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subtext ***************************************************** ‘Truth: lies open to all’ ***************************************************** Issue 131 19 March 2015 ***************************************************** Fortnightly during term time. All letters, contributions and comments to: subtext-editors@lancaster.ac.uk subtext does not publish material that is submitted anonymously, but will consider requests for publication with the name withheld. subtext reserves the right to edit submissions. Back issues and subscription details can be found at www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext For tips to prevent subtext from getting swept up into your 'junk email folder', see: www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext/dejunk/. CONTENTS: editorial; town & gown; kids for tea; democracy; democracy 2; democracy 3; comedy of errors; toast; archive; Marina Warner; post mortem; Shart attack; concert review; letters. ***************************************************** EDITORIAL As usual for the end of term, subtext likes to reflect on the last few months and to update our readers on whatever progress has been made on the issues fearlessly highlighted by your favourite online journal. In January we reported on the VC’s threat to take legal action against individuals taking part in the marking boycott which, despite the suspension of the industrial action on pensions, still stood. With an agreed settlement of the national dispute imminent, it became increasingly clear that the VC was looking for a way out of this unwise (and unsustainable) threat. At the University Court meeting on 31st January he struck a conciliatory note, stating that he was exploring with senior colleagues how the threat might be withdrawn formally. This finally came about in a letter from Professor Smith to Lancaster UCU in which, while still justifying the original threat, he retracted his original statement “in the interests of maintaining progressive local employee relations”. The same Court meeting saw a spirited and well-organised offensive by the Students’ Union delegation to oppose the University’s decision to raise fees for postgraduate and international students by a whopping 5%, and campus rents by 2.5%. Members of Court (including new Chancellor Alan Milburn) voted overwhelmingly in favour. Another LUSU motion, on the Bowland and Lonsdale principalships, was also heavily supported. Both these resolutions are to be considered by the Council meeting on 20th March but all the signs are that they will be rejected (see below). In February we reported on a decision made by Council to end the practice of offering continuing University membership to retiring staff on the grounds that it was a drain on University resources. Clearly, an organization with a mere £216m of annual income could not possibly survive the indiscriminate use of email by the 288 ‘non-employees’ in this category. It would inevitably lead to a Lehman Brothers-type collapse and we all know what happened as a result of that. So obvious was this requirement that it was passed by Council without discussion. Since then there has been no announcement about this policy being enacted. This is not a good sign. Experience of the way the University goes about this sort of thing suggests that it is already in operation. subtext would like to hear from readers who have experienced or may know of instances where retiring staff have been denied, or not been offered, the opportunity to continue their University membership. Then there was the Council’s Colleges Review Report. Its key ‘leadership and management’ recommendations, in the view of many old college hands, amount to the creation of undemanding sinecures, for senior academics who can be relied on to toe the party line in Senate. We have been told that the feedback to the report has been incorporated into an action plan which will be presented for approval to the next Council meeting. subtext awaits the outcome with interest. Finally, the results from the REF…..the bloody REF. But no. Staff have suffered enough from exposure to the new genre of statistical fiction that puts Lancaster into favourable positions in whatever tables can bear the weight of such dubious data-loading. So we’ll close this review by wishing all our readers a very relaxing break, with lots of bunnies, fluffy chicks, choccy eggs and all those other ways of celebrating the fertility of the goddess Eostre. ***************************************************** COMMUNITY RELATIONS: A RECENT HISTORY The compact nature of the City of Lancaster, as well as the general everlasting affinity felt by graduates and departed staff for the University, engenders a strong sense of community for University and City. Indeed, we publicly promote the local impact of our research and our contributions to the local economy, held community activities to celebrate our 50th anniversary, formed a close relationship with the Dukes Theatre, and the Vice-Chancellor has, on occasion, held open forums with the ‘locals’ at the Storey Institute. But as with most press release-friendly proclamations, it is a veneer not without its cracks, and peeking into them hard enough reveals some small but significant University behaviours which might be considered unconducive to maintaining a ‘strong community.’ At the start of the Vice-Chancellor’s tenure (back when he was referred to as “th’nu’vee-cee”, a moniker that has only recently faded), subtext reported on a conspicuous alteration to Statute 9, which decrees the make-up of the University Council. The Vice-Chancellor and the University Secretary championed a proposal which would allow the University to ‘vet’ the City Council’s nominee for the University Council: all of this in response to the City Council’s decision to nominate Cllr Paul Aitchison, deemed to be unsuitable as he was still a student at the time. One startling argument used to advocate the policy was to avoid the potential for the City Council to nominate ‘undesirable’ candidates (such as BNP / UKIPers) and to ensure a ‘TOP CLASS COUNCIL’; exemplifying a staggering lack of trust in the judgement of the City Council, and reeking of the University’s behaviour every time they are suspected of trying to rid themselves of ‘troublesome’ individuals. The proposal caused a serious rift with the City and was rightly rejected by Senate at its first reading. Fast-forward, then, to last year’s disastrous situation in Bowland and Lonsdale Colleges, when they were left (and remain) without a Principal acceptable to the two colleges. The Colleges themselves passed resolution after resolution in opposition to this, expressed huge reservations with their ‘interim arrangements’ (which the Provost of Colleges has still failed to address, insisting that the arrangement was a good one for which they should be grateful), and continuing members of the Colleges wrote in outrage to the Vice-Chancellor, to neither avail nor response. A mere few months later, the University Council voted (well, were informed that they agreed) to begin curbing and purging ‘continuing members’ (see subtext 128) of the University; a move so dastardly that it was objectively awful. In the same time period, motions from the Students’ Union objecting to the University’s increase in rents and fees and its neglect of two Colleges were near unanimously passed by the University Court, despite the University Secretary’s insult to the meeting’s intelligence with her attachment of one-sided ‘background information’ (rebuttals) to the agenda. Those same motions will go to the University Council for discussion tomorrow (20th March). While the paper on the fees and rents motion is ‘restricted’ in the agenda, subtext understands that the Provost of Colleges has repeated the University Secretary’s behaviour by appending a rebuttal to the motion calling for the abolition of College Principal search committees. But not so subtly, this time. Council have emphatically been asked to reject the motion. Just to make that abundantly clear: University Council is being explicitly instructed by senior management to dismiss the resolve of Lancaster’s largest community and stakeholder gathering. There are no words… But there IS hope that Council members may miss this command! Recently, certain members of our ‘Top Class Council’ have requested that ‘key items for discussion’ be distinguished in the agenda with an asterisk, presumably so that they needn’t bother reading the relevant papers that would help them think independently of direction from the top table. This is not one such item. ***************************************************** THINK OF THE CHILDREN The youngest member of the newly established subtext Youth Division has recently been touring campus eateries to see how child friendly they are. The verdict so far: if you have young kids, don't count on great facilities on campus. Hardly any of the staff surveyed knew where changing facilities were, which may not come as a surprise given there are only two changing tables in the main part of campus (one in the Chaplaincy Centre, one in Furness Porter's Lodge). Some venues have child seats, but these are not necessarily the kind suitable for younger infants. And child menus are virtually non-existent (except at Subway, who, however, have no child seats). subtext readers might ask why this is relevant for a university membership consisting mainly of 18-65s: Quite simple, there are not only children who live on campus (in the various family flats/houses for students), but also many who visit, for instance to attend the health centre, be experimented on at the Babylab, or hang out before/after attending the pre-school centre. The rising cost of childcare also means that many families now need to set up complicated schedules involving swapping care duties before or after work, which sometimes means lunch or dinner on campus is the only practical option. It's not all doom and gloom, however: many of the staff in dining facilities were more than willing to go out of their way to help, for instance by warming baby bottles or adjusting normal menus. And there are plans afoot to make things better, for instance with a new child menu at The Deli, the provision of additional child seats and more. Watch this space. ***************************************************** DEMOCRACY subtext readers will be aware of the concern on campus two months ago, following publication of the electoral register for January 2015, when just 22 campus residents were listed. Then, in February, the number of campus electors showed a very dramatic rise, to just under 4,000, and