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90 17
May 2012 ***************************************************** '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/. 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, strategic direction, senate again, ***************************************************** EDITORIAL Sometimes
it feels like we may have imagined it - or that maybe we made it up for one
of our ill-advised flights of fancy - but subtext is convinced that once we
actually had an underpass under Many
of our readers were probably not even born when the underpass was a real,
physical, dark dank thing, made out of concrete, rather than what it is now -
something that only exists in memory and myth, or (much the same) in the
world of contractors' promises. For the benefit of such readers, well, let's
just say that it was a non-place, like a loading-bay to hell, more noir than
a very noir thing - the kind of place that, were a character in a Danish TV
thriller to go there (why do they do that?), you would know that they would
soon meet an end as sticky as one of their pastries. So
in 2009 when three firms of architects competed for the job of renovating
Alexandra Square (see subtext 55), part of their brief was to make the
underpass feel more like part of the square, rather than a wholly alien and
inhospitable world – in a sense, to extend the square into the underpass. A
nice idea. Of course, as the work has proceeded since, there have been times
that one suspected that the brief had been misinterpreted, as the Square
started to feel like part of the underpass (especially after heavy rain left
it waterlogged) – or even that it might end up there (just walk round the
edge, especially when carrying more than four books at a time, and you'll be
fine). Indeed,
the endless prevarication over the underpass has made many wonder whether
we're not being told the truth about the purpose of the work going on beneath
our feet. In the subtext warehouse we've developed a theory that the
underpass is in fact being converted into a hangar for a secret aircraft designed
to whisk the Deputy Vice-Chancellor away on his international missions. At
the moment we can't decide between two scenarios (a bit like the government
with their endless u-turns over their aircraft carriers). In the first,
Alexandra Square folds away along the now-obvious joins and a sleek craft,
emblazoned LU1, blasts off vertically through the opening, spreads its wings,
dips one in salute to Uni House, and disappears
into the clouds. In the second, a more portly craft marked LU2, equipped with
the right pod for the mission, careers skyward up one of the now curiously
steep ramps at either end of the underpass (probably eastwards), as rows of mechatronic daffodils on each side lean neatly sideways
in concert to accommodate its wingspan. (Both scenarios, however, would of
course involve an ingenious slide system leading from D Floor directly down
into the aircraft.) The
official story remains that the buses will indeed return to the underpass
this summer, despite this sounding suspiciously like a modern variant of the
spellbound children of Hamelin marching into the hill. We look forward to the
grand opening - if and when it happens. ******* NEWS
IN BRIEF College
assistant deans We
reported in subtext 84 that a proposal to make assistant deans of the colleges
employees with fixed hours of work and rates of pay had met with
near-unanimous opposition from the colleges and would not go ahead, for the
time being at least. A related and similarly centralising
process has, however, gone ahead – all assistant dean posts were centrally
advertised at the same time, and college deans and administrators had to
trawl through all the applications, rather than looking only at those
relevant to their own college. The rationale for the change was that it was
that it would give all colleges an equal chance of recruiting the best
applicants, but subtext understands that those who have had to do the extra
work are not persuaded that it was worth their while – and may be unwilling
to repeat the experience. ******* Senate
effectiveness consultation The
information on this in our last issue was apparently inaccurate because based
on an early draft of the consultation document. Our apologies for this. We
have discovered that that there will be more time for consultation than was
originally planned, with the exact date to be announced. The consultation
document will apparently be widely circulated and put on the Secretariat
website. There will be an announcement
in LU Text telling readers how they can submit their views. ******* 'Shaping
the Future' book launch The
great and the good of the University (and a few others, amongst whom were
closeted the subtext collective) gathered in Blackwell's on Thursday 10th to
celebrate the official launch of Marion McClintock's 'Shaping the Future',
the official history of the University. (See subtext 84 for a review.) The
Vice-Chancellor gave a relaxed and self-deprecating speech that suggested he
knows well how to judge the tenor of such events. He paid fulsome and
justified tribute to ***************************************************** THE
STRATEGIC DIRECTION FOR THE UNIVERSITY - JOINT INFORMAL MEETING OF COUNCIL
AND SENATE Members
of Senate and of Council met on 15 May to discuss strategic options for the
university. Two 'discussion documents' had been circulated in advance, still
featuring ideas for closer links of some kind between Lancaster and another
university (or universities) although the original purpose of the meeting –
to discuss the Liverpool connection – had been overtaken by events. There
were introductory statements from the Pro-Chancellor Bryan Gray, in the
chair, and the Vice-Chancellor. Mr Gray said that
