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Attention student readers of subtext! - You're needed in the Faraday Lecture Theatre at 6pm TONIGHT for the LUSU General Meeting. If you leave now, you should get there in time, so what are you waiting for?
subtext issue 125 27 November 2014 ***************************************************** 'Truth: lies open to all' ***************************************************** Every fortnight during term time. All editorial correspondence to: subtext-editors@lancaster.ac.uk Back issues and subscription details can be found at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext The editors welcome letters, comments, suggestions and opinions from readers. subtext reserves the right to edit submissions. subtext does not publish material that is submitted anonymously, but is willing to consider without obligation requests for publication with the name withheld. For tips to prevent subtext from getting swept up into your 'junk email folder', see: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext/dejunk/. CONTENTS: editorials - senate sidelined, increases in post-grad fees and rents; radio; slow mail; ethical investments; it’s tough to make a salary sacrifice; cello and piano in the great hall; bars; letter ***************************************************** EDITORIAL: SENATE SIDELINED Concern is growing with the tendency of management to bypass Senate when it comes to important decisions affecting the academic life of the university. The latest is Council's decision of 22nd November to raise tuition fees for postgraduate and all international students by 5% (see below). It appears that there is no compelling financial reason for this move as this year we're set to produce another handsome surplus. The reason given to Council was that, as our competitor 'bench-mark' universities are doing this, so should we. So much for 'Thinking Differently'. In vain did a handful of Council members (notably the LUSU reps) argue that this was likely to have a damaging effect on postgraduate recruitment, already hit hard by the £9K undergraduate fees. They had the temerity to suggest that it might be a good idea to seek the views of Senate before moving ahead. This was rejected. So, in advance of the publication of the review of Lancaster's postgraduate taught programmes (to go to Senate in February), a fees decision has been made that could nullify its recommendations. Then there was the attempt last summer to outsource our Part 1 provision. Now this did go to Senate (where the idea received short shrift) but, subtext understands, only after the need to do so was pointed out by secretariat. More recently, it was Lancaster UCU who had to point out that the proposed changes to the academic promotions process was a Senate matter requiring a vote. Even then, it was buried under the 'unlikely to require discussion' part of the agenda until rescued by an alert senator. The most glaring example of Senate being ignored is the Colleges Review, initiated by Council and now well under way. A paper outlining the review group's remit and membership was presented at last Senate - not for decision, not for discussion, but merely to be 'noted'. This is astonishing. The governance of colleges and the discipline of students are areas of Senate responsibility, and student welfare and well-being is a shared responsibility with Council. College Principals are ex-officio members of Senate, college syndicates are sub-committees of Senate, college constitutions have to be approved by Senate. Yet there is no Senate input at all in the Colleges Review, despite the fact that the wide remit of the Review encompasses all these areas. There was no consultation on its scope and no Senate representation in its membership. Indeed, the majority of the review group members have no direct experience of Lancaster's college system but they will be making recommendations that will have a profound impact on its future development. The review report will be presented to Senate in February as its proposals are likely to require a change to Statutes. There is the potential here for a major public row that will put the last bruising Senate debate on the colleges in the shade. Senate isn't the only body whose members are starting to feel ignored. Word has come to subtext about unease in UMAG, where perceptions are growing that the real decisions are being made by a handful of senior officers grouped around the Vice-Chancellor. Now subtext can't claim to be a great fan of UMAG but we do recognise that there have been occasions where it has been a moderating influence on some of the wilder ambitions of senior management. Lancaster University has bitter experience of what happens when an impatient senior management, fired with 'vision', is allowed to bypass Senate and ignore the doubters in its own ranks. Let's make sure it doesn't happen again. ***************************************************** INCREASES IN POST-GRAD FEES AND RENTS The University of Lancaster's Finance & General Purposes Committee, UMAG, and subsequently its Council, have voted to approve a 5% increase in tuition fees for postgraduates and international students, and to approve a 2.5% increase in on-campus rent. It is subtext's hope that its readers were well aware of these changes already, having been thoroughly consulted and permitted to offer guidance and feedback that are reflected in the final funding structures that faculties and departments have ended up working with. Sadly, the gulf between hope and reality is as expansive as ever. subtext is not aware of any rigorous consultations with academic staff - in fact, it is becoming increasingly apparent that several staff members first heard of it via the SCAN report, published last Saturday, after the decisions were approved by University Council. This is nothing short of a monstrous disgrace. These proposals made their way through the