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subtext issue 110 30 October 2013 ***************************************************** '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, zero hours contracts, constitutional news, gagging, joined-up thinking, colleges, books, reviews, who is the university?, dave smith, links, letters ***************************************************** EDITORIAL subtext would like to apologise for the early arrival of issue 110. This departure from the established timetable is due to industrial action which will take place on Thursday 31 October. As subtext subscribers probably know, support for this week's action is far from unanimous, and even some colleagues taking a full part may not have voted in favour of this particular form of protest. However, it would be a mistake for the university authorities to confuse the bare voting figures, and the number of people prepared to do more than simply forego a day's pay, with the true level of discontent at Lancaster and elsewhere. No-one argues that those working in the university sector should be treated more favourably than other public servants. However, the impact of 'austerity' is merely the latest and most unpleasant episode in a long-running saga of slipping standards in terms of pay and (especially) conditions. And let's be clear: this isn't just a bunch of cossetted academics whingeing. Members of the teaching staff whose long-tried patience is wearing increasingly thin are also acutely aware of other colleagues - both academic and non-academic - who have been taken for granted too long. So, whether or not one thinks that a strike at this time is appropriate, one can only hope that it leads to progress in resolving some of the numerous issues which endanger the health of Higher Education. ***************************************************** NEWS IN BRIEF Subscribers who enjoy following Senate deliberations will be interested (and the rest of us should welcome in the interests of transparency) that the decision has been made that, from this year, all Senate agenda will be available electronically on a SharePoint site. In addition to members of Senate, all staff and students of the University are now able to access these agenda and supporting papers. This link will take you to the site: https://gap.lancs.ac.uk/Committees/senate/sms/meetings/default.aspx ******* Lancaster's Cary Cooper was quoted in the G2 section of the Guardian on 28 October on how people working in open plan offices might manage the associated stress. He suggested the use of flags above one's desk - a red flag to mean 'I'm busy', a white one to say that you can be interrupted (not, as subtext might have supposed, 'I give up'). We intend to adopt and extend the idea in the subtext warehouse: a yellow flag (for quarantine) will mean 'Stay away - seriously', a Blue Peter flag (ready to sail) 'Anyone fancy going to the pub?' Further suggestions from subscribers will be welcome. ***************************************************** ZERO HOURS CONTRACTS Some subscribers have gently queried the inclusion in subtext 109 of two pieces advertising events concerned with or highlighting the issue of zero hours contracts. subtext has an on-going interest in the issue, not least in that Lancaster is something of an outlier in the HE sector regarding their use. There are many types of employment that may be described as being a zero hours contract. The essential feature of such contracts is that the employer is under no obligation to provide work and the employee is under no obligation to accept any work offered. The reason why zero hours contacts have recently hit the headlines is because they have proliferated in recent years and have become exploitative. (They are also regressive; anyone who has read Robert Tressell's The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists will recognise in it a clear and resonant description of the present system and how it can be exploited. Tressell wrote his book at the turn of the 19th Century. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.) ***************************************************** CONSTITUTIONAL NEWS In Week 2 an email was dispatched to all departments from the Secretariat, titled 'Appointment to the University Senate by non-academic staff of the University'. It said: 'Following the Senate Effectiveness Review, the revised membership of the University Senate includes a member of staff who is not a member of the teaching or research staff, elected by employees in the same category. Anyone who is interested in serving in this capacity is invited to contact Fiona Aiken for further information. Expressions of interest are invited from staff members who fall into the above category to fill this vacancy on the Senate. The initial term of office will be for three years, to 31 July 2016.' As per our statutes, all staff classed as 'professional' (this covers most of those we would refer to as 'academic-related') are academic staff. Yet this circular explicitly classes them, and everyone else who is not engaged in teaching or research, alongside the non-academic staff, and will allow them to stand for the vacant non-academic staff position on Senate. (Shouts of 'Keep up!' from the