we had learned about ourselves from talking to Liverpool, Professor Smith
that he wanted to promote a sense of common ownership of the question of
where we want Lancaster to go, and that the present shape of the university
was the result of decisions taken a decade ago, so we should think of what we
wanted Lancaster to look like a decade hence. Until
near the end of the meeting, all the contributions from the floor were from
senators. Some were in favour of some kind of
merger with someone, essentially on the grounds that we must have been
rebuffed by the Russell Group because we were too small, at least in the
sciences. Some who argued in this way said that they had been come round to
this position after initially opposing the The
discussion seemed repeatedly to gravitate to describing the choice as a
simple one between either trying to stay on this same trajectory (often
described, a bit unfairly, as 'doing nothing'), or growing rapidly (which was
generally seen as requiring some kind of merger or federation). But surely
the options open to us are more nuanced and complex. It is interesting that
the VC and Pro-VC didn't draw on the discussion of the future of the
University that occurred at a separate meeting of Heads of Department and
other senior university members held on 27 April, organised
by Chris May and others. Under the title 'Thinking about the Future of
Lancaster University', this earlier meeting had come up with three proposals
for further development: 'The Agile University' (basically, doing what we do
well already, only in a smarter, more flexible way), the 'N8 Global
University' (Lancaster as a node within a strong network of institutions) and
the 'Castle Quarter' option (embedding some core activity in Lancaster and
its historic buildings, and being more involved in the local economy).
Despite these ideas being mentioned from the floor, they didn't succeed in
gaining much traction in the discussion. If
there was a dominant feeling that emerged, it was that Both
Bryan Gray and the VC said that they hoped that there would be more such
meetings. The Pro-Chancellor twice made it clear that he thought the involvement
of Senate and Council was enough by way of democratic engagement with the
University body – clearly snubbing the suggestion from the floor that any
strategy that will have legitimacy would have to emerge from a wider process
of engagement with academics, support staff and non-academic divisions.
However, the VC seemed genuinely interested in communication and
consensus-building, and not only among senators and Council members. Consensus
is some way off, and perhaps unattainable, but there is a strong argument
that while the aim of LSE-style niche excellence might have been an option
till recently, it would be a harder trick to pull off today. Strategic decisions made over the last few
years mean that we now have a (still) new faculty of Health and Medicine, a
revived Department of Chemistry, and an expanded Department of Engineering,
all of which seems to have pushed us along a rather different development
path. Also, although the first three VCs at As
to being the ***************************************************** SENATE
AGAIN A
few catch-up points from the last meeting of Senate on 2 May, our mention of
which in subtext 89 concentrated on the headline items of the Liverpool link
and the business process review. All
this was readily agreed, with only a few questions and reservations from
senators. There was more discussion about the proposal that the idea that all
undergraduates should have a designated academic tutor in their major
departments should be implemented from the start of the next academic year.
The VC said he was surprised that this was not already the case; the Deputy
VC said that the case for it seemed self-evident – and in any case it
wouldn't involve much extra work (and if it did this would be compensated for
by the introduction of a less demanding set of bureaucratic requirements for
annual teaching and periodic quality reviews). Not everyone was convinced.
For departments with high undergraduate numbers the extra work would be
considerable, not just in actually seeing students for the prescribed
one-to-one meeting each term but in encouraging students to turn up and
chasing them if they didn't. Professor McKinlay stressed
that apart from this basic requirement departments would be free to decide
what the academic tutorial system should look like, and it will be
interesting to see how many use this freedom of manoeuvre
in a minimalist way, and set up systems that meet the agreed formal
requirements but no more. The new system must also entail preparatory work on
redefining departmental roles, since people who have been students' first
point of contact on general academic matters – directors of study at Part One
and Part Two, for example – will presumably no longer be so. And in the
growing number of departments that teach degree courses in more than one
subject (think Politics, Philosophy and Religion), how general will the
academic advice on offer be allowed to be? At
the end of the meeting, Senate agreed to a proposal (the VC said he hoped it
was straightforward, but that he had learned not to take anything for
granted) that Professor McKinlay be re-appointed as
Deputy VC for a further five months, to the end of 2012. His successor will
be appointed after internal and external advertisement – as with the new Dean
of FASS. ***************************************************** LANCASTER
MARKET HALL [An
earlier version of this piece first appeared in Lancaster Civic Society
newsletter for April/May 2012.] Hindsight
is a wonderful thing. It seems clear now that the City Council were probably
misguided when in 1995 they took a 99-year lease on the Market Hall, then
sublet stalls to the traders; but few of us foresaw the competition that many
