstrations in Manchester, Birmingham, Oxford, Brighton, Bristol, Newcastle, Cardiff, Leeds, Sheffield and Edinburgh.  The day saw over 180 arrests - mainly of a group of protestors in Trafalgar Square who refused to leave at the official end of the demonstration.  That day also saw an unpleasant hardening of police tactics, including charges by mounted police and the return of the discredited tactic of 'kettling' of protestors for hours - particularly disturbing with young schoolchildren and in cold weather.

It has been a long time since we have seen anything like this level of student mobilisation.  And, unlike most of the UK's Vice-Chancellors (see report below), the students and schoolchildren seem to be in step with public opinion: a survey carried out by Ipsos MORI shows strong support for public investment in higher education, with 80 per cent saying that it should either increase or stay the same (http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/hefce/2010/publicatt.htm).  Beneath the more vocal argument about fee levels and student debt lies a deeper disquiet about the distorting effects that the imposition of a privatised, market model will have on higher education itself; the students seem to 'get' that as much as anyone.  We may not agree with every single tactic being used during the protests, but they certainly deserve praise and support for making such a defiant stand. 

*****************************************************

NEWS IN BRIEF

The curious case of Lancaster University and the Work Foundation

With the acquisition of the Work Foundation, Lancaster University is now able to claim an association with three of the UK's top 20 HR thinkers, according to HR magazine (see http://www.mostinfluential.hrmagazine.co.uk/2010-results.aspx). Will Hutton at number 2 joins Cary Cooper at 7 and Paul Sparrow (a new entry to the charts, pop pickers) at 13.  It has also presumably acquired London offices and a platform from which to seek to influence policy and engage in consultancy close to the seat of financial and political power.  But, musing in the subtext warehouse, we have been struck by the lack of information in the university about the terms of the takeover. Since the Work Foundation was apparently insolvent, with its pension fund in particular trouble, the terms of the acquisition were presumably favourable.  But has the university taken on any liabilities along with the undoubted assets?  Is the acquisition the unproblematic gain for the university which it has been presented as being?  More information about the terms of the transaction, and just what the 'synergistic' benefits to the university are, would no doubt help to assuage such anxieties.

******

Library restructuring

subtext has been receiving disquieting news about staff restructuring of some grades in the Library.  Well known across the university for the excellent service that staff give to everyone who comes near the Library, they are now to be required to change working practices in significant ways, and their numbers reduced.  The unions are involved in a consultation process, but the concern is that some underlying choices, said to have already been approved by UMAG, will not be much altered as a result.

******

The V-C speaks

The Vice-Chancellor is interviewed in the latest issue of Scan, and shares some of his thoughts about the Browne Review and student protests (http://scan.lusu.co.uk/news/2010/11/30/vice-chancellor-i-didn%E2%80%99t-say-don%E2%80%99t-march/).  Apparently, the university is only at the 'operational' end of education policy, so presumably there's no point discussing all this.

******

March against the cuts

There will be a march in Lancaster city centre against the proposed cuts in public services on Saturday, organised by coalition group Lancaster and Morecambe Against the Cuts (http://www.lmatc.org.uk/).  Meet at 12.00 noon in Thurnham Street Car Park, Lancaster (opposite the Revolution bar).

******

University in Crisis

The third in the series of talks on 'The University in Crisis' will be held next Tuesday (7 December) at 5 pm in the Marcus Merriman Lecture Theatre, Bowland North.  Laurence Hemming will be talking to the title '"You owe it to us." Why university?'.

******

USS pension 'consultation'.

Readers with USS pensions will have heard about the proposed major changes to the scheme that USS are tying to push through, despite the fund having moved back into surplus, and despite the proposals having been rejected by all the UCU representatives on the Joint Negotiating Committee (http://www.uss.co.uk/news/Pages/StatementfromUSS.aspx).  USS have refused to hold a ballot of members over the changes, and instead have employed a PR firm to carry out a consultation.  Scheme members have until 22 December to express their views (http://www.uss.co.uk/howussisrun/schemereview/Pages/default.aspx).

