|
|
subtext |
|
Home |
subtext issue
83 15th
December 2011 ***************************************************** 'Truth:
lies open to all' ***************************************************** Every
fortnight during term-time. All
editorial correspondence to: subtext-editors@lancaster.ac.uk. Please delete
as soon as possible after receipt. Back issues and subscription details can
be found at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext. The
editors welcome letters, comments, suggestions and opinions from readers. subtext reserves the right to edit submissions. subtext does not publish material that is submitted
anonymously, but is willing to consider without obligation requests for
publication with the name withheld. For
tips to prevent subtext from getting swept up into your 'junk email folder',
see http://www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext/dejunk/. If
you're viewing this using Outlook, the formatting might look better if you
click on the message at the top saying 'Extra line breaks in this message
were removed', and select 'Restore line breaks'. CONTENTS:
editorial, news in brief, goodbye, Professor Wellings,
business process review, Russell Price, Lancaster University and The Work
Foundation, Sector7 in the Great Hall, senate report part II, letters. ***************************************************** EDITORIAL The
farewells have been said, the speeches made, the portrait unveiled, the
dinners attended, and now, finally, Paul Wellings
has vacated the office of Vice-Chancellor. He served his last day in office
on Wednesday 7th December, at the end of which he sent a farewell message to
all staff, and it is understood that he has now left the UK and has arrived
in Australia preparatory to taking up his new Vice-Chancellorship at the
University of Wollongong. At
such a time, thoughts naturally turn to the question of the legacy of 'The Wellings Years' for Lancaster. A fully informed
assessment can only really be made in the longer term, and there are no doubt
aspects of his legacy that have yet to come into view. From our current
perspective, the evidence is certainly mixed and any provisional judgement
would seem to be ambivalent. That
there have been successes can in no way be doubted - and many have enumerated
these in the farewell speeches over the last week or two. A widely accepted
view is that Professor Wellings was appointed first
and foremost to raise the profile of Lancaster, both nationally and
internationally, and this he has undoubtedly done. He has worked assiduously
at building up networks, making contacts, and ensuring that Lancaster's voice
has been audible at the highest levels. He has succeeded in establishing
Lancaster as unequivocally (for the time being, at any rate) a Top Ten
University. With the help of others, he was single-minded in his
determination to address those aspects of league table criteria in which
Lancaster was under-performing or in which its data gathering was inadequate.
In turn, these league table showings have helped to drive up admissions standards
and improve applications numbers, so that the Lancaster is well placed to
weather the challenges presented by the new undergraduate funding regime. At a
difficult time, the university's finances are secure. There were many widely
reported instances of some distinguished universities experiencing funding
short-falls and Lancaster has been able to avoid this. In spite of the
recently reported 're-alignment' towards STEM
subjects, the arts and social sciences have for the most part been preserved
and, in some cases, enhanced. His Vice-Chancellorship has seen a much needed
investment in the physical infrastructure of the campus. Although design and
execution have not been to everyone's taste, there can be little doubt that
most developments marked an improvement on some of the increasingly
shabby-looking 1960s and 1970s structures. These
achievements are considerable and should be acknowledged. But there is also
another story. subtext was, after all, founded in
the context of deep alarm amongst staff over a number of issues: the
prosecution of the 'George Fox Six', the corporate governance reforms that
moved the university's governance structures in an anti-democratic and
managerial direction, and an increasingly intolerant attitude towards
dissent. In a contributed article below, former Pro-Vice-Chancellor (and,
later, former subtext editor), Alan Whitaker, gives his own personal view of
the 'Wellings Legacy' and highlights some of these
less attractive features. In spite of all the achievements, these damages
have also to be weighed in the balance. As Paul Wellings
departs and as we await the arrival of his successor, Mark Smith, it will be
worth pondering whether the achievements of the 'Wellings
Years' could not have been attained without the 'dark underbelly' that came
with them. ***************************************************** NEWS
IN BRIEF College
bars It
now seems certain that running of the college bars will be taken over by LUSU
at the start of the next academic year. This decision comes from a working
group headed by Mark Swindlehurst, Director of
Facilities, whose recommendations include a commitment to keeping a bar in
every college. Whether these will still be college bars in a more than
geographical sense is a moot point, but then the process of centralising
their management has been going on for several years, and management by LUSU
does not entail a greater degree of centralisation than management by staff
in Facilities. It is also undeniable that most students in most colleges make
little use of their own bars, which obviously cannot compete with
supermarkets on pricing. There
is reportedly little regret - and some relief - among College Principals that
they are no longer responsible for oversight of their college's bar - a duty
that involved more frustration than satisfaction, and frequent reminders by
the University's experts of what a poor job they were doing. And there is
presumably more relevant expertise in LUSU than among the College Principals.