Finance and General Purposes committee and the University Council, both of which are limited and exclusive in membership, with little clear hierarchical link to departments. However, they also passed through UMAG, whose members include at the very least every Faculty Dean. To how many Deans did it occur to gather feedback from the people they ostensibly represent; how many are actually of the belief that taking concerns up to UMAG rather than delivering the diktats down from the body is the right way to go; or is UMAG where the grown-ups hang out to talk about Very Serious Business while those beneath them flounder around learning to do proper toilet? Many will remember the uprising from departments a few years back, when former Deputy Vice-Chancellor Bob McKinlay became intent on setting £9k fees for Postgraduate students - so effective was it that a climbdown swiftly ensued. This is an important thing to note: no university is going to get away with such a drastic increase in fees. What they can get away with is a series of minor increases which, when accrued over several years, are monumental. If not for general principled reasons of wanting postgraduate and international students to be able to feed themselves, academic staff ought to recognise the grave consequences that these increases can have on departments. If we are to believe, for example, that an increase in entry requirements on a par with those demanded by Oxbridge is responsible for the dive in applications we are experiencing (after clearing we remained 333 under target; the situation was far more severe before clearing), then the idea that pricing prospective students out of the market ought not to be a leap of faith at all. The Students' Union has put out an appeal for students to come forward and openly discuss the financial difficulties that they face - their results merely confirmed what we already knew; maintenance loans aren't covering rent costs and students are forced to rely either on their parents on their overdrafts to cover it. Many postgraduates haven't two pennies to rub together and end up taking on menial work just to see themselves through the course. We have postgraduates dropping out for financial reasons, or taking on several jobs at once, something which is doubtless detrimental to the academic experience. So the question is, who suffers? The answer is, everyone suffers. Students suffer for the reasons outlined above. Departments suffer from low intakes - the fewer students they take, the less money they get, the less money they get, the less staff they can keep on, the less staff they can keep on, the less choices there are available to students, the less choices available to students there are, the less we'll achieve in the NSS scores, the less we achieve in the NSS scores, the lower our league table positioning will be. Furthermore, the fewer postgraduates we keep on, the fewer academic minds we can mould and keep around, and the lower our academic reputation will be. The message is clear, and so is the solution: Senior Management, if they're able to regain any of the sense they have been so severely lacking over the past couple of years, ought to be having urgent conversations about funding NOW. True, we are bound to UPP when it comes to our rent prices, but one need not think too far outside the box to see that a significant increase in the bursaries afforded to students of a lower socio-economic background is a sensible solution, or that a hefty bumping up of in-house postgraduate funding so that there is more of it available to more students will keep us with a happier workforce of shining beacons of the future. The Students' Union is holding a General Meeting at 6 pm this evening in Faraday Lecture Theatre (and students reading would be well advised to go), and quoracy is looking incredibly likely. Academic staff need to mobilise in solidarity: tomorrow lunchtime the Vice-Chancellor is holding an open forum at 11.45 for 12.00 in the Great Hall (see LU Text 678 for sign-up details), and any concerned parties would do well to seize this opportunity by the horns. **************************************************** RADIO How much time do you get to relax by yourself on a normal day? New research reported on Radio 5 Breakfast show (13th November) suggests we're not getting enough 'me time', and it's leading to tiredness, stress and even depression. Jeremy Milnes is a life coach and Andy Dawson writes for the Mirror, spoke to 5 live Breakfast about the research. Jeremy said: "We have lots of responsibilities in our lives that we take very seriously", "but what we sometimes forget is that we also have a responsibility to take care of ourselves and sometimes we feel a bit guilty about taking time out of the day for ourselves." http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lhbgl ***************************************************** SLOW MAIL There was quite a kerfuffle following the announcement of the suspension of the industrial action on Thursday 20th November. Most UCU members learnt of the suspension of the marking boycott via an email sent by Paul Boustead, Head of HR, at 10.15 that morning. Colleagues were incensed and in high dudgeon. Email traffic was angry and frantic. Cries of ‘adding insult to injury’, ‘quisling’, ‘betrayal’ and claims that the union was not fit for purpose. That management should inform UCU members of the decision taken by its own national executive was for many almost too much to bear. However it turned out to be cock-up rather than conspiracy. Sally Hunt, UCU general secretary, had sent an email to all members at 09.04 that morning stating that UCU and Universities UK (UUK) have confirmed, following discussions on Wednesday, an agreement to suspend the industrial action in relation to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) pensions dispute from today (Thursday 20 November) until after the joint negotiating