*****************************************************

THE SCIENCES WILL HURT TOO

The outcry against the planned cut in government funding of university teaching has focused on the potential impact on the arts, humanities and social sciences.  There is certainly a widespread sense that the coalition government is continuing the prioritisation of the STEM subjects that was supported by Peter Mandelson in his Higher Ambitions report, on the grounds that they are of greater strategic importance to the economy.  But the reality is more complex, and suggests that we should be wary of invoking any us-and-them language between C. P. Snow's 'two cultures'.

What Minister of State for Universities and Science David Willetts promised to protect is not the Block Grant funding for STEM teaching per se but merely the extra cost of teaching those subjects over those in the arts and social sciences (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11627843).  Readers may be aware that subjects are currently divided into four price groups or bands, starting with the most expensive ones:

A   Clinical stages of medicine etc (4)
B   Laboratory-based subjects (1.7)
C   Subjects with a 'studio, laboratory or fieldwork element' (1.3)
D   All other subjects (1)

(The numbers after each category represent the current 'cost weight' - so for example the HEFCE funding for each band A student currently brings in four times as much as that for a band D student.)  It is expected that subjects in Bands C and D will have their entire teaching grant removed, and that funding for subjects in bands A and B will continue, but at amounts reduced by approximately the amount currently received by band C, to make it possible to retain more-or-less equal fees across the different subjects without affecting science teaching. 

So while the 'hit' suffered by FASS and LUMS will be proportionally larger, in absolute terms the cut in teaching grant per student is likely to be the much same across all faculties.  The worry that many HE institutions that offer predominantly band C and D subjects will be particularly hard-hit by the proposed new arrangements is arguably more to do with their ability to demand higher fees - especially if students expect to see higher education more as an investment on which they expect a return - than any differential treatment of disciplines per se.

In the area of research funding the runes are harder to read.  Research Council funding will not be cut, remaining flat over the next few years - and there is no sign, yet, that the proportion spent by the different councils will change.  But many areas of science depend crucially on high levels of capital spend, and capital allocations are being drastically cut, particularly affecting the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).  So 'big science' may suffer greatly.  What is likely to be better supported will be any subjects that promise application - and preferably ones that are less expensive - which could include design, management and areas of the social sciences as much as medicine, science and technology.   

At Lancaster the relative balance of power between the hard and softer disciplines, in terms of their perceived potential to deliver financial stability and prestige, has shifted this way and that.  But one of Lancaster's greatest strengths has been close relations amongst the disciplines and faculties, a principle that was indeed enshrined in concrete in the original plan of the campus.  We should not allow ourselves to be picked off one by one: we should maintain solidarity, and stick up for our colleagues in whatever discipline. 

*****************************************************

UNIVERSITY FUNDING: THE BUDGET AND BROWNE - PART III: FOLLOWING OUR LEADERS

While we're on the subject of divide and rule, subtext has been taking a look at how the various university Vice-Chancellors across the UK have been responding to the Browne Review of university funding. 

The VCs have generally been responding through their university 'mission groupings', such as the 1994 Group to which Lancaster is said to belong.  In one of the most interesting breaking of ranks from that pattern, Sir Peter Scott (VC of Kingston University) dismisses these groups as 'victim-support groups for anxious vice-chancellors, where they could whinge safely in private about the government, the trade unions - and, of course, the other clubs with their snobs and upstarts'.  Scott suggests that no individual university has as a body agreed to join any of the groupings - and that that the reliance on these 'VC's clubs' has allowed the government to play them off against each other, meaning that they have offered at best weak resistance and at worst active collaboration with cuts which have been far higher in higher education than in any other area of the public sector (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/22/tuition-fees-higher-education).