a sense of optimism was in the air - was this to be the "Lancaster Spring", with thousands of students finally taking a keen interest in the democratic process? Upon further investigation… er, no. The city council's elections office, having removed all last year's campus residents from the electoral roll at the end of December (hence the dramatic drop in numbers from December to January), had decided to reinstate them all at the beginning of February. Remove these entirely fictitious residents from the list and we were left with the same 22 we had in January. The current plan, subtext is told, is to finally (re)remove last year's residents at the end of March. subtext is assured that the reason for this rather odd behaviour is that, although last year's residents were being lined up for deletion, they were prematurely deleted at the end of December before anyone had checked whether, in fact, some of them should have been kept on the list, so in order to avoid disenfranchising anyone, they reinstated the lot at the end of January. Well, OK, but hang on… maybe our students aren't exactly a match on Paris 1968, but surely *some* of them have signed up? Indeed they have - something like 1000 of them, in fact. However, as subtext goes to press, they still haven't been allocated poll numbers, due to that most British of phenomena, the IT cockup. The council requires residents to sign up giving their exact block name and location (e.g. Finsthwaite, Grizedale Avenue, Lancaster University), whereas the online registration form asks for a full postal address, which on campus means your college (e.g. Grizedale College, Lancaster University). Result: computer says no! The university knows where everyone lives, of course, but that doesn't help anyone, because to get on the register, the students still need to register individually as being resident in a particular block, which the system won't let them do. The council has finally promised that everyone who has registered on campus will appear in the update scheduled for 1st April, while everyone who left last summer will finally be removed at the same time. Everyone who has submitted a registration request will be included. Fingers crossed. In the meantime, if you haven't yet signed up, you have until 20th April. What are you waiting for? ***************************************************** YET MORE DEMOCRACY The General Election still looms, and the University of Lancaster is teeming with parliamentary prospects. Dr Robin Long (Physics) is standing as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Lancaster and Fleetwood and Phil Chandler (ISS) is standing as the Green Party candidate for Morecambe. Meanwhile, Law student Matthew Atkins is standing for UKIP in Lancaster and Fleetwood, while Lancaster graduate and former SU Womens’ Officer Cat Smith is standing to be our next prospective Labour candidate. Elsewhere, former SU Presidents Michael Payne and Tim Roca are standing for the Labour Party in Newark and Macclesfield respectively, and recent graduate Sam Hale is standing for the Labour Party in Stone. Standing for re-election are graduates Simon Danczuk (Rochdale, Labour) and Alan Campbell (Tynemouth, Labour). Other Lancaster alumni seeking election this May to the usual address please. In the meantime, floating voters amongst the subtext readership might find the footage of a recent Question Time event in the Town Hall most helpful: http://tinyurl.com/lhknnrj ***************************************************** OTHER DEMOCRACY As regular as clockwork, the LUSU sabbatical elections rolled around earlier this term, and six new people have been elected to replace the outgoing incumbents. subtext would like to wish luck to the following sabb-elects: President: Will Hedley Vice-President (Union Development): Tom Stapleton Vice-President (Activities): Natalie Sutcliffe Vice-President (Welfare & Community): Anna Lee Vice-President (Education): Benjamin Harper Vice-President (Campaigns & Communications): Katie Capstick Under its present leadership, the Students' Union has achieved some serious public victories over a University Management which has seemed at a loss as to how to handle this new confrontational, smart and resolute style; certainly refreshing, and subtext hopes that the new team, who will enter office in July, will continue in that vein. ***************************************************** FLOWERY TWATS The University has proudly announced the opening of a new Centre for the study of Shakespearean Tragedy. Grumpy old men and ungrateful children welcome: http://tinyurl.com/pu6al6k Suggestions from the readership for other amusing re-arrangements of the lettering with added description also welcome. Here’s some we did earlier: University embraces modern languages: http://tinyurl.com/kc3w757 University over-compensates for Nurse Unit closure: http://tinyurl.com/m2fsgkf ***************************************************** MORE PUNNERY Hand painted sign outside the sandwich shop at the top of Moor Lane, near the Gregson Centre reads:’LACK TOAST INTOLERANT. I’ll sort it out. 2 slices for 70p.’ ***************************************************** INTO THE ARCHIVES During the consultation period of the recent subtext effectiveness review (see subtext 122), subscribers old and new have complained about the online archive of subtext back issues. Sadly, a blown fuse in the drone responsible for the collation of back issues rendered it inoperational, and since March 2013 it has sat unloved and gathering dust in the corner of the subtext warehouse, buried beneath reams of faxes and discarded materials both unpublished and unpublishable. Many potential subscribers have taken one look at our website and not bothered subscribing, assuming subtext had ceased publication. Many new subscribers find themselves baffled by the references to past issues, and jargon such as "drones" and "subtext warehouse." subtext listens to its readership; the drone responsible has received a lick of paint and a whomping great blow to the head with a hammer, and we proudly invite new readers to peruse all 130 editions (plus bonus issues!) via the new super-fast, up-to-the-minute archive at www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext/archive.htm ***************************************************** WARNER WARNING Subscribers will recall us sharing an article by Marina Warner entitled ‘Why I Quit’: www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n17/marina-warner/diary (subtext 127). This article details Professor Warner’s treatment by the University of Essex, and then opens up into a discussion of the state of Higher Education today. In writing both angry and trenchant, her analysis is depressing and deeply saddened. Now in the most recent issue of the LRB, Professor Warner opens the debate wider: www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n06/marina-warner/learning-my-lesson She looks at the neo-liberal – neo-con management structure and direction of HE in the UK today and then takes it apart. She also draws attention to a significant difference between our competitors. For largely ideological reasons (with a bit of economics thrown in) those running our HE institutions have largely decided to move towards the US model. Unfortunately for us, the US model has been running for a lot longer there than here, and so they are a lot better at it, and - most crucially – hugely better-endowed (a part of the US model that those in the UK who proselytise on its behalf manage to conveniently forget). Meanwhile, many European HE institutions have learned from us and taken the best parts of the HE tradition in the UK, because hey, that’s the bit we weren’t using any more so we didn’t notice, and are now offering an education much closer to what we were offering 20 years ago, before we saw the light. If we still used irony, that’d be one place we’d notice it. Do read both articles, and let’s start the ‘What is a University?’ debate again. The need has never been so urgent. ***************************************************** SAEPE PATER DIXIT: ‘STUDIUM QUID INUTILE TEMPTAS?’ Contributed by Dr. Alan Wood, Senior Lecturer in Russian History (retired). Sorry about reverting to Latin (learning of which long since abolished at Lancaster), but I was reminded of this quotation from the Roman poet, Ovid (‘My father often said: “What is this useless study you are attempting?”’) when reading your recent piece (subtext 130) about the closure of various academic departments at Lancaster in the 1980s (Chemistry, Russian and Soviet Studies, Central & S.E. European Studies, Arabic & Islamic Studies, Classics etc.) This process of cultural culling was inaugurated by the then Vice-Chancellor, Philip Reynolds, who was a Professor of International Relations (!) at a time when the Soviet Union was on the tipping point of collapse, the Berlin wall was on the eve of destruction, post-Tito Yugoslavia was about to implode, the whole of the Middle East was on the verge of becoming the world’s most volatile and explosive region, and when the seeds of the current Ukrainian military/political/ethnic crisis were already set. The closure of these departments and the dispersal of their staff left Lancaster University bereft of the scholarly expertise of those who were well qualified to add to a properly informed interpretation of these not unimportant events. A senior public figure recently complained about the lack of linguistically competent personnel at the Foreign Office and overseas embassies, especially in Eastern Europe (which includes the constituent republics of the old USSR) and the Arab world. Lancaster, through its closure of these departments, in a small, but significant way contributed to the appalling lack of understanding in the public sphere about some of the planet’s most dreadful trouble spots. Generally (though not exclusively), the professional pundits who regularly commentate on international conflicts have little comprehension of the societies, history, language and culture of their assignments. This has led to a situation in which, in the words of Professor Richard Sakwa (University of Kent, writing recently about the ongoing Ukrainian Civil War), we are landed ‘with pompous dummies parroting glib phrases and the media in full war cry.’ Vladimir Putin is routinely lampooned and daily demonized in the western media with little understanding of the historical and geopolitical context of his and his government’s policies, which are too often crassly condemned from an exclusively NATO-centric point of view. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. The European Union and NATO, on the other hand, continued to expand right up to Russia’s own borders that had so often been violated and invaded since medieval times to Nazi Germany’s operation Barbarossa in 1941, which resulted in the slaughter of around 27 million Soviet citizens, both military and civilian. If Putin is paranoid about western encroachments, there are valid historical and strategic reasons for him, and the citizens of the Russian Federation, for reacting in the way that is so often traduced in the west, including - it has to be said – the popularly endorsed restoration of the overwhelmingly ethnic Russian Crimean Republic to Russian governance. No doubt the university establishment had its own parochial reasons at the time for inaugurating the shut-down of the departments targeted, but it displayed a deplorable measure of ignorance of the global significance of those territories of which it virtually extirpated the study (studium quid inutile!). The political and academic myopia of the VC mainly responsible was nicely illustrated by an old colleague of mine who told me he had a dream in which, following the proposal to close Russian and Soviet Studies, Central & South East European Studies, Arabic and Islamic Studies, he counted up the number of column inches (which was very considerable) devoted to reporting on those contentious areas of the world in the major broadsheets - The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, The Observer etc. At the next Senate meeting, the V-C introduced a late agendum that the university recommend the closing down of The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph…. ***************************************************** SHART ATTACK FROM: Mike M. Shart, Vice-Chancellor, Lune Valley Enterprise University (LuVE-U). TO: University Senators (7 recipients) SUBJECT: Proposal: Russian Partnership. Dear Senators, As we all agree, LuVE-U is a global university. There is our position in the top 1% of global universities, in the top 50 for most international universities globally; our Management School which is ranked within the top 100 on the planet, our standing as one of only five universities in the solar system awarded with an International Accommodation Quality Mark; offering the number one Corporate Strategy MBA in the galaxy, number 1 in the world for Universities with 9 Colleges named after Lancashire districts. Much of this success is attributable to our octopoidal matrix of international partner institutions. Our sprawling metropolis of bases has bestowed the gift of Western values to Ghana, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Brazil, and not China. We have never been in negotiations with China. Therefore, I am pleased to announce that we have quietly been in negotiations with investment partners in Russia, and the prospect of a partnership institution in that country is now a serious one. Although talks are still ongoing, I can reveal the following details of the Putin-on-the-Lune Global Academy: Our investment partners have identified an incredibly good deal on a highly affordable site for construction in Pripyat, and feel that our presence will be a positive thing for boosting Pripyat’s community and economy, which they inform us have been lagging as of late. I raised questions over Pripyat’s geographical location, which is in fact in Ukraine. However, our partners have assured us that this will not be a problem pending the resolution of some diplomacy matter that I can’t quite remember the nature of. KPMG have undertaken a due-diligence assessment and report no concerns about the site. It has been insisted that our preliminary degree package includes nuclear physics. While LuVE-U extols the virtues of academic freedom that a Western education provides, we must be pragmatic. As such, the idea of a compulsory module entitled ‘The Glorious History of the Communist Party’ has been explored, and we are confident that we can provide most of this by renaming our BA in Sociology. I am aware that the progress and the swiftness with which we have identified a site and course content seems too good to be true, but our partners have been very hospitable and are keen to enter into business with us. Assuming we are all in agreement, and I do indeed assume that we are, I seek your approval to proceed. Yours, Mike. ***************************************************** TRANSFIGURED NIGHT The poetry of Richard Dehmel (1863-1920) achieved some notoriety when, in the 1890s, it was denounced, and indeed condemned by a German court, as obscene and blasphemous: his 1896 volume of poems Weib und Welt (Woman and World) was ordered to be burned. One of the poems in the book, Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), is the story of a conversation between a man and a woman as they walk through moonlit woods on a cold clear winter’s night. She tells her companion that, before meeting him and falling in love with him, she felt her life lacked purpose, and that this would be overcome if she had a child. She therefore became pregnant by another man. Her friend assures her that, because their love is so strong, the yet-unborn child will become his. To modern ears, this tale is overly romantic, and Dehmel’s poem might not have achieved fame had it not attracted the attention of the composer Arnold Schoenberg, who was inspired by it to depict the