So let's hope that the change will improve the bars' overall commercial
performance without further erosion of their distinctive identities. ******* Waterstone's closure subtext readers looking for academic tomes or Christmas
gift ideas will have noticed that the Waterstone's
branch in Alexandra Square now stands empty. subtext gathers that both Blackwells and John Smith made presentations - thinly
attended by academics - in the Conference Centre last Thursday about their
plans for taking over the premises (or part of them), and that the Blackwells presentation was much more persuasive and
better tailored to Lancaster. Both presentations have now been sent round
electronically to those who are judged worthy to receive them, and apparently
views are to be collected shortly. Since both organisations are expecting to
have something in place by the beginning of next term, however rudimentary,
we are cutting it fine. In the meantime Lancaster's is a university campus
without a bookshop - a state of affairs that many will find sad and some
darkly symbolic. ******* Senate
Effectiveness Review At
the last meeting of Senate, it was announced that there is to be a Senate
Effectiveness Review. This may have taken some by surprise, since the last
such review happened so recently, in 2006-07. It is certainly good practice
for an institution's governance procedures to be reviewed from time to time,
but one wonders whether reviews of this frequency do not betoken some sort of
hidden agenda. Have the conclusions of the last review been invalidated
within the space of just five years? Last time, of course, the agenda was
hardly hidden. As is often the case with reviews and consultations of this
sort, the conclusion had been reached before the review started. What was
clearly wanted was a smaller Senate that was more balanced towards the
'officers' and away from the 'foot soldiers'. So officers like faculty
Associate Deans were added while the independent voices of more junior
academics and staff found among college syndicate representatives were
threatened with extinction. As it was, the latter just about weathered that
storm and survived. But could it be that this review is trying to deal with
unfinished business? If so, Senators would do well to be vigilant. In any
such reform proposals, care must be taken to ensure that the balance between
'front benchers' and 'back benchers' is not skewed still further in a
managerial direction. ******* Prospectus
2013 (continued) In
the last issue, we reported on the debacle surrounding the compilation of the
undergraduate prospectus for 2013. Following the howls of protest from all
over campus, we indicated that a rethink was under way. Initially, Admissions
Tutors were relieved to hear that, due to the tight time scale we would fall
back on a version of the 2012 prospectus. Since then, however, it seems that
there has been yet another reversal, and that we
are, after all, to use the copy-edited prose that is very limited in its
academic content and decidedly non-academic in its tone (indeed, the more we
can present ourselves as a job centre, rather than a seat of learning, the
better). The only concession that has been made is to allow for the inclusion
of course module details. Concerned Admissions Tutors are already discussing
ways in which potential applicants can be kept away from the prospectus, and from the 'aim lower' central course
descriptions on the web. Watch this space. ******* More
on the trees Since
our mention of the new fences erected around the trees on campus, we have
ascertained that the intention was to form a protective boundary to prevent
timber being removed and to help guard the new plant species which will be
placed there over the winter. This has failed to placate many. We have heard
that in one department, there has been discussion of starting a petition to
get them taken down, as they are so widely hated. ******* New
V-C gives research talk Incoming
Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mark Smith, is to give a talk on 'Multinuclear
solid state NMR' as part of the Faculty of Science and Technology Christmas
Conference on 20th December. It is encouraging to find that one of Professor
Smith's first activities will be an explicitly academic one, and it will be
refreshing for Lancaster to be led by a Vice-Chancellor who is also an active
researcher and scholar. Further details of the talk are available here: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/sci-tech/christmas_conference/talks. ******* Keith
Thomas on universities Readers
who have not already seen it may be interested in this article on the threats
currently faced by universities, written by the distinguished historian Keith
Thomas. It appeared recently in the
London Review of Books: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n24/keith-thomas/universities-under-attack ***************************************************** GOODBYE,
PROFESSOR WELLINGS Contributed
article by Alan Whitaker (Pro-Vice Chancellor for Colleges, Staff and
Students, 1998-2005) When
Paul Wellings joined Lancaster in October 2002 few
staff appreciated that - unlike his two predecessors - he had been appointed
on an indefinite contract. The chances of his outstaying his welcome were