There are currently four such groupings, which, at risk of perpetuating the elitist self-descriptions of the 'top' layers, can be arranged in order as follows:

- The Russell Group - 20 'research-intensive', generally older universities, with an emphasis on medical schools, science and technology, including of course Oxford and Cambridge
- The 1994 group - 19 universities, a mixture of 1960s 'plate-glass' universities and older institutions, but also describing themselves as 'research-intensive'
- The University Alliance - 22 formerly unaligned universities, a mixture of pre- and post-1992 institutions, describing themselves as major, 'business-focussed' universities oriented towards graduate employment (what Scott calls the 'upwardly mobile').
- million+ - 27 post-1992 universities and university colleges (Scott's 'urban grit').

The official statements of these groups on the cuts follow a predictable gradient as one moves 'up' or 'down' the list.  However, whether it's the University Alliance and million+ that can be seen as breaking ranks by criticising the government proposals, or the Russell and 1994 Groups by supporting them, tends (depressingly) to depend on where one is positioned in the layer cake.

Most critical has been the million+ group.  In their 3 Nov press release they argued that 'the Government appears to believe that higher education is only of value to the individual and not to society and the economy. This is not an approach which is being followed in any of the UK's competitor countries. The big risk is that participation and social mobility will be damaged.'  Particularly in their more recent announcements, they have also argued that the government's modelling of impact is wrong, in that the cost to students of the debt, and to the government of writing off the interest before students earn over threshold, will be significantly higher than predicted, jeopardising the promised cost-savings  (http://www.millionplus.ac.uk/press/coalition-should-think-again-on-university-fees).

Nine of the million+ VC's (those of Central Lancashire, Leeds Metropolitan, Kingston, Wolverhampton, Middlesex, East London, Southampton Solent, Greenwich and Bedfordshire) went further, signing a letter published in the Guardian on 10 Nov, repeating many of these arguments and suggesting that MPs should 'vote for additional funding for teaching, and for the costs of teaching a wider range of students to be fully covered' (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/10/higher-education-universities-fees-cuts).

The most outspoken of these have been Peter Scott (Kingston - mentioned above), Malcolm McVicar (UCLAN) and Tessa Blackstone (Greenwich).  McVicar has criticised Browne as elitist and flawed in its picking out of the STEM subjects as particularly necessary for a modern economy and in its acceptance of lower student numbers, and has castigated other VCs for their 'rush to welcome much higher student fees and the acceptance of massive cuts in public investment' (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/03/browne-review-elitist-flawed).  Blackstone, a former Labour education minister, appeared on Radio 4's Today programme arguing that the proposals should be replaced by a graduate tax and a small fee rise.

Out on a rather different limb is Terence Kealey, the rather, ahem, 'eccentric' Vice-Chancellor of the private University of Buckingham. Kealey criticises the government's plans - not for being too market-based but as not market-based enough, and as a disguise for greater state intervention into HEIs.  He argues that the proposed merger of all the higher education institutions into a single Higher Education Council will concentrate political power over universities, for example making it a condition for them to receive state funding that they 'scour inner-city estates' for more working-class students, and 'require all new academics with teaching responsibilities to undertake a teaching-training qualification accredited by the HE Academy' (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/terence-kealey-leave-our-funding-alone-lord-browne-2143040.html).

The University Alliance group have also criticised the proposals, but their rather muted complaining looks like bluster or at best an awkward compromise, particularly as each of their press releases ends with the boilerplate statement that 'Alliance universities are strong and popular institutions and will of course engage with any new system of higher education funding ... '.