committee (JNC) meeting scheduled for Thursday 15 January 2015. Thanks to the ancient and creaking UCU distribution system Lancaster members did not receive this message until 11, 12 o’clock or even later. Thankfully it dissolved into a competition regarding who could get the message latest. Wars have been started on less confusion. ***************************************************** ETHICAL INVESTMENTS One of the disagreeable institutional matters which inspired the inception of subtext was our ethics, or the lack thereof, when it came to investments. We feel that it's about time we returned to the matter to see where we're up to nine years later. The mutual betrayal between our boasting and our behaviour is palpable. It seems that Facilities are unwilling to open any new building unless they can be certain it can be 100% powered by methane gas, our wind turbines are loudmouthed tokens of our commitment to the environment, and more and more of the ingredients used in University Catering outlets are grown on campus as part of the Edible Campus project. Yet, 15.64% of our portfolio is invested into the fossil fuel industry (Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum). The 50th anniversary banners adorning every lamppost in the vicinity harp on about our groundbreaking health research, and more obviously; we have a Faculty of Health and Medicine. Yet, 3.6% of our portfolio is invested into the tobacco industry. Lancaster is immensely proud of its standing as a 'Global University', with campuses, partnerships and associations spanning the whole gamut of the planet. Yet 4.71%, of our portfolio is invested into the arms trade; companies which sell weapons to the highest bidding regime to wreak destruction on civilisations. However, people have found themselves blue in the face having made these exact same arguments for a number of years; it's time to take a different tack, and subtext thinks it has found the answer. That answer lies, as with every other clinching argument here at Lancaster, with league tables. The People and Planet Green League judges universities by three criteria; "Does the University have a publicly available ethical investment policy?"; "Is the publicly available ethical investment policy reported on annually and/or are there ongoing opportunities for staff, students and other stakeholders to engage with the policy?"; Has Lancaster University, on ethical grounds: a) divested, b) invested, c) engaged with companies as a shareholder, or d) changed banking provider in the last year?" The answer to all of the above, in Lancaster's case, is no, leaving us with a score of 0/3 and in a catastrophic and unthinkable 85th place in the 2013 rankings. On further investigation, the case becomes yet more compelling: Of our regular faces on the strategic benchmarking tables, Surrey, Exeter, York and, most saliently, Warwick, score more highly than us on these criteria. Surely fulfilling just one of these three criteria will give ample cause for heraldic jubilations in VickyText, if not the vague sense that as an institution we are practising what we preach? ***************************************************** BACK TO PRIMARY SCHOOL? Free pin badges, featuring the University shield, are now available to all staff: you can collect yours from University House Reception (see LU Text 678, which appeared last Friday). This would seem a harmless enough thing for the University to do; but what is the point of these badges? This wasn’t explained in the two-line piece in LU Text. Children often like to wear badges, as an expression of group membership. Without a badge, they are outsiders. But we will never get every member of staff to wear a LU badge, and anyway we’re not children, so that can’t be it. Some organisations require all their members to wear a uniform: the armed services are an obvious example. Army uniforms, painted shields, and so forth were introduced in earlier times so that, in the chaos of battle, soldiers could tell their own side from the enemy. University life does get more and more like a battle, but we don’t need uniforms to tell us who our opponents are. Perhaps the idea is a reduced version of the practice in some (mostly Japanese) companies, where all workers wear company boiler suits and baseball caps, from the managing director downwards. This de-emphasises the inequalities that exist in any hierarchy. But we can’t see LU going down that route either. Subtext rather suspects that these badges have been introduced on someone’s whim, but very possibly no one has much idea why. ***************************************************** IT’S TOUGH TO MAKE A SALARY SACRIFICE As a subtext reader, are you in favour of progressive taxation? Answering this question might take a bit of thought, but most of us would surely answer ‘yes’. We know taxes have to be levied so that necessary public spending can be funded - on roads, law and order, health care, schools and universities, etc - and most of us would think it fair in principle that those with larger resources of income or wealth should pay more, i.e. that taxes should be progressive. In the UK, income tax has been progressive from its very inception in 1798 under Pitt the younger: high incomes are taxed at a proportionally higher rate. Council tax is (rather clumsily) progressive, in that larger properties are generally in higher tax bands and so are taxed more heavily. Some UK public and charitable projects are funded by payments that are very far from progressive. An obvious example is the National Lottery, tickets for which are known to be bought mainly by people on low incomes. The Lottery supports many worthwhile projects, but these are being paid for largely by the less-well-off, who often don’t benefit from these projects very much. An interesting case, because it involves a significant proportion of Lancaster University staff, is ‘salary sacrifice’ and the Flexible Benefits