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subtext ***************************************************** 'Truth: lies open to all' ***************************************************** Issue 140 3 December 2015 Celebrating 10 glorious years ***************************************************** 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, tenth birthday, hurrah for the Daily Mail, Russell Group, prevent, statutes, overheard at Lancaster, SCAN, old SCAN, sabbaticals, costa, library, ask commercial services, LUSU, BDS, slogans, old slogans, tobacco, spot the swoosh, TEF, concert review, something nice, letters. ***************************************************** EDITORIAL The front page of SCAN announced itself "Censored" last week, preferring to provide nothing at all rather than produce a rush job alternative. Most people are very against censorship in principle; most people are also against a total free-for-all in practice. No-one likes to be told what they can and can't say, but (social media trolls aside) most also acknowledge that there are things that are better unsaid. subtext, of course, would never submit to censorship. Actually, we've never had to – when we went to the powers that be and told them "just to let you know, we're thinking of setting up a newsletter to take a critical look at the University", instead of telling us to push off and buy our own server and then hang it around our collective necks and jump in a deep lake, they replied "Great idea! We'll help set you up on the University server and we'll give you any help you need." Which meant we had to tear up our first editorial. We have, we think, on frequent occasions taken a fair chunk out of the hand that has fed us, but we recognise that the University has bought in to the idea that a publication like subtext, however annoying, is on balance a useful and necessary safety valve. There is, in fairness, an element of double-bluff about all this – subtext can be frequently annoying, a gad-fly, but only very occasionally have we published something that has really deeply embarrassed our betters, and meanwhile the University gets to maintain its liberal reputation. Of course, there have been things we'd like to have published but couldn't, for a number of reasons, though we have always tried to use the good stuff. (The story about the member of Senate, the chicken and the gallon of yoghurt will, unfortunately, have to remain untold. At least until he cancels the standing order.) The original Roman meaning of 'censor' was some distance from the way we commonly use it - a Censor was in charge of public order and good management of the state. One of the most extreme punishments that a Roman Censor could impose on delinquents was 'ejectio e senatu', or 'ejection from the Senate'. They thought differently in those days… **************************************************** JOIN US IN FURNESS The Furness Real Ale Festival is so good that we're plugging it twice. It is also so good that from 6PM this evening, members of the collective past and present will be gathering to celebrate our tenth glorious year with some of the fine ale on offer. We're told that the Plum Porter, Portland IPA and Dark Star Revelation are particularly good. We would be delighted if subscribers made an evening of it, and we will of course be happy to discuss the 10 'anniversary editorships' with interested readers. There will also be an opportunity tomorrow (Friday) to 'meet the brewer' of Kirkby Lonsdale Brewery at 7PM, at the bar. **************************************************** FOURTH FLOOR GOOD VALUE SHOCK Our senior staff are good value for money! How do we know? Because the Daily Mail online says so. An article entitled "Fat cat university heads on £600,000" claims, among other things, that it's "boom time for vice-chancellors", with even the head of "Britain's worst performing university" (London Met) pulling in £618K last year. And it's not just vice-chancellors. The highest paid academic (name withheld) is at the London Business School and was on over £647K last year. So what has prompted the Mail to take up the scandal of the fat-cat VCs, when normally we would expect applause for enterprise from that quarter? It's because the Mail has the quaint belief that Higher Education is still part of the public sector. On the same web page is laid bare the naked greed of fat cats in the NHS, local government and the police. Using the information gleaned from "thousands" of FOI requests the Mail has put together a handy little online tool to help curious busybodies like subtext find out more about the pay of senior staff in their own institutions. Just pop the name of your university into the box and all is revealed. However, in keeping with subtext's high standards of academic rigour we felt it important to present Lancaster's figures in relation to those of our current "comparator" institutions. After all, context is all. So compared with