back.) A clarification of the situation may well follow. ************************************* GAGGING FOR IT The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill 2013-14 (known to its opponents as the 'Gagging Law' and much else besides), recently passed by the House of Commons and currently going through the House of Lords, is causing some subscribers a degree of disquiet. Put simply, they argue that it means that ordinary people, campaigning groups and charities will be severely restricted in how they can campaign in the year before an election. The bill was rushed through the House of Commons at breakneck speed, without any of the normal public consultation, and although there was a sort-of rebellion, it wasn’t enough to stop it. A united front of a wide range of charities and campaign organisations (and it's interesting to look at the list and reflect on how very strange some of the bed-fellows are in there) have demanded that the government rethink the bill. In particular they demand that the government set up an independent commission to do the research that they think the government should have done in the first place. It's called 'The Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement' and it has been holding evidence sessions up and down the country listening to how the gagging law will affect a huge range of campaign organisations and charities. Its Chair is a retired bishop, which is at least unusual. Ros Baston's legal briefing (see link below) suggests that, despite the government's assurances that their changes would fix the problems, any activity which promotes policies which happen to be associated with a party (housing, welfare, the NHS) could still be covered under the new limits on spending - potentially hamstringing charities and NGOs. This is also interesting: http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2013-14/transparencyoflobbyingnonpartycampaigningandtradeunionadministration.html And this: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/gagging-law-legal-advice-report-stage And the FOE website is as good a place as any to get a sense of the opposition position: http://www.foe.co.uk/news/gagging_law_questions_41336 Responding to the publication of the government's amendments, Sir Stephen Bubb, CEO of ACEVO said: ***************************************************** JOINED-UP THINKING Sometimes you just want to scream. For the last twenty years or so, the clear and unremitting message from both government and (slightly less relentlessly, but still overwhelmingly) the universities has been: 'Our research is acclaimed throughout the world, we are research driven, research is what matters'. This has dominated appointments policy (no REF potential = no job); it has encouraged some universities – mercifully not this one – to try and create a two-tier system whereby researchers are paid more and others just teach and are paid less, and it has affected other decisions in a myriad of different ways, some implicit, many explicit. Of course, teaching has also been spoken of as if it mattered just as much, but those who prioritise teaching have found that when it really counts research has been, as Myles na Ghopaleen might have said, 'your only man'. For those with spare cranial capacity, the full pamphlet itself can be found at http://www.smf.co.uk/research/category-two/robbins-revisited/. **************************************************** COLLEGES The start of a new academic year is always enlivened by evidence of the enthusiasm which Lancaster students feel for our collegiate system. Anyone entering the campus in freshers week, regardless of their chosen form of transport, would be left with the impression that the colleges are lively, welcoming communities animated by a sense of rivalry which is (almost invariably) expressed with good humour. The advantages which the colleges bring to our university were rightly highlighted on the main web-page during freshers week; indeed, unless we are mistaken this point seemed to be given greater prominence and emphasis than usual. This is all to the good, and subtext warmly welcomes the student union's initiative in holding a week of events in support of the colleges. Amid this good news, subtext cannot help noticing the relatively small proportion of the university's budget which is spent on college officers and activities (as opposed to expenditure on bricks, mortar, paint and refurbished bars). Unless we have misinterpreted the figures, out of overall expenditure of around £183 million, less than £760,000 is spent on the colleges. Furthermore, over £185,000 of this comes directly from the students themselves in the form of college membership fees, fines and other money-raising activities. We have long suspected that the colleges did an excellent job on an inadequate budget, but it is still a surprise to see quite how inadequate the budget really is. As in other respects, if the university is taking the voluntary vibrancy of the colleges for granted it is making a serious misjudgement. The case for allocating some of the university's current surplus to the colleges - and, for that matter, to the student union which is awarded a similar sum – seems unanswerable. In the meantime, if the university's