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91 31
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, international partnerships, BPR, college bars, FASS
Dean, Council, Cesagen public lecture, market cheese stall, Russell Group,
letters. ***************************************************** EDITORIAL In
recent times an us-and-them attitude appears to have developed on D floor of
University House. This is neatly encapsulated by the common use there of the
word 'departmentland' to refer to academic areas of the university. The
University's management has been showing little faith in the capacity of
academic staff to organise their and the University's affairs effectively.
Consequences have included the appointment to the University of managers from
the world of commerce, in some cases with disastrous results, and most
recently the extraordinary omission of academic staff from the BPR Project
Delivery Team on Admissions (see the article below). Trying to concentrate
authority in a few hands from one functional area is demotivating for
everyone else, and is a high-risk strategy because knowledge and experience
are distributed in the University much more widely than that. In
this context, the announcement on Monday that Andrew Neal, the University's
Chief Operating Officer, is to leave this summer inevitably gives rise to
speculation that he and the VC have fallen out over the BPR, with which Neal
was so closely identified. We don't know if this is true, but it is certainly
the case that Andrew Neal has been a senior figure during the period when the
us-and-them attitude has developed. Successful
organisations are generally those in which there are clear common aims to
which everyone's work is directed, and in which responsibilities are deeply
delegated. The objects of the University are briefly set out in the Charter:
'to advance knowledge, wisdom and understanding by teaching and research and
by the example and influence of its corporate life.' Perhaps it is time to
reassert these admirable aims, and to restate that Lancaster University is a
common enterprise among all its members, including all its staff and
students. (The
full statement of the Charter and Statutes is available at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/hr/staff-relations/charter.html) ***************************************************** NEWS
IN BRIEF Leading
change in Bahrain subtext
was interested to learn (see Letters, below) that the Management School were
co-hosts of an event in ***************************************************** INTERNATIONAL
PARTNERSHIPS Bundled
with the Times Higher of 17-23 May was a glossy magazine from Monash
University in Melbourne, Australia. In this, its first issue, the magazine
sets out 'the science [they] are pursuing and the knowledge [they] are
building across the world'. It demonstrates the breadth of work going on at
Monash, from research on ancient rock paintings, and historical work on the
archives of the Italian city of Prato, to conservation of threatened species
such as the snow leopard by test-tube breeding. A surprising fact we gleaned
is that, in its just over 50 years, Monash has become the largest university
in Australia, with six Australian campuses and a strong international
presence. Part
of this international presence is a new partnership with Warwick University
here in the UK. Both Warwick and Monash see themselves as part of a global
network, with their research 'addressing international problems that have
proved too big for any single institution to tackle'. A joint
Pro-Vice-Chancellor has been appointed to drive this partnership initiative,
and 'there will be joint appointments, research programmes and on-line
educational innovations'. Perhaps
Lancaster University is already thinking in these large terms - but if it
isn't, subtext feels we should be aiming to do so. We spent some months
discussing a possible partnership with a local university that is bigger than
ourselves, although in some respects not as good: this would not have seemed
to be an advance. Surely we should be looking to link with one or more
universities at least as good as we are? In these days of instant electronic
communication, we should be looking globally for our partners, not just down
the road. ***************************************************** THE
BPR IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE BPR! The
VC's email of 20 April states clearly that the Business Process Review is to
'cease in its current format', apart from Finance and Procurement and some
areas of student administration. The sighs of relief from departments across
the campus were audible - but if the champagne was broken out to celebrate,
this was premature. It
appears the findings from the BPR project are being used to carry forward
some of the goals of the project, although not holistically across all functions
as had been originally intended: the plan is to look first at three separate
functional areas of the University's administration. A
review of admissions (UG, PGT and PGR) is already in progress: meetings with
stakeholders (i.e. admissions tutors) took place last week and are continuing
this, with the last meeting due on Friday 1 June. It seems inexplicable that
the delivery team for the admissions project, eight strong, has six members
from the University administration, and two managers from the faculties, but
no academics at all. At present, any admissions case where the decision is
not obvious and clear-cut has to be referred to academic staff in the
department concerned: it makes no sense that there is not even one member of
academic staff on this group. The report of the admissions group is to be
made to UMAG at its meeting on 18 June, so the timescale is very short, and
at present it appears that academic departments will have no channel for
input to the group. The
paperwork for the admissions group sets out, in its Appendix 1, the 'case for
change'. The chief plank of this case is that funding is shifting from
government grants to student tuition fees: one can't argue with this. However, the response advocated is to make
the admissions process more mechanistic and reduce the level of personal
contact between academic staff and candidates. It is not evident that this
will be any kind of improvement on the admissions system we have currently in
place, which in some departments involves interviews of many or even all
candidates. Further
project groups are likely to be set up, to look at student administration and
marketing. Again, it seems likely these groups will need to justify their
roles by recommending changes: a no-change recommendation is unlikely to be
acceptable. Departments that feel that major changes could damage their
effectiveness in these areas had better marshal their arguments quickly. ***************************************************** COLLEGE
BARS In
subtext 87 we welcomed the appointment of Jo Hardman as Head of Commercial
Services with responsibility for – among much else – the college bars. On the
bars, in his short time in office Jo has shown a welcome energy and
willingness to communicate with the licensees, and there has been a spate of
product promotions, special offers and the like. The overall outlook remains
gloomy, however: a meeting of licensees, principals and JCR presidents on 9
May was given figures that unarguably showed a decline in bar profits over
the past ten years. Some bars have continued to do reasonably healthy
business while others have decidedly not. Reasons for this variation and
possible solutions were explored - not for the first time but perhaps with
more enthusiasm than of late. Location, design and amenities or lack of them
were thought to explain differences in performance, but the problems are not
going to be fixed quickly, if at all.