Warwick's 158 staff on over £100k, Exeter's 89, York's 88, Bath's 58 and Surrey's 48, Lancaster has a mere 17 individuals clearing a hundred thou. And we have only 5 colleagues who earn more than £150k (Warwick has 77). These figures, of course, don't include VC salaries, but even here Bath's £395k, Surrey's £392K, and Exeter's £345k make the Lancaster VC's pay (or emolument, as it's called in the Annual Accounts) of £245k look stingy in comparison. We can imagine the ribald greetings at UUK meetings: "Ah! Brother Lancaster! Show us the size of your emolument!" So as we report below, not only is Lancaster miles better academically than the Russell Group (yay!) but, pound for pound, our senior staff provide better value for money. So, go us, and all credit to the Mail for bringing this to our attention. It is sad to reflect, however, that if the proposal in the HE Green Paper to exempt universities from the Freedom of Information Act goes through, then this public duty will be impossible to perform in the future. So; to paraphrase a famous headline from 1934: "Hurrah for the Daily Mail." **************************************************** RUSSELL GROUP : NOT ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE... ....cracked up by its members, that is. Here's another study (there have been others in the past few years) that shows most universities in the Russell Group are no better than most of those in the former 94 group. Research by Vikki Boliver, formerly at Oxford but now of Durham University, places 22 of the 24 members of the Russell Group at a similar level to 17 other universities, including Lancaster, and indeed all but one of the former 94 group. She confirms what many of us have long suspected, that it is inaccurate to describe the Russell Group as the élite of UK Higher Education. (In fact, they describe themselves as '24 leading UK universities', but this is an equally arrogant and meaningless self-description.) In her article for the Oxford Review of Education, Boliver shows how UK universities can be divided into four clusters, based on research activity, teaching quality, economic resources, academic selectivity and socio-economic exclusivity. Teaching quality is found to be fairly similar across all universities, at any rate as judged by NSS results and the value-added score used by The Guardian in its university rankings. On her chosen measures, Boliver finds that Oxford and Cambridge are 'head and shoulders' above all other universities. After the publication of the article about this research in The Higher of 18 November 2015, a series of bloggers provided further information, including a reference to a 2010 article by Z. Corbyn in the Higher, which stated that when Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL and LSE are excluded from the Russell Group, the former 1994 group outperforms it. So let's not even think about joining the Russell Group. We know we're at least as good as they are, and indeed better than most of them. **************************************************** WARNING: MAY CONTAIN IDEOLOGY. READING THIS MAY TURN YOU INTO AN EXTREMIST "Prevent" is one of those words that carries what linguists call negative semantic prosody - in other words, it tends to occur alongside words with negative connotations, such as "cancer", "damage", "infection" or "accidents". So it seems is the case with the government's PREVENT strategy, which is ostensibly designed to tackle what the media often calls "home-grown terrorism". It requires public institutions like schools and universities to report students or staff who seem to be drawn towards "ideological extremism" and who may have been radicalised. A recent leaflet printed in the Independent (http://tinyurl.com/pnnvels) has caused some consternation among media scholars, since it requires young people to be shopped in to the police if they appear "angry about government policies, especially foreign policies" or show "a mistrust of mainstream media reports". The subtext collective wonders whether it should report itself and large parts of the material used on courses in PPR, Sociology, Linguistics and other FASS subjects. However, a question to the VC at a recent Senate meeting about how staff might implement the PREVENT strategy – asked, we cannot help but feel, with the intent of highlighting how problematic the policy is and the dangers it poses to freedom of expression – was met with a rather non-committal answer from top table, in effect suggesting that we (fortunately) don't have a problem with extremism at Lancaster, so don't worry about it. Staff may be left wondering what would be more worrying: knowing what the policy is if we encounter something the government might consider to be "extremist ideology" at Lancaster, and if necessary being able to add our voices to the growing number of academics who are dissatisfied with their institutions' policies, or not knowing at all what would happen in this