decision-makers want to take a costless measure which might shore up morale in the colleges, they could give formal recognition of practical commitment to a college as a relevant criterion when colleagues apply for promotion. ***************************************************** BOOKS Subscribers may recall that past issues of subtext have included articles and letters expressing surprise and perturbation about the skips full of old books that appear at intervals outside the library. We now understand that the library's policy is that, when a hard copy becomes available as an ebook, the hard copy should be removed. If it can't be sold, it is skipped. This raises a number of questions. First, let's be clear that this policy makes sense on several levels. For a book on short loan, there are obvious advantages – a whole cohort of students can read the same book simultaneously instead of queuing for one of the ten copies held to satisfy 100 students, thus offering savings in time, money, convenience, and blows exchanged. So that's good. It also means that an old hard copy of a book that is, say, borrowed once a term, can be removed, kept available electronically, and replaced by a hard copy of a new book likely to garner much more usage. So far, so very practical. However, there are several arguments against this. Some researchers find that a hard copy is preferable for repeated back and forth searching – the electronic search function is great if you know what you're looking for, but hopeless for serendipity. Similarly, browsing bookshelves is not the same process as browsing an electronic list, or there would be no bookshops – and even those who shop solely on Amazon often go to bookshops to make their choices, the selfish so-and-sos. More metaphysically, one might ask, what is a library? The logic of the replacement policy is that eventually the university will be left with a large building filled with computers and containing a server with millions of books on it, with a small annexe for hard copies of books that are deemed 'important' in some way but are unlikely ever to get an electronic release. Is this what we want? A quick and unscientific undergraduate straw poll suggests that students continue to prefer hard copies over the electronic alternatives. Has discussion about this policy decision taken place outside the library management committee? After all, the library is a resource - this is an issue that surely affects all of us. One for Senate, perhaps? Another thought: what is the betting that the well-endowed universities who can afford it, Russell Group and all that, will make a virtue of hanging on to their books, offering both electronic and hard copy? Students will be offered the benefits of both. We can be fairly confident that the Bodleian doesn't have a skip sitting out in the delivery bay full of dusty copies of books that haven't been borrowed for a decade or so. The money saved here could be a very short-term gain indeed. ***************************************************** REVIEW - PASCAL ROGÉ The second Great Hall concert couldn't have been more different: a solo recital by the pianist Pascal Rogé, entirely of French music written between 1888 and 1934. Rogé studied first with his mother, a professional organist, and later with Lucette Descaves, who had met Debussy, Ravel and Saint-Saëns and was able to say to him 'Debussy wanted this passage played this way'. Recognised to be one of the foremost performers of this repertoire, Rogé explained in the post-concert Q&A session that, owing to this upbringing, French music is 'in his blood'. Playing for close on two hours entirely from memory, he ably demonstrated the truth of this. ***************************************************** WHO IS THE UNIVERSITY? Staff received an email last week inviting us to indicate if we'd be on strike on Thursday. One odd part of the form was this assertion: 'the University does not view strike action as being conducive to seeking a resolution to the issue of the pay award...'. Who, in this context, is 'the University'? We might have thought something like 'a corporate body consisting of its staff and students', in which case it seems that quite a lot of 'the University' does view strike action as being conducive to seeking a resolution etc., or at least as the last remaining option. ***************************************************** DAVE SMITH As befits a collective enterprise, subtext has nothing but contempt for the cult of personality. The Cause is all, and the individual is nothing. Members of the collective serve a purpose for a time, but when their day is done they are discarded without a second thought; normally we do not waste a word to mark their passing. However, occasionally we have to succumb to human frailties. Some of our more observant readers will have noticed that one member of the subtext collective has left the ranks this term. Dave Smith actually retired last year but stayed on part-time to see his postgraduate students to completion. Believing that he could still be useful, the subtext collective ordered him to keep slaving away for us, and he recognised his duty to stay in harness. Now he has now officially left, although he is still academically active. The University is a