Supermarkets deliver alcoholic drinks to students on campus at prices
the bars cannot begin to match, and the University's success in providing
attractive accommodation allows them to be consumed in companionable comfort. More
cheeringly, Lancaster alumnus and former staff member James Guppy visited the
campus last week with his wife as guests of Grizedale Principal Hugh Pollock.
James Guppy is an artist who has lived in Sydney for almost 30 years, but he
left a legacy of art works on campus, including the murals – sometimes dubbed
'iconic' – in County bar. James was pleased and surprised to see that the
murals had survived. He had not been sure that the technique he used would
allow the paintwork to last (a problem shared with Leonardo da Vinci), but it
has, possibly, James thought, even improving in the process of ageing. The
decision – not uncontested – to preserve the murals at the time of the bar's
refurbishment seems to have been vindicated.
(One
subtext editor remembers the creation of the mural in what is now County, but
was then Cartmel, Bar. To prepare the wall for this, he and his wife washed
off all the beer and nicotine (remember nicotine?) one Sunday morning, then
painted the wall with two coats of white emulsion. They must have done a
reasonable job - the murals are still there 35 years later....) ***************************************************** NEW FASS DEAN APPOINTMENT - WRIGHT OR WRONG? On
11 May the University announced that Professor Nancy Wright, currently
Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Queensland, would become
the next Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in September. On LU
News, the Vice-Chancellor welcomed the appointment, suggesting that the
ability to 'attract someone with such talent and experience from an
institution of the University of Queensland’s standing ... speaks volumes for
the profile of Lancaster University and the Faculty'. SCAN was similarly
enthusiastic in its coverage of the news, but subtext decided to keep its
counsel while it made further inquiries.
Why
the hesitation, you may ask? Well, first one should note that Professor
Wright's tenure at Queensland has been rather brief: she only started there
in January 2011, and so must have applied for the post in Lancaster after not
much more than a year in post. We wondered why someone, so soon after taking
up a senior position at one well-known institution, had felt the need to
leave for another one. We assumed that this is probably not because Lancaster
is paying stratospheric salaries. More plausibly, perhaps, had recent
turbulent events at Queensland quite reasonably led her to consider looking
for a job elsewhere? (See http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-10/uq-vice-chancellor-brings-forward-resignation/3724056.) However,
anyone googling Professor Wright's name (as was done by many at Lancaster
after the announcement, but presumably not during the appointment process)
would also have discovered - on the very first page of Google hits - that her
stewardship of the Faculty of Arts at Queensland has not been universally
judged a great success. To be fair, her room for manoeuvre was constrained by
the University's policy of clawing back a hefty proportion of the Faculty's
income for central purposes. But her response of cutting arts and humanities
courses - allegedly, without meaningful consultation - not only resulted in
disgruntled staff starting a (slightly 'ad feminam') poster campaign
depicting her as the 'Grim Reaper'. It also prompted Australia's National
Tertiary Education Union to campaign formally against the proposed cuts,
deeming them to be putting at risk important areas of study and teaching.
Academics at Queensland have produced lists of courses that they say have
been cancelled as a result of Professor Wright's plans and have attacked her
for turning Queensland into a 'Philistine' university (see: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/grim-reaper-rules-at-philistine-uni/story-e6frgcjx-1226215531184).
Professor
Wright then went on extended personal leave on 8 May. It was only a few days
later, on 14 May, that Queensland learnt about her appointment at Lancaster -
not from Professor Wright herself, but from the announcement on Lancaster's
own website! The Acting V-C at Queensland sent staff an email informing them
of this news, and announcing that the Acting Dean (who had been put in place
when Professor Wright went on extended leave) would continue in that post.