situation. **************************************************** LIMITATION OF STATUTES: PT. 3 The recent debate in Senate on the changes to Statutes and Ordinances highlighted an interesting part of the University's constitution relating to the 'removal from office' of individuals who are not employed by the university but still have a defined role. These could be, for example, lay members of Court and Council. As such individuals are not employees, they are not subject to the University's disciplinary procedures. They can only be removed for 'just cause', defined in Statute as: a) conviction for an offence which may be deemed by the Court or the Council, as the case may be, to be such as to render the person convicted unfit for the execution of the duties of the office; or (b) conduct of an immoral, scandalous or disgraceful nature incompatible with the duties of the office; or (c) conduct constituting failure or persistent refusal or neglect or inability to perform the duties or comply with the conditions of office whether such failure results from physical or mental incapacity or otherwise. One senator questioned the appropriateness of having a morality clause in a modern university's constitution, pointing out that opinion on what constitutes immorality varies a lot over time. Then there was the small matter of who would actually do the deciding about what conduct was immoral, scandalous or disgraceful. The arch cynic Harold Macmillan is supposed to have said that if you're looking for morality, then go to the bishops. On the University Court, at least, there is no shortage of expertise from that quarter, but the awkward squad might argue that they have a vested interest in a certain model of morality to which not all moral people would subscribe. There is also a question of natural justice: should a lay person be held to a higher standard of moral accountability than an employee, such as, for example, the Vice-Chancellor? The 'just cause' clause is, in fact, a leftover from the days when an academic could only be sacked for the offence of 'moral turpitude', and was only changed when there was a wholesale revision of statutes in all the pre-1992 universities in 2004. According to a Guardian article that year mourning the ending of this offence, lecturers could be dismissed for 'moral turpitude', senior lecturers for 'gross moral turpitude', and professors for 'persistent gross moral turpitude'. (Presumably, Distinguished Professors could turp away to their hearts' content without fear of retribution.) It's nice to think that it is no longer true in statute (though it may still be so in practice) that a senior member of the university has to sin a lot harder than a junior one in order to get thrown out. Do we know if 'good cause' has ever been invoked? There was the case a few years ago (reported in subtext) of a lay Council member being convicted of a fraud offence but the individual resigned before any action was taken. Then there was the curious case of Lord Taylor of Blackburn, secretly filmed offering political influence for money in a newspaper sting operation in 2009 and subsequently suspended from the House of Lords, the first time this had happened since 1642. However, this scandal did not prevent the University from conferring on him the honour of lifetime membership of Court, a distinction he holds to this day. And there is Lord Liddle, who was appointed Pro-Chancellor despite his association with disgraced lobbyist Derek Draper and the 1998 cash-for-access "lobbygate" scandal. One does wonder what would constitute "just cause" if it does not apply to those two, though in their defence it should be said that neither of them were actually tried and convicted – we would like to think that at the very least a convicted felon would not be an appropriate person to serve on a University Council. Doubtless the University would regard the inclusion of a list of "offences and behaviour that would likely render a person unfit to serve" in its statutes as being an undesirable hostage to fortune, but would this be such a bad thing? It would at least give the as yet unspecified judge of the offence some criteria to work with. And would it consider removing the word "immoral" from the list of proscribed activities, on the grounds that morality is temporally and culturally bound as well as being reliant on context? Isn't "scandalous or disgraceful" enough for us? ***************************************************** MODERN LIFE Overheard in the Sports Centre: Student 1: 'There was a guy studying in the post-grad room in the Library this morning, and he had earphones in, and someone rang him, and he just started to answer the call! It's like because we couldn't hear what the caller was saying, the guy thought it would be ok! What an idiot!' Student 2: 'I really hate it when people are selfish like that. What did you do?' Student 1: 'Asked him to leave, of course. He was well out of order – if he wants to