deal poorer for his absence, and we will miss him a bit. Anyone wishing to occupy his vacated post on the subtext collective is welcome to get in touch. ***************************************************** LINKS 'October 31st is about inequality, injustice, low paid university employees and the future of higher education' by Luke Martell, 'Why should we occupy and go on strike?' by Maia Pal And a critique of Willett's (mis)use of Robbins by John Holmwood: *********************************************** LETTERS Dear subtext and subtext readers, It's been brought to my attention that there will be strike action at the end of the month. First, I would like to say that I'm always prepared to stand with those who strike, and offer my solidarity. But, beyond this, I feel a few critical thoughts need expression on the limits of this strike - in bullet form: 1) Lecturers fail to stand in solidarity with each other. On strike days they stay home and catch up with research. 2) Lecturers fail to stand in solidarity with anyone else, including the junior colleagues they collude in exploiting (i.e. TAs) and the support staff at the university - e.g. cleaners, bar staff, library staff, admin, learning assistants, &c. 3) Consequently, whatever the hopeful murmurs of the disaffected, this strike has no radical or even political agenda. It's purely about protecting academic staff's professional interests. 4) Trade union activity is waning. Given that strikes in the 21st century UK happen so infrequently, are strictly one day affairs, are apolitical, and fail to link up different actors under a common cause, they are next to useless. 5) Lecturers are so deeply invested in their petty bourgeois existence it seems they'll never do anything to change it. Moreover, their day to day practice - in actively taking part in the construction of a new neoliberal, marketized HE sector - completely cuts against the grain of any 'critique' this strike might contain. In conclusion - though I wish I might be proved wrong - lecturers are their own worst enemy: so treacherous and so impotent. With best wishes, ************************************ Dear subtext, I find I cannot agree with my colleague Sarah Beresford's call, in Subtext 109, for 'lad mags' to be banned from sale in W.H. Smith's on campus (or in any other outlet). First, the evil she anticipates – engendering in a small number of young men an unfortunate attitude to women – is unlikely to eventuate: those buying these magazines doubtless already possess those attitudes and probably could not be shaken from them even by being forced to read every edition of Spare Rib ever published while drinking successive cups of FairTrade chamomile tea. I subscribe to The Field and to Shooting Gazette. I subscribe because I'm interested in field sports and country life. My interest in these things led to the subscriptions, not the other way around. Secondly, the harm is hardly so great as to justify such an authoritarian response. Even if one does not have a ban as such but stages protests or boycotts to discourage customers until the shop complies with one’s demands, that is no less authoritarian in its effects. Moreover, who gets to decide which publications are harmful? Should I be allowed to demand that Smiths stops selling Cosmopolitan or Heat or Psychologies on the grounds that they fill the minds of women with trivial nonsense and quack ideas? The Morning Star or the Socialist Worker because they lead to young men affecting scruffy beards and smelly duffel-coats while spouting pretentious Citizen Smith-style claptrap? Perhaps I could move on to ban the 43 minutes every weekday of absurdly tendentious anti-male hate-speech broadcast under the title Woman's Hour on Radio 4, which encourages anti-male prejudice and resentment in women? All stuff I don't like – so why shouldn't it be banned? Thirdly, where does it end? 'Lad mags' may encourage some young men in viewing women as sexual objects. But there’s a book which inspired Lenin to murder 5 millions of his countrymen, Stalin to top the deed by killing 50 millions, Mao to match Stalin, Pol Pot to wipe out half the population of Cambodia, Castro to order the 'disappearance' of 100,000 of his small island nation and Kim-Jong Un even now to keep the starving population of North Korea as brainwashed prisoners. Are we to ban Das Kapital on the grounds of the effects that it seems to have on some of its readers? And have you ever tried reading Sade's 120 Days of Sodom? An horrific glorification of child sexual abuse, torture and murder. Perhaps we should get the students to select all the degenerate literature in the Library and burn it in Alexandra Square? This is a university. We encourage free enquiry and the development of understanding and discrimination in our students' reading, which involves them learning to decide for themselves what is good and worthwhile and what is not: we don't ban books, not even magazines, however much we disapprove of them. Yours faithfully, Dr Richard Austen-Baker ***************************************************** The editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order) of: Sam Clark, Rachel Cooper (PPR), Mark Garnett, George Green, Ian Paylor, and Martin Widden. Vale: David Smith |