of the businesses in the Market would soon face from the supermarkets, which
makes the stalls much less profitable than they used to be. The Council's
decision to take on the lease seemed right at the time. Their
more recent actions look less excusable. Last year the Council considered the
option of moving the indoor market to the At
its meeting on 16 November 2011 the Council voted, on a cross-party
resolution, to close the indoor market and negotiate a buy-out from its lease
of the Market Hall building. The Lancaster Guardian reported that this could
cost the local taxpayer up to £20 million, to compensate the traders and
(especially) the landlord. A number of market traders had already moved out,
but following the Council's decision several more left. In November, Council
officers were still reiterating that they 'desired a thriving indoor market',
but without a miracle, there was no prospect of reviving it - although a few
traders have kept their stalls going, in the hope of receiving compensation
for the early termination of their leases. But
wait! The Council's Chief Executive reports on 11 April that the landlord of
the building, Allied ( Despite
the Council's 16 November decision, the Market has still not closed. It looks
as though the Council are hoping they can avoid
having to compensate the traders by getting them to leave voluntarily, rather
than trying to trade in an increasingly empty Hall. If so, they are
exploiting the fact that the traders are all tiny businesses and are unlikely
to be able to sue the Council. This is
a pretty disreputable way to carry on. Meanwhile, Allied ( ***************************************************** MICHAEL
GOVE AND THE ROSES MATCH RESULT In
his recent speech at A
similar divide exists in sport. Half the Gove
doesn't speculate as to why this change has occurred in England over the last
25 years, nor whether it has happened in other fields as well as sport - but
these are surely very interesting questions, and ones to which he should be
seeking answers. In sport, one factor could possibly be the sale of many school
playing fields, which started under Conservative governments in the 1980s and
has continued since; but this doesn't explain the dominance of the
privately-educated in the media, banking, medicine and industry. Another
possible factor is that the ***************************************************** LETTERS Dear
subtext, I
just read the two letters objecting to the proposed restriction of external
examiners for the MA to academics in either the Russell Group or the 1994
Group. I could not agree more with Ian Reader and Dan McIntyre. I am reminded
of the scene in, I think, James' THE AMERICAN, in which one member of high
society shows pointed disdain for someone beneath her, only for someone from
a yet higher stratum to express even stronger disdain for the society belle.
(I might have the novel wrong, and it might even be one by Wharton.) I
taught at The
affiliation of an external hardly dictates behaviour.
Character does. One external who had been responsible for assessing my
courses for the previous three years suddenly objected to the kinds of
questions I'd annually been proposing. This guy failed to reply to my full
responses to his objections, thereby seeming to agree to the questions once
explained, but then damned me in his examiner's report for having asked the
wrong kinds of questions and, worse, for having given high grades to students
who supposedly agreed with my personal views and low grades to those who
disagreed with mine. And he gave up
even re-marking half of the scripts - as if doing so was, like the war in
Afghanistan, a lost cause. Finally, he uttered not a peep when asked during
the examiners' meeting for comments on his service but instead left his
report with the department head, who got them well
before the examiners' meeting but who intentionally held off distributing
them till the next day. I
have always taken for granted as coincidence (a) his abrupt change of
attitude toward me with (b) my having politely informed this pedagogue
earlier that year that, on the basis of three evaluations, I could not
publish without revision the paper he had submitted to the journal I then coedited. This gentleman hailed from a university that is
conspicuously within the Russell Group. Robert
Segal, Sixth Century Chair in Religious Studies, ******* Dear
subtext, Despite
having graduated last year, I continue to maintain my interest in the
university's internal strife, not least due to the grammatical eloquence of
the editorial staff. It is a welcome change to the simplicity of English
often heard overseas. Regarding
local businesses, I would hasten to add a couple of your list of outlets to
be reviewed. *
Single Step, at the top of *
Craft Aid, behind Thank
you again for your faithful reporting, and honest appraisal of the current
situation back in Peter
Burkimsher ******* Dear
subtext, Thank
you for a brilliant edition of Subtext 'with teeth'. In particular, thank you
for drawing your readers' attention to the information and analysis of the
significant simultaneous changes in university governance, i.e. expansion of
UMAG and contraction of Senate; for publishing the astutely argued letters,
explaining the problems of the VC's intervention in the appointment of MA external
examiners; and for keeping at the forefront of our minds the divisive, demoralising and disruptive impact of the REF, which
tends to be ignored, marginalised and legitimated
at national and institutional levels.
Best
wishes, Julie
Hearn ***************************************************** The
editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order)
of: Rachel Cooper (PPR), Mark Garnett, George Green, David Smith, Bronislaw
Szerszynski and Martin Widden. |
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