story of Verklärte Nacht musically in a tone-poem. He broke new ground by using a chamber ensemble of just six players, rather than the full orchestra employed by Liszt and Richard Strauss, Schoenberg’s chief predecessors as composers of tone-poems. More significantly, this piece is highly chromatic - in fact, it shifts from key to key more rapidly than Wagner did in his opera Tristan - and it is a clear early step on Schoenberg’s road towards atonalism. (The web site of Harper’s Magazine, www.harpers.org/blog/2008/01/dehmels-transfigured-night/ , has an informative short article on the piece, as well as reproducing Gustav Klimt’s appropriately-erotic painting Der Kuss; of course, your favourite search engine will deliver many other analyses of the piece.) Schoenberg later arranged it for a larger group, and at last week’s concert this larger version was performed by the RNCM String Orchestra, numbering 75 players and just about filling the Great Hall stage. Although falling into a series of sections, it is a continuous work of some 27 minutes requiring considerable flexibility of tempo and dynamics, and it might be thought unlikely to succeed with 75 players on the stage, even with a conductor, as was done in last week’s concert. But the conductor, Henk Guittart, Tutor for Strings at the RNCM, knows the work intimately - he conducted it without a score - and he has clearly achieved a remarkable degree of rapport with his students. This was a very satisfying performance of this brilliant work. ***************************************************** LETTERS Dear subtext The University Strategic Plan for 2020 is heavy on aspirations and feather light on translating these into concrete initiatives. One curiosity of the plan is that a key performance target is to appoint 60% plus of new staff from top 100 Universities. The implication seems to be that top 100 Universities employ top 100 people and clearly, Lancaster hasn’t got enough of these. This inspired thought is made even plainer in the “Our People Strategy 2020” document. Here, we find that not only does importing people from the top 100 Universities enhance Lancaster’s performance, but so is exporting staff to the global elite (“Number of staff leaving Lancaster University for roles of equal standing or a promotion within top 100 global Universities”). In short, it is not the trade balance of staff movements between Lancaster and top 100 Universities that matters. Lancaster will perform better simply by importing or exporting people to top 100 institutions – and the more the merrier. As I approach my departure date to a top 100 University, after more than 25 years of service at Lancaster, I am delighted to find out that I leave a parting gift behind. And, if Lancaster manages to replace me with a colleague from a top 100 institution, “everybody is a winner”. It is hard to put a value on such subtle and sophisticated strategic thinking. Why haven’t other sub-100 Universities cottoned on to this possibility? Luis Araujo Professor Department of Marketing Lancaster University Management School ******** Dear subtext I recently attended the Chancellor's Installation Ceremony. I applied for a staff ticket hoping to experience my first Lancaster University ceremony having not been available for any Graduation events so far in my time here and was happy to receive an invitation. The ceremony was wonderful in many ways, the performances and speeches gauged perfectly my perspective on what it is to be part of Lancaster University and social inclusion was the name of the day. What a shame then that the seating arrangements lacked this principle of equality. I wasn’t expecting the front row, but nor was I expecting to be segregated from colleagues who had received personal invitations – a minor thing, but it left me doubting the sincerity of the occasion and wondering whether ceremonies are for everyone or just a hierarchical elite. I can see why Alan Milburn might have refused to attend his graduation ceremony in 1979. Best wishes, NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED. ******** Dear subtext Maybe a bit too obvious, but how about naming [the old Engineering Building] the Sir Chris Bonington Building? We have Alexandra Square so why not use our second chancellor’s name, unless it has already been used of course. Many thanks, Lynne Wilson [Eds: We have the ‘Bonington Steps’ near the Maths and Stats building in Fylde College, but perhaps our departed Chancellor deserves an upgrade in recognition!] ******** Dear subtext Regarding how to distinguish between the old and new buildings housing people disposed to engineer things. I propose we adopt the scheme suggested by the silver decoration on the outside of the new building. Original to be called 'The Engineering Building', new to be called 'the engineering building', job done. Regards, Father Jack ******** How about the French Building, after recently deceased pioneering Professor of Engineering? Or would that be a bit confusing? :-) Steve Elliott, SCC [Eds: Only slightly!] ******** Dear subtext I do like the name the old Engineering Building. Although I think for a week all buildings should be called the “Thanks God we’re not the Charles Carter building.” Rob ***************************************************** 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. |