scheme. As many will know, by salary sacrifice members of staff can shift some of their pay from cash into a non-cash benefit, which might be child-care fees, health or dental insurance, or purchase of a bicycle, for example. The scheme is called ‘flexible’ because staff-members can choose which non-cash benefits they wish to take. The advantage of this to the staff-member is that income tax and national insurance can be paid on the amount of pay after the cost of these benefits has been deducted. In effect, the government gives a discount on the NI payments by both the staff-member and the employer - which explains the University’s enthusiastic promotion of the Flexible Benefits scheme. The rationale of this is usually that the scheme is somehow linked to government social policy, although it is far from clear that all the benefits that can be paid for through salary sacrifice have such links. Perhaps we should be reflecting that, if discounts on tax payments are being given to employees of certain, usually large, organisations, then either other taxpayers are having to make up the losses to the Exchequer, or else government is ending up with less money to pay for its public-spending commitments. It’s not difficult to see that the losers in all this are employees of small firms, the self-employed, the unemployed, those on benefits, and other people who are largely on low incomes. It is not obvious to subtext that the government, or indeed the University, should be promoting the salary sacrifice scheme, whose operation seems (in the economic sense, at least) to be regressive. ***************************************************** CELLO AND PIANO IN THE GREAT HALL Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) was one of the most accomplished pianists of his time, but his lasting fame is as a composer, chiefly for solo piano. As well as the waltzes and nocturnes, which appear deservedly in lists of Your 100 Best Tunes, there are the mazurkas, études, préludes, and ballades, all of which are part of a good pianist’s repertoire. Indeed, Chopin composed very little for any other instrument. But towards the end of his life whilst living in Paris he wrote a sonata for the cellist Auguste Franchomme, one of the most prominent cellists in the city at the time. Chopin found the task of composing for cello and piano, instead of piano solo, really quite difficult, telling his sister ‘I write a little and cross out a lot’. But his labour paid off - the sonata is a very successful piece, and it was given a fine performance in the Great Hall last week by the cellist Giovanni Sollima with pianist Kathryn Stott. Sollima is a phenomenal cello-player. With the seating in the Hall set in the round, many audience members were in a position to see and marvel at his technique. When he plays, his cello becomes effectively part of his body; he is then freed from the technical demands of what he is playing so that he can immerse himself totally in the music. Besides his playing, he also composes. One of last Thursday’s encores, entitled Waves, was a piece by Sollima inspired by the bestiary of Leonardo da Vinci, and the cellist made the most of the opportunity this afforded him to celebrate Leonardo’s humour. Perched on the stage in the centre of the Hall with its lid fully raised, the University’s Steinway concert grand rather dwarfed the cellist sitting before it, and not only because of its sheer size: Kathryn Stott is a sensitive accompanist, but the piano’s sound is so powerful that it sometimes almost drowned that of Sollima’s 1679 Ruggieri cello. Perhaps this could have been avoided if the lid of the piano had been propped on one of the shorter sticks. But this was a fascinating recital by a remarkable cellist, about whom another superb cellist Yo-Yo Ma said ‘He’s a super virtuoso of the cello… He has no fear, and that’s unusual in the classical world - we’re all terrified of wrong notes.’ ***************************************************** BARS In days of yore, the College Bars were the places to find academics milling about alongside students. While they retain a healthy student cohort of bar flies, staff are letting the side down, and as such subtext would like to take a moment each issue to extol the virtues of just a few of these fine establishments. Bowland Bar offers reasonably priced pie of excellent quality in the daytimes, and the selection of ales on offer is palpable. As our spiritual King, Sir Cary Cooper, once emphasised, eating at your desk is no way to run a railway. At lunchtime, get yourself down to Bowland Bar for a choice of three pies with all the trimmings. Furness Bar (from where your correspondent is currently tapping out this issue of subtext) is a splendid resting point between lectures for coffee and cake, but its alcoves and ales make it an excellent spot to retreat to at any point during the day. The Wednesday night quiz run by the JCR is also not to be missed. Then there's Grad Bar, which has been in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide for 13 years and counting. There's curry on a Friday and a smorgasbord of ciders and ales every night of the week, as well as bands which appeal to Folks Of A Certain Age. If any readers are at a bit of a loose end at the end of a day in t’pit and need desperately to wash the soot from their chests, then gather a few colleagues together at the end of the day and have a swift one in your nearest bar. You won't be disappointed, and know not what you're missing. ***************************************************** LETTER Hello An interesting read from a Bath academic re the marking boycott Thanks for missives, Karen ************************************* The editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order) of: George Green, James Groves, Ian Paylor, Ronnie Rowlands, Joe Thornberry, Johnny Unger and Martin Widden.
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