The Acting V-C's message implies that she did not know that Professor Wright
had applied for the position at Lancaster or had been here for interview, and
according to our sources no one else at Queensland knew about it either. In such
circumstances, one rather wonders who the referees named in her Lancaster
application could have been. Our
inquiries suggest that Professor Wright's time at her former institution, the
University of Western Sydney (UWS), was not without friction either. She was
appointed at UWS in 2006, first as Head of the School of Humanities and
Languages, and later as Deputy Dean of the College of Arts. According to
staff at UWS, in her two years as Head of School she quickly established a
reputation for top-down decisions and not communicating with staff, in
particular by restructuring the School's whole BA programme without
consultation, and much to their unease. As Deputy Dean, apparently, she even
installed a swipe-card entry system to her office area so that faculty
members could only enter if buzzed in. We understand that after her departure
UWS reversed her degree restructuring - a move which staff there say now
makes the programme work well again - and has taken steps to deal with the
staff traumas that, it is claimed, resulted from her period as Head of
School. We
are sure that Professor Wright must also have many good qualities; she
certainly seems to have impressed the Lancaster appointments panel. So in
time perhaps we will judge that this appointment does indeed represent a coup
for Lancaster, the capturing of a dynamic academic leader from another
leading institution. However, if reports from Down Under are to believed,
Professor Wright seems to have developed a worrying career pattern – one that
involves not communicating with others; imposing top-down, major
restructurings that prompt protests and upheaval; and not staying on at
institutions for a sufficient length of time to see changes through or to
enable anyone to see whether they have had longer-term positive effects. We
must all hope she uses the Lancaster post as an opportunity to cultivate a
new style of leadership, one which will indeed enable her, as she says in the
LU News announcement, to 'work with the Faculty to build upon its already prestigious
standing and reputation'. ***************************************************** MEETING
OF COUNCIL The
May 18th Meeting of Council opened with a presentation from the University
Secretary, Fiona Aiken, describing the changing HE regulatory framework. This
covered the changes that have been made to HE since the Browne Report.
Changes in university funding, student fees, student funding and student
number controls were covered. Also covered was the introduction of Key
Information Sets (KIS) and the increase in student expectations and
complaints. The role of HEFCE in all of this is still unclear but it is
obvious that this will be a complex and heavily regulated environment. The
Vice-Chancellor had plenty of news to report. The abandonment of discussions
with Liverpool was an item discussed later. Our league table positions (which
had been an area of unease on D-Floor) held steady with Lancaster coming in
at 9th in the Times and 7th in the Guardian. The Athena Swan Bronze Award has
been renewed for the University as a whole. (This award recognises and
celebrates good employment practices for women working in STEM subjects.)
There are a number of individual departments currently hoping to gain the
Silver Award. The
VC also reported on the cancelling of the Business Process Review. Stating that given the scale and complexity
of the changes proposed a further examination was deemed necessary and a
small steering group will look at this. The
LUSU President was delighted to report that Lancaster had convincingly
defeated York in the recent War of the Roses. It had been a wonderful
competition carried out in the best possible spirit. Changes to the
postgraduate representation LUSU are been examined. LUSU's TV station, LA1
TV, gained a highly commended award at the recent Student Television Awards. There
then followed a debate about the demise of Lancaster-Liverpool federation.
When asked why have discussions had broken down, the Pro-Chancellor gave two
reasons. Firstly, Liverpool didn't think that the Lancaster Senate was
committed to a merger at this point in time – a reasonably accurate view. The
second reason was that The
Deputy Vice Chancellor brought the meeting up to date with development in
Ghana. It is still early in the process and there is plenty of work still to
do on due diligence and agreement on a business plan. We are also looking at
broad collaborations with a research institute in Brazil. The
Chief Operating Officer gave Council a brief overview of current and proposed
capital expenditure. Highlights were the continuation of refurbishment of the
underpass (highlights!), refurbishment of Furness College and construction of
the wind turbine. Architects are being scoped for the new Engineering project
and facilities for the new Chemistry department. The
meeting concluded with the approval of the appointments of three new College
Principals. ***************************************************** CESAGEN
LECTURE On
24 May the Cesagen Public Lecture was given at Lancaster Town Hall by
Professor Sir John Sulston. For those not in the know, Cesagen is a
collaboration between The
second half of the talk was devoted to the question of whether the human race
can live sustainably. Sulston pointed out that we in the west have managed to
maintain our material standard of living by exporting our carbon dioxide
emissions, chiefly to China and India. He suggested that, if climate disaster
is to be avoided, the most urgent tasks are to *
lift the poorest billion of global population out of poverty *
reduce consumption in the developed economies *
continue the downward trend of population growth by meeting the substantial
demand (from women) for voluntary contraception *