The 1994 group (chair and spokesperson, Paul Wellings) and the Russell Group have both been solidly supportive of the raised fees.   Back in January, the Russell Group's Chair, Michael Arthur (Leeds), and its Director General, Wendy Piatt, argued forcefully against impending cuts in a front-page article in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/11/universities-face-meltdown-britain-suffer).  But once it became clear that the Browne Review might provide a mechanism for more than filling that gap, any criticism of the cuts became highly muted, in case the government's trajectory was diverted.  Some of the Russell Group universities were thought to have been exploring the possibility of going private, and the raising of the cap to £9,000 may have been a sop to try to keep them in the public sector.  But the Group are understood to regard the £9,000 merely as stage one of a two-stage process leading to even higher fees, and already to be actively lobbying for the fee cap to be raised further.  You have been warned. 

As mentioned in the last subtext, the Campaign for the Public University have been encouraging people to write to Russell Group VCs demanding that they explain their complicity with the cuts.  But some individual Russell-Group VCs have made some nuanced and interesting statements about the university funding crisis and the idea of the university, which is more than can be said for the 1994 Group VCs.

Keith Burnett (Sheffield) blogged perceptively about the subtle damage to the culture of the university that might be wrought by judging some disciplines to be more valuable than others and by adopting a narrow sense of what HE is for.  He considered how 'gutted' he would feel if his subject, physics, 'had been identified as fundamentally unimportant to the UK, or at least unworthy of its investment, in the way that many of our colleagues' subjects have been.'  He defended the idea of a university 'where knowledge is multi-faceted, not divided by impermeable walls', and particularly mentions the value of the arts and humanities: 'One of our most powerful resources as a country, and as a University, is our cultural insight, our deep questioning of our own society and ideas - perhaps we have never needed that analysis more as we consider how best to go forward' (http://www.shef.ac.uk/vc/blog.html).

It was another Russell Group VC, Nigel Thrift (Warwick), who wrote a prescient article in Times Higher Education back in March.  He argued that universities were far too close to government, suggesting that instead 'we need to start saying "no"'.  Thrift called for the establishment of a commission that would defend the values of the university against the tendency to reduce everything to the 'bottom line'.  His own preferred vision for the higher education sector was more like that of the USA, with a range of universities, both public and private, with greater diversity of form and function.  He suggested that such a system would be less hierarchical and (perhaps naively) more likely to be characterised by 'parity of esteem'.  But achieving any common vision, he argued, would require universities to cooperate as a whole, overcoming their tendencies to divide between the different mission groups.  Without renewed cooperation and a dramatic revisioning, he suggested, 'each group will seek its own salvation, gradually producing a more and more Balkanised landscape' (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=410613&sectioncode=26).

Thrift's warnings seem to have been ignored, his suggestions dismissed, and his direst predictions are now coming true.  We have been let down badly by our Vice-Chancellors - by their neglect of the opinions and values of their own university communities, by their seduction by 'mission groupings', and by their inability to work together in the interests of higher education as a whole.  And even Thrift seems now to have ducked back below the parapet, with his public statements since the publication of the Browne Review and the Comprehensive Spending Review showing little more than passive acceptance of the course on which the government seems to be headed. 

*****************************************************

UNIVERSITY IN CRISIS

On 18 November the 'University in Crisis' series of lectures presented its second speaker, Professor Maureen McNeil, who was invited to talk about her experience of working in universities over the course of her career. Her research is at the intersection of cultural studies, feminist studies and science and technology studies: she was part of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham that was closed in 2002, amidst protest, under the rubric of 'restructuring'.  Her talk, on the changing nature of the university, was entitled 'From Gentlemen's Clubs to Entrepreneurial Hubs to ... ?' 

She started by taking about the danger of idealising the past of the British university, which was deeply hierarchical and reproduced the gender, class and other inequalities of wider society.  In this context, the ongoing problems are not patterns of 'crisis' only. Then, she gave an account of the shift towards the 'entrepreneurial hub' as the dominant image of the university, one which emphasises business models, productivity, profit, accountability and employability.  She pointed out that there were good sides to this shift, but described some problematic syndromes that it has also encouraged: a pre-occupation with competitive metrics of performance such as league tables, REF, impact and completion rates, which create ever higher levels of work and anxiety; a buy-out, grant-getting culture, which devalues teaching and can be counterproductive for writing and thinking; and a university-publishing nexus which absorbs large amounts of invisible and uncosted labour in refereeing and strategising, and ties university standards and research decisions too closely to what is going on in the publishing market.  All these dimensions of the commercialisation of the university were contextualised in the re-definition of higher education, marked by the retreat of the state from the financial responsibility of it and the development of an entrepreneurial mindset in universities.