thought to be small, as it was thought likely that he viewed Lancaster as a
stepping stone to something better. Many suspected that he would be looking
to move on within five or seven years, at most. In the event he stayed with
us for just over nine. It seems longer. Undoubtedly
he left on a high note with the institution well positioned in an
increasingly difficult financial and policy environment. In presenting the
2010 annual report to University Court in January of this year he commented
that the year was, perhaps, amongst the finest on record. This judgement may
be disputed but he had been brought in to take the University forward and
raise its external profile and few would argue that he has not done so. His
speech to Court bore the hallmarks of a valedictory address and so it came as
no surprise to learn a couple of months later that he was returning to
Australia to take up the reins at the University of Wollongong. At a
variety of leaving functions in November fulsome tributes have been paid to
his work for Lancaster. Such recognition is appropriate. Acknowledging this,
however, should not blind us to the negative side of his tenure. The physical
reshaping of campus may be the most visible sign of his legacy and there is
much to admire. However, it is other important, if less tangible, aspects of
Lancaster life which have suffered under his top-down managerial approach, in
particular governance structures and processes. On his watch a democratic
deficit has emerged. Indeed, one could argue it was deliberately engineered.
It is one thing to seek to streamline and enhance the quality of decision
making, it is another to dilute the accountability of officers and senior
managers and weaken the engagement and involvement of staff and students, all
in pursuit of so-called key performance indicators and ill-defined notions of
efficiency and effectiveness. With
hindsight, it's no surprise. He came to Lancaster with little experience of
higher education but with a well defined strategic view of how the
institution should move forward and a sense of priorities. This was
necessary. Unfortunately, it soon became obvious that his preferred model of
leadership and governance was one dimensional - command and control. He saw
himself as the chief executive and was determined to run the organization and
to be seen to do so. The symbolism inherent in his decision to take over and
refurbish the Senate Chamber for himself and his staff, leaving Senate (and
Council) to meet wherever was available, received little comment at the time
but worse was to follow. The
academic authority and powers of Senate have been eroded, often with the
energetic support of other senior managers and, more sadly, the acquiescence
of Senators. Admittedly, this process had been under way before his arrival,
but his defensive and aggressive manner of chairing Senate accelerated it.
Senators who disagreed with him met with impatience and frustration. Little
wonder that many senators concluded it was often not worth risking speaking
out. In this and other ways important checks and balances on executive power
disappeared. Decision-making increasingly was reserved to the centre. From
the beginning initiatives came thick and fast, such as the Staff Survey which
was later repeated. Whether many of the issues it identified, including
criticisms of senior management and communications, have ever been properly
addressed remains debatable. It did, however, garner good publicity for
Lancaster - and for him. Ultimately,
one suspected that it was all about the bottom line and 'growing the
business' (a favourite phrase) and, despite the rhetoric about being a
'people-centred' organization, staff were a means to this end. In this
respect, nothing was more telling than the Vice-Chancellor's ready acceptance
of compulsory redundancies in recent years despite the finances and position
of the University being strong. Core
academic values - such as collegiality and respect for different and
dissenting viewpoints - were given short shrift, if they hindered decision
making or proved disruptive. It was always going to lead to difficulties and
probably the most notorious was the George Fox 6 affair, where the University
pressed charges for trespass which led to the successful prosecution of six
of its students who were protesting at a business conference on campus (see
the first issue of subtext). It was a decision taken by the Vice-Chancellor
after, at best, limited consultation whereby he was cautioned against
precipitate action. It was an error of judgement that appalled many staff and
students alike and damaged both his own and the University's image and
reputation. It
should not be forgotten that Lancaster was a successful university prior to
October 2002. It had emerged from extremely difficult financial circumstances
in the mid-late 1990s with its academic values and norms largely intact. Even
now the idea that a university must be run with the general consent of those
who work and study here finds much support. With a new Vice-Chancellor about
to join Lancaster there may be grounds for optimism in this regard. ***************************************************** BUSINESS
PROCESS REVIEW We
have all been vaguely aware of the existence of this review for some time.