provide high-quality primary and secondary education, for girls and boys
equally. He
appeared optimistic that all of these aims can be achieved. We may all do our
bit, but getting many billions of people to do these things is certainly a
very tall order. Until they do, the future looks bleak. (The
discussion of sustainability in the second half of Sir John Sulston’s lecture
is set out more fully in a Royal Society report prepared under his chairmanship,
available at http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/people-planet/report/)
***************************************************** LANCASTER
MARKET: BURGESS'S CHEESE STALL If
you're planning a summer picnic, a good meal can be put together from a fresh
loaf or two of interesting bread from Windy Hill Bakery in King Street,
Lancaster (see subtext 89), together with a selection of cheeses from
Burgess's stall on the upper floor of Lancaster Market. Once you have your
bread from Windy Hill, just cross at the pedestrian crossing and go up the
steps to the Market, and Burgess's is on the left just inside the door. They
have a good range of British and continental cheeses, and regularly
experiment by adding new ones to their range. Their turnover is high, so the
cheeses are never stale, and they are always ready to cut a sliver for
customers to try: this writer's current favourites are the Parlick sheep's
milk cheese, the French Comté, and the Dolphinholme goat's milk cheese. There is a good range of blue cheeses, and
of course of Lancashires and Cheddars too. To complete your picnic, they also
sell tomatoes, olives and other essentials. Now
that compensation for the Market traders has been agreed with the Council,
Burgess's are looking to move out to a nearby shop, where their successful
cheese business should continue. This is not expected to happen for a few
months, but in any case those of us who are addicted to Burgess's cheese will
still be supplied. PS:
in the last issue of subtext, we wrote '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 empty Hall'. It is now clear
that the Council was at that time working to organise this compensation to
the traders, and it is now agreed. We didn't wish to suggest the Council was
hoping to avoid making these payments, which clearly it wasn't. ***************************************************** LANCASTER
AND THE RUSSELL GROUP The
Russell Group was formed in 1994 and named after the London hotel where at
that time a few VCs used to meet before meetings of the Committee of
Vice-Chancellors and Principals (now Universities UK), which were held just
along the road in Tavistock Square. Hotel Russell (isn't the inverted name a
bit pretentious?) opened in 1900. The building could only be a product of the
late Victorian or Edwardian era. The exterior is so covered in ornament as to
be reminiscent of an Indian palace. The architect of the building, Charles
Fitzroy Doll, was an enthusiastic user of terracotta. In his design for Hotel
Russell he let rip so exuberantly that the windows and door openings of the
very restrained houses nearby in Russell Square had to be decorated with
terracotta dressings to compete: this was the origin of the phrase 'dolled
up'. The
largest shareholder in Frederick Hotels, the company that built and owned
Hotel Russell, was Sir John Maple, head of the furnishing firm of that name.
His position caused consternation among other furnishing companies, including
Waring and Gillow, who saw it as potential restraint of trade. Their concern
was justified - Maples did indeed supply most of the furnishings; they also
did the internal decoration. It
may be appropriate that the Russell Group was born in this building, since
the (unstated) aim of the Group is to secure advantage for itself and its
members. If Lancaster University were to be invited to join, would we want to
accept, like the recent recruits to the group, Durham, Exeter, Queen Mary and
York? The natural tendency is to join. It would be comforting to think our VC
was regularly sitting down at the table with the VCs of Oxford, Cambridge,
Edinburgh, Imperial etc. However,
it is not obvious that Lancaster would gain much advantage by joining. We
have little in common with most of the Russell Group members: indeed, many of
them have little in common with each other, except that they are mostly much
bigger than Lancaster. It seems doubtful they would pay any more heed to our
views if we were members than they do now when we are not. Perhaps the best
course for Lancaster is a quiet disdain for the whole group business. ***************************************************** LETTERS Dear
subtext, I'm
sure you've been inundated with this - but it's nice to see Lancaster
University is 'leading change' in Bahrain. http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/events/24969/ All
the best, Tony
Friend ******* Dear
subtext, I'd
like to second subtext's appropriately generous comments on Marion and her
book. One of the gentler, funnier, truer things one could say about the
author is that it took some people (mea culpa, for sure) a stupidly long time
to appreciate her contributions to keeping things running, at more or less
the right speed and in more or less the right direction. When all is said and
done, what more could one sane person ask of another sane person? The
'measured' perspective Marion takes in the book may explain the slowness in
appreciating her work at the University. But by the same token it can no
longer excuse it. Well
done, indeed!!! Bob
Bliss, University of Missouri-St. Louis ******* Dear
subtext, Just
in case you missed it, Laura from LA1:TV interviewed Mike Sheppard regarding
the underpass: http://la1tv.lusu.co.uk/2012/04/19/the-la1-show-underpass-investigation/ Dave
Ingles ***************************************************** The
editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order)
of: Mark Garnett, George Green, David Smith, Bronislaw Szerszynski and Martin
Widden. |
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