Turning to the question of what the university would evolve into next, McNeil suggested that the Browne Review might enthrone the student-and-their-parents as an entrepreneurial consumer which would determine the fate of the university.  But it might also have the perverse effect of intensifying inequality, and reversing some of the progress that has been made in dismantling barriers to wider access.

By coincidence, the talk occurred during 'Global Entrepreneurship Week' at Lancaster University, which FASS marked by holding a discussion called 'Should FASS be open for business?', with a focus on working with local companies and increasing student employability.  Professor McNeil's talk was a timely response to the growing precedence of a business-like mentality over other ways of understanding the value of a university.

*****************************************************

UNIVERSITY COUNCIL, 19 NOVEMBER

The latest meeting of University Council took place to the background beating of war drums and the tribal chanting of disgruntled students.  The students were protesting not only about the proposed government cuts in HE funding but also about the University management's constant refusal to include students in discussions and listen to their concerns.

A presentation was made to Stanley Henig on the occasion of his final Council meeting and the Chairman thanked him for his many years of outstanding service to the University.

The meeting started with a Presentation from the Director of Alumni and Development about 'Lancaster's Jubilee' plans.  This was followed by the Vice-Chancellor briefly reporting on various meeting he had attended and confirming the appointment of Professor Steve Bradley as the new Pro Vice-Chancellor (International).  The Director of Finance presented the 2009 financial accounts and also the financial forecasts for the next three years.  The University made a surplus of £7.4 m (4%) in 2009/10.  Future predictions imply that a student fee of £7,000 would just about reach the break-even point covering lost HEFCE income.  The V-C carried this discussion forward stating that Lancaster was in a relatively strong position and even if HEFCE funding for band D and C students is completely removed there would be no plan to change the academic mix of the university.

The President of LUSU confirmed that LUSU has now been awarded full charity status.  Lancaster students were well represented at recent student demonstrations in London with over 250 students attending the demo.  It was also announced that LUSU will make a presentation to Peter Diggle, who recently resigned from Council, to thank him for his contribution.

The Director of Planning presented a set of data summarizing Lancaster's performance in the national and international league tables.  In several areas Lancaster outperformed the vast majority of the Russell and 94 Group universities.

The Chief Operating Officer reported that most of the building programme is running to schedule, the exceptions being the Carter Building and the HR refurbishment.  The University has now submitted a new planning application for a single wind turbine which will be discussed by Lancaster City Council in January.

Council then approved the appointment of two new members to their ranks, Dr Ruth Boumphrey and Mr William Bingley.

The Council meeting finished without any controversy and even the student protesters had by then dispersed

*****************************************************

SENATE REPORT

The meeting of the Senate on 24 November coincided with a day of widespread student protest.  All, however, was quiet in Bailrigg, a low-key security presence in the Management School Extension the only sign that anything untoward was anticipated.  Inside Lecture Theatre 2, proceedings were similarly tranquil.

Professor Wellings reported that the final outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review had been more favourable to university research than he had expected.  The details of the distribution of QR income would be revealed in mid-December.  Asked about the distribution of spending cuts across the sector, he said that T funding would be managed by setting Bands C and D (Arts and Social Sciences) to zero, on which basis Lancaster would do slightly worse than average.  Imaginative redefinition of some subjects as sciences (without the 'social'), to bring them into Band B, was likely; the sector, Professor Wellings noted, had always been good at interpreting rules creatively.  The timing of the cuts was still a mystery, but they would probably begin in earnest in 2012-13.  On the Browne proposals, there would be a parliamentary vote on fees in mid-December, followed by a White Paper in February and legislation in July.  Questions about the future of university governance and how much central direction there would be were still unanswered.