The outgoing Vice-Chancellor sent a message to all staff informing them of
its existence and remit, and we in subtext have also reported on it. But very
few of the academic staff have any real sense of
what it will entail in concrete terms, and many no doubt assume that it will
scarcely affect them. This would be a
grave mistake. These proposals, if implemented,
will change the character of the University out of all recognition. In particular, it threatens the role of the
Departmental Officers and Departmental Assistants who have historically been
an essential bridge between students and academic staff, not least because of
their availability, their continuity, and their care for students. The
context for the review seems to be a finding that Lancaster spends
proportionally more on administrative staff than do other comparable
universities. Few seem to have seen the actual figures, but this seems to be
taken as a given and forms the starting point for the review. In some ways,
this is perhaps not surprising. Faculty administration has grown considerably
in recent years, while central and departmental services have pretty much
remained intact. The aim, then, would seem to be to save money currently
spent on administration, and these savings are to be achieved by more
centralised and therefore supposedly more efficient administrative services. Staff
in University House and in the academic departments will be directly
affected. The process is operating under several stream headings: Finance,
Marketing, Admissions, Student Administration and Departmental
Administration. The first three relate more directly to staff in University
House. New job descriptions are accordingly being drawn up, new structures
being laid down, and staff provisionally being allocated to new positions.
But it is the last two that will more directly impact upon departments and
upon academic staff. It is being proposed that attendance monitoring, course
administration (including course design and approval, course handbooks,
enrolments, timetabling, workload management), assessment administration
(submission, marking/printing, marks and feedback, external moderation), and
student enquiries be taken out of departments and handled centrally. In
effect, of course, what this means is that Departmental Officers and
Departmental Assistants will disappear. Whether they will disappear entirely
is still uncertain. Possible proposals mentioned during the recent meetings
for Departmental Officers, ranged from taking administrative staff out of
departments altogether, so that academics would then buy in specific services
from the centre, to having one Departmental Officer looking after two
departments. Current departmental staff will presumably either be
re-allocated to a central services post or made redundant. It has apparently
been made clear that the review will result in redundancies and, indeed, enforced
redundancies. If
these proposals come to pass (and the time-scale is extraordinarily
compressed; it is anticipated that the reforms will be implemented by October
2012), it is clear that they will have a significant impact both on academic
staff and on students. And yet, very few academics or students seem to have
much idea of what is going on. It is claimed that the reforms are operating
on the principles of not shifting administrative work on to academic staff
and not harming the student experience.
But it is difficult to see how this will be achieved in practice.
However much administration may be centralised, the plain fact of the matter
will be that there will be a smaller number of support staff. Unless
efficiencies are remarkable, it is hard to believe that academic staff will
not be burdened with more administration. Furthermore, it is hard to see how
this could not harm student experience, given that contact with
administrative staff (much of which is often informally pastoral and
supportive in nature) will be much more infrequent, distant and impersonal. These
are clearly wide ranging reforms which threaten to have a big impact on us
all. It is alarming that the full and concrete implications are only now and
informally trickling through. Once again, it raises questions about decision
making processes that we have several times had to raise recently. What is clear is that academics (and
especially Heads of Department) have a duty to scrutinise these proposals in
detail and criticise and oppose them where necessary. It is also clear that
our hard working, loyal and dedicated departmental support staff need our
support and loyalty in turn at this difficult and threatening time. ***************************************************** RUSSELL
PRICE This
is a shortened version of the eulogy spoken by Professor David Denver at
Russell Price's funeral on 5th December. Russell
was a founding member of what was then known as the Department of Politics at
Lancaster in 1964. In those pioneering days there was much to be done and
Russell played his part. One duty he particularly enjoyed, I'm sure, was
filling the library with appropriate books. Russell
was a leading authority on Machiavelli. He published definitive articles on
Machiavelli's use of 'virtù', 'ambitio'
and 'fortuna', and, eventually, his own translation
of 'The Prince'. This was a major achievement and will stand as his memorial