Fiona Aiken said that the target figure for an immigration cap just announced by the Home Secretary was not as bad as she had feared.  There was still argument within the coalition about numbers: the Conservatives seem not to have known that two-thirds of the much-quoted figure of 200,000 immigrants were students.  There would certainly be tighter scrutiny of educational institutions, and it was important to maintain the university's status of Highly Trusted Sponsor.  It was therefore also important to keep accurate records of attendance and performance.  Students who are not here to get a Lancaster degree would not count as migrants as long as they did not remain in the UK for more than a year and a day.

Senate was briefed on the University's relations with regional and sub-regional bodies.  These were becoming more complicated with the dismantling of regional structures, which meant (for example in the NHS) that it was difficult to know what the contact points should be, although it was certain that there would be more of them.  The Northwest Regional Development Agency would be closed in April 2012: replacements in the shape of Local Economic Partnerships had been approved for most parts of the north west, but not for Lancashire.

The proposed new procedures for undergraduate assessment were presented again, probably for the last time, with some clarifications sought at the May meeting of Senate.  They will be introduced from 2011 for entrants into both first and second years.  Gavin Brown said that he and Ian Denny would be glad to attend departmental meetings to advise on implementation.  It seems likely that this offer will be taken up: while one of the virtues claimed for the new procedure is greater simplicity, this characteristic is not immediately obvious from the documentation (see subtext 64).

The last major item was on the REF and how to prepare for it.  Professor McMillan's paper noted that the measurement of 'impact' would make demands on our institutional memory (which in subtext's view was formerly incarnated in Marion McClintock, but may no longer be so readily accessible).  More use was likely to be made of data on grant income and postgraduate research students.  A senator asked if there would be guidance on what proportion of staff to include.  Professor McMillan said that HEFCE had finally concluded that this was not a factor in the 2008 assessment, because of the poor quality of the available data, but there was increasing talk of 'critical mass', and panels could use the proportion of staff included as a measure of 'research environment'.  He thought external advice might be helpful in deciding on who should be in what unit of assessment.

There was, finally, a brief discussion of league tables, domestic and international.  The international tables tend to favour large, science-heavy institutions, making it difficult for Lancaster to improve its standing in them.  A top 100 place in the Times Higher ranking was a realistic aspiration, however - though there were some oddities in its table, such as the non-appearance of Bath, Cardiff and Warwick, that suggested room for methodological improvement.

*****************************************************

LANCASTER JUBILEE SCIENCE PARK

subtext readers returning to campus at the end of the summer vacation were greatly surprised to see the brand new science park lying on what used to be open fields to the north of campus.  Because of the financial crisis, plans have had to be amended somewhat.  The original architectural plans were scrapped in favour of what is known as 'Permatecture', or 'no-build architecture', which involves not actually breaking the ground or constructing anything, but instead just appreciating what is already there and probably can't be improved on.

So at first glance you might not think there is a science park there, but we have been assured that it is.  Oh yes.  Indeed, academics from the newly merged Department of Pataphysics, Pragmatics and Rituality have come up with a neat proof:

1) the science park was always going to be the best of all possible science parks
2) a science park that actually has existence is better than one that doesn't
3) the best of all possible science parks must therefore have existence
4) so our science park exists
5) Q.E.D. (please pay for proof in cash within ten working days)

The main reason for the new design is of course the economic downturn and the impending demise of major sponsor the Northwest Development Agency NWDA.  This is to be ceremonially slaughtered in 2012, broken up, wrapped in black plastic for a few months, then ploughed under to enrich the fields as manure.