for a very long time. But he was certainly not himself Machiavellian (in the
everyday, negative sense) - on the contrary, he was always straightforward
and generous. As
those who knew him are well aware, Russell was a stickler for correct
punctuation and use of the English language. He was notorious in committees
for going over the minutes in detail and wanting to discuss whether this
comma or that semi-colon were entirely necessary or
in the right place. In a Senate meeting, on hearing the Vice-Chancellor refer
to forward planning, he asked whether there was such a thing as backward
planning. Russell
was generous to colleagues - keen to read our papers and offer encouragement
as well as gentle but acute criticism. He would volunteer to proof-read
manuscripts and no-one was more punctilious in picking up errors. He also
left his mark on generations of students. As in his research, he was
painstaking in dealing with students and also keen to challenge the best of
them in exploring difficult ideas. He was, indeed, not the kind of teacher
who is easily forgotten. Russell
retired from the department in the late 1990s - a victim perhaps of the mania
for research outputs (a phrase he would have hated) associated with research
assessment exercises. He was a scholar of the old school and also a gentleman
- and that is how he will be fondly remembered by colleagues who knew him and
worked with him. ***************************************************** LANCASTER
UNIVERSITY AND THE WORK FOUNDATION When
the University took over The Work Foundation in October 2010, subtext
expressed surprise and puzzlement. The think-tank was bought out of
administration, with a large hole in its pension fund, a £2 million operating
loss in the 2008 accounts, and its accounts for 2009 six months overdue. At this stage, it's hard to see whether
this was a good investment by the University, especially as we don't know
what it paid for it. A
brief visit to Wikipedia reveals that the Foundation has a long and varied
history. It started life as the Boys' Welfare Association at the end of the
First World War, with the aim of improving working conditions for young men
in munitions factories. Only a year later it was renamed the Industrial
Welfare Society, with similar but wider aims. The Duke of York (the future
King George VI) was its very active president, serving until he succeeded to
the throne in 1937. In
1984 it was again renamed, as the Industrial Society, concentrating chiefly
on training and fostering good relations in industry. After Will Hutton
became CEO in 2000, the training division was sold to Capita, and the
organisation was again renamed, this time as The Work Foundation, aiming to
'be the leading international authority on work and its future'. A pretty
vague statement, this no doubt allows the Foundation to choose what subjects
to research and report on from a very wide spectrum. The
Foundation has a slick web site at http://www.theworkfoundation.com,
with impressive graphics: try looking under Data Lab for some superb dynamic
charts (although it isn't always clear what the axes represent). Last
month the Big Innovation Centre ('an initiative of The Work Foundation and
Lancaster University') published a report by Will Hutton and Ken Peasnell, of Lancaster's Management School, setting out a
proposal which the authors claim would make it advantageous for banks to
channel more funds to the UK's small and medium-sized enterprises. If this
proposal were to be implemented, it might be expected that funds would begin
to flow to SMEs. Of course, this assumes that banks'
decisions are rational, which doesn't appear always to be the case. Work
Foundation reports are not peer-reviewed. However, this latest report has
attracted some publicity, for example in the 27 November edition of Forbes
magazine, which carries a rather hasty-looking review by Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute. This is badly
written and proof-read, and appears to have been produced in great haste. But
there is no such thing as bad publicity, so if our ownership of The Work
Foundation leads to a series of such reports with the University's name on
them, this could prove to be a useful way of raising the University's profile
in a new set of media. The
word is that Lancaster's take-over of the Work Foundation was accomplished at
the strong urging of Paul Wellings and Cary Cooper,
but not with the full support of all in the Management School. subtext understands that the Work Foundation continues to
be a loss-making drain on the University's finances. At some point, the
University will need to take a view on whether the costs of owning the Work
Foundation are justified by the gains. ***************************************************** SECTOR7
IN THE GREAT HALL: A REVIEW Until
relatively recently, the Great Hall concert series has been devoted
exclusively to the classical music repertoire, but it has gradually embraced
a wider range of genres, including, in the concert on 1 December, an evening
with a jazz/soul group, Sector7. Unusual
in its strong emphasis on vocals, the group consists of four singers with
three instrumentalists (piano, bass and drums). It was formed a little over a
year ago and is led by Sarah Ellen Hughes, a 2005 graduate of Lancaster
University and St Martin's College.