The design team has certainly done a great job in preserving the aspect and not obstructing the views East from the A6 - you'd hardly know they've been there.  And, though it may look like a mere rural idyll, we are told authoritatively that there are a lot of sciencey things going on - photosynthesis, peristalsis, digestion - you name it, and it's almost definitely going on there.  They've even been trying for a bit of 'blue sky thinking', but the Lancashire location and the sheep neatly rule that out between them.  Nevertheless, there's certainly been a lot of 'carnal knowledge transfer' going on - the impact factor is indicated clearly by the amount of blue dye on backside.

The park will be officially launched in 2014 as Lancaster Jubilee Science Park, inspired by the instruction in Leviticus 24 to leave the land to itself every 50th year.  'Ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather [the grapes] in it of thy vine undressed', but 'the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.'  Amen.

*****************************************************

1966 AND ALL THAT - CHAPTER ELEVEN

David O'Dell was amongst the first students to study at the newly-founded University of Lancaster. Here we continue his story - as he remembers it.

Year 3: Summer Term 1969: 'Days I'll remember all my life ...'

*  Easter disappears in a flurry of second interviews, hockey and a not inconsiderable amount of revision for finals which are now just six weeks away,

*  After last year's tour of Ireland, the Hockey Club decides to spend some time in the Hertfordshire countryside, a county in which I have spent most of the last 20 years anyway. It is very cold, I lose a toenail in one game, damage my thumb in another and then my hand turns black. Still, LUHC is the highest scoring club in the North-west this year and has lost only two games since November.  It says so in the paper.

*  Second interviews are fun, as long as you don't care whether you get the job or not. They are lucrative as well because the firms pay expenses. I discuss the importance of R&D in product development at Ford's, the future of the British aircraft industry at BAC and the causes of war at Marconi's. Pressed Steel-Fisher subject us to three hours of IQ tests and then take us out drinking in Oxford, Rolls-Royce pick us up in a Bentley and show us around their factory in Crewe and Elliot Automation finally admit they have no idea why they invited me for a second interview.

*  Many of my fellow interviewees are doing the same circuit and we swap tales of management trickery. When the phone rings in a room of twenty of us at Ford's, we decide as a group not to answer it, in case it is a test. This is a mistake. Twenty minutes later some one comes in and asks why no one answered the phone: our lunch is going cold.

*  When the dust settles I am offered several jobs. The best is with Ford's who are willing to pay me £1,197 a year, four times the size of my grant, as a starting salary. Even more gratifying is the information that only six of the 24 of us being interviewed were made an offer.

*  Meanwhile in Dolphinhome ,the three of us have made a solemn pact, sealed in Boddingtons, to try and make up for three years of minimal effort:

- we will revise in our own rooms between 8.00 and 10.00, 10.30 and 12.30, 1.30 and 3.30 and 4.00 and 6.00, a total of eight hours a day;

- in between revising we will have tea, play cards and kick a ball around in the field outside;

- in the evening we will go on a three mile run and then down the pub. 

*  And it works. For six weeks we revise, play Chase the Lady, drink gallons of tea and kick a ball around. So predictable does our routine become that the neighbour's dog is always waiting outside for us at lunchtime for the kickabout.  'Mitch' is the size, shape and texture of a stiff yard broom, but never seems to tire of being tackled or thrown into the river to retrieve the ball.

*  In mid-May the Lancaster-York weekend comes as a pleasant diversion. Dick and I play for the 1st XI for the last time as we beat York 3-1 in front of 300 people. We reject the chance of spending the rest of the weekend in York and drive back to Lancaster to carry on revising. What has happened to us?

*  Monday 19th May, 1969.  Finals. Eight papers in 11 days, including a Saturday and the Whitsun bank holiday. Some go well, others less so. And then it is all over. The sense of anti-climax is prodigious, but that does not prevent numerous lunchtime toasts being drunk in the Lancastrian on the last day.  There is nothing to do now but wait for the results which are not due out for another four weeks.