Whilst in Lancaster, she sang with the University Big Band; from 2005
to 2008 she was lead vocalist with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. Since
then she has released two albums as a solo singer, and has won a number of
awards. Other members of the Sector7
group are also talented soloists. Sometimes such people cannot work well in a
group, but these seven performed very well together, and it was a very
rewarding evening. It
was a pity that the audience was small. The regular attenders
at Thursday evening concerts are mostly not attuned to jazz and soul music,
and some had voted with their feet. A few representatives of the Lancaster
jazz scene were there - a deserved compliment to the quality of the
performance - but there were many empty chairs. It has to be said that, with its
seats arranged in formal rows, the Great Hall is not a convivial venue for
jazz - perhaps jazz evenings should be held in a more intimate and less
formal place, such as the Nuffield Theatre; or if the Great Hall has to be
used, at least the chairs could be arranged in a more sociable pattern. It
would also be good to make efforts to attract a rather different audience. Between
items in the second half, one of the singers turned to the audience and
demanded 'Are you enjoying yourselves?' (embarrassed
titters, and a few scattered affirmatives.) 'Because you don't look as if you
are.' Unfortunately, she was dead
right. For jazz, a responsive audience plays a vital role - but on 1 December
this ingredient was missing. ***************************************************** SENATE
REPORT (23RD NOVEMBER): PART II [Due
to a technical error, we inadvertently omitted the second half of the Senate
Report in the last issue of subtext. With apologies, the second part appears
below.] After
Gavin Brown's report on the National Student Survey came a paper from Mandy Chetwynd, PVC for Colleges and the Student Experience, on
the new requirement for universities to produce Key Information Sets (KIS)
for prospective students. This latest wheeze from the government is to aid
'consumer choice' in higher education by providing data sets enabling quick
'n' easy comparisons between institutions. Criticism of this initiative came
from all sides of Senate but, as Prof. Chetwynd
pointed out, we have no choice in the data headings we have to work with. All
we can do is to provide our own commentary to accompany each data set to give
some sort of context. Clearly, this has all the potential to produce the same
crude, distorted and misleading information we've seen in the school sector
and the NHS. There
followed a report on University league tables which showed we do better in
some than in others, that we vary from year to year, and that some subjects
do better than others (in some tables, in some years etc.) Quite. Senate
was next asked to approve the draft Code of Practice for the coming REF.
Presenting the draft, PVC for Research Trevor McMillan drew attention to the
importance the REF places on ensuring that issues of equality and diversity
were properly addressed when submissions for assessment were made. In
particular, an individual's personal circumstances and how they impacted on
their research output would be taken into consideration - career stage,
career breaks, maternity leave, ill-health etc. However, time spent on
management responsibilities would not be considered (as had been the case in
the RAE). This drew an audible gasp of horror from several heads of
department present. One wonders who, in future, will be willing to volunteer
for this onerous and often thankless position. The
meeting concluded with two governance items from University Secretary Fiona
Aiken. The first was a proposal for the establishment of a working party on
Senate Effectiveness, membership to be drawn from the current Senate.
Apparently, we do this every five years and it will give the new VC the
opportunity to lets us know how he thinks our structures should operate. This
was agreed. The second item was a proposal to delete from Statutes Ordinance
14, which sets out in precise detail how to get rid of the VC. This ordinance
was a remnant of the famous Statute 20 that once governed the employment
conditions of academic and related staff. It did not form part of the
employment contract of the new VC, who would instead be subject to the same
grievance and disciplinary procedures as everyone else. Joe Thornberry (Bowland) inquired whether the new VC would also be
covered by the redundancy and redeployment procedures currently being
negotiated. Ms Aiken indicated that he would. In
all, it was an unremarkable Senate, with some helpful information imparted,
some important issues raised, and some sensible decisions made. Except, my
dear Watson, for the dog that did not bark. Throughout this meeting, and for
virtually all of the previous Senate, the LUSU members maintained a strict
silence, even for those items (NSS and KIS) which were largely about student
views and perceptions. Perhaps it was a health and safety matter. ***************************************************** LETTERS Dear
subtext, A
quick note regarding the Senate report in this week's edition; my question
regarding the Liverpool agenda item seems mis-reported,
since I actually queried the 'fit' of the minuted
action request (as I read the minutes, that a wider range of options, concurrent
with assessment of Lancaster's strengths, vulnerabilities, aspirations etc,
might be examined, rather than examining only a range of options in
association with Liverpool). Thanks, Barbara
Maher Centre
for Environmental Magnetism & Palaeomagnetism Lancaster
Environment Centre ***************************************************** The
editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order)
of: Rachel Cooper (PPR), George Green, Gavin Hyman, David Smith, Bronislaw
Szerszynski and Martin Widden. |