*  The Dophinholme Village Sport's Day is held on the Sunday after Finals on the field at the back of our house. We throw ourselves enthusiastically into the fun and are rewarded with 2/- each for coming second in the tug-of-war.

*  Time now passes like some long, hot, Edwardian summer as we return to our default settings of accustomed idleness: it is hot, we play tennis and cricket, sit in pub gardens and try not to think about the future.

*  Playing cricket for a scratch team against the Ring o' Bells, Lancaster, I take my first-ever wicket. Steaming in off a three pace run-up, the ball slips out of my hand and climbs 30' into the air. The batsman dances down the wicket to hit me for six but, never having faced such a delivery before, over does it and in trying to turn quickly to regain his ground, trips and collapses in a heap in the middle of the pitch. The ball, meanwhile, oblivious to the farce that is being played out below, falls almost vertically on to the stumps. Much laughter ensues, my embarrassment made worse by the fact that my victim is the landlord and the only man on the field wearing white. The umpire calls 'over' even though I have two balls left to bowl.

*  The Graduation Ball at Bailrigg is a marvellous affair. Nearly all the men are in evening dress and the women look stunning. We drink champagne, reminisce and talk of the future until morning. Mick and Anne get engaged.

*  Tuesday 24th June. The results are due to be put up on the Politics Dept notice board at 5.30 but don't arrive until 6.30, by which time I am 99% water. No firsts have been awarded, but I am one of six 2.1s. History will record that this was the best performance by a County undergraduate this year. It will also record that you can count the number of County undergraduates this year on your fingers. The rest of the evening passes in a blur.

*  The Graduation Dinner for Bowland and County graduands is held two days later. Amongst much rejoicing and back-slapping, the Principal of Bowland proposes the toast to the Queen, The Duke of Lancaster, Dr Hamer to the Graduands of 1969, Ray Walker to Bowland and myself to County.  The unexpected brevity of my speech is well-received. At 4.00 in the morning our party, still in evening dress, drives to the Forton Service Station on the M6 for breakfast.

*  The day before I graduate I make one final trip to Bailrigg to empty my pigeon hole and find a letter from the Principal of County, Brian Duke. Annie and I are to share the Principal's Prize for services to the College and in particular for our work on Pendragon. A cheque for £4.10.0 is enclosed.

*  All that is left now is the Degree Congregation. My parents and I are amongst the group of graduands and their families invited to lunch with Princess Alexandra before the ceremony. I must have made an impression because when I mount the stage to receive my degree she expresses the hope that my mother and father have good seats.

*  And that really is it. 'Tis done. I have a job with Ford's if I want it, an SSRC grant to go to Aberystwyth and another grant to go to the New University of Ulster in Coleraine. Or the British government will give me taxpayer's money to spend two years in Jamaica at the University of the West Indies. What to do?

*****************************************************

LETTERS

Dear subtext,

I have read that Charles Clarke has been appointed a visiting professor to the newly merged Department of Philosophy, Politics, and Religion.

I am not aware of his academic credentials.  I am aware of his past advocacy of the elimination of, for him, worthless subjects like classics and medieval history [Eds: see http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/may/09/highereducation.politics].

No self-respecting university would honour a person of this ilk.  I daresay that whatever courses he offers will not take their departure from Plato's REPUBLIC or Aristotle's POLITICS.

During my last year at Lancaster, the University hosted a lecture by David Blunkett.  After all his years in politics, he had nothing of substance to say.  As was said of the French aristocracy after the downfall of Napoleon, he had learned nothing - and doubtless had forgotten nothing.  Of Clarke, can anything different be expected?

Robert Segal, Chair in Religious Studies, University of Aberdeen

*****************************************************

The editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order) of: Noel Cass, Rachel Cooper (Philosophy), Catherine Fritz, George Green, Gavin Hyman, Peter Morris, David Smith, Bronislaw Szerszynski and Martin Widden.

Home | Archive | Subscribe | Editors | Contact