talk to his friends, there's a whole library to do that in.' *************************************************** SCAN OF WORMS Our campus-dwelling subscribers can't have failed to notice that SCAN's latest front page bore a large red stamp: "CENSORED." In its coverage of the BDS referendum, SCAN intended to run with a cartoon depicting the Mad Hatter (representing LUSU) bearing signs reading "Yes" and "No", towering over the naive Alice (of Wonderland fame, representing the student body), who tentatively asks: "Can't I just abstain?" Before reading any further, you may wish to make up your own minds, and with the permission of the artist, the offending cartoon can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/zw6gxdg Such rebelliousness was enough to spur LUSU, which funds SCAN, into censorious action. According to LUSU, the cartoon implied that abstention was not an option, when in fact it was. The front page was amended to state that there would be the option to abstain, and sent to print. Moments later, one Full Time Officer took to Twitter complaining that there wasn't an option to abstain, and that the revised front page was also, paradoxically, inaccurate. Even though the Union had approved the revised headline. These people are very, very difficult to please. LUSU has also attested that the cartoon was in violation of its referendum rules, which instructs all Union publications to grant unbiased coverage of all sides to a debate. It is worth noting that not only were the 'Yes' and 'No' sides each granted large spreads in the comment section, but equal space was given to the 'Abstain' camp. Perhaps the most severe criticism from LUSU, however, was that the cartoon could be construed as anti-Semitic (something that the cartoonist vehemently rejected). The depiction of a small, naive child being intimidated by a tall, powerful figure is apparently redolent of anti-Semitic propaganda, although others may argue that it is a visual metaphor used in many cartoons depicting oppression through the ages. When the post of SCAN Editor was made into an unpaid voluntary role, it was promised that this would grant SCAN greater editorial independence from LUSU. Ha! This has hardly stood the test of time. It is the case that the Vice-President (Campaigns & Communications) has 'final say' over SCAN's content, more so than the Editor, but thus far it has been seldom (if ever) exercised in matters of opinion. More worryingly, this academic year it is seemingly becoming the norm for Union staff (not officers) to involve themselves in approving the final version of SCAN, and while SCAN has welcomed the support that staff members with journalistic experience have to offer, the notion of LUSU's equivalent of the civil service exhorting influence over editorial matters is a matter for concern. *************************************************** OLD SCAN-DALS There is, of course, a great precedent of the Students' Union imposing its editorial preferences over SCAN - the resurrection of such interventions is a source of both nostalgic fuzziness and abject horror to subtext. It was the tradition throughout the 1970s for the editor's final editorial to rally against pretty political interference from his / her Union colleagues. The most extreme intervention we are aware of came in 1996. So insulting was this particular issue to the Union President, that the Womens' Officer offered to distribute the papers on behalf of the then Editor, Louis Barfe, only to drive off with the whole lot and dump then in the canal, making a rare collectible of that edition of SCAN. *************************************************** SABBATICAL BREAK In August 2015 Lancaster University's Human Resources Division issued a document titled "Sabbatical Leave — 10 Questions and Answers" [hereafter, "Q & A"]. The document purports to explain the University's sabbatical leave rules, but it actually obscures where it purports to clarify. It is silent about provisions of staff contracts that it wishes to ignore, it misrepresents the university's rules at certain points, and at others it directly contradicts them. The University's sabbatical rules are simple enough, and are spelled out in a few clear paragraphs of the Terms and Conditions received by Lecturers, Senior Lecturers, Readers and Professors on appointment. The sabbatical rules are also described in the University's HR/782 document, "Sabbatical Leave and Leave of Absence Scheme"(December 2011), which can be found on the Human Resources Web site http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/hr/total-reward/files/sabschem.html [hereafter, "HR/782"]. This document has been through a process of consultation with the campus branch of UCU. (It is issued by the same HR Dept that produced "Q + A". Hold that thought.) The Terms and Conditions and the university's HR/782 document repeatedly refer to an "entitlement" to sabbatical. The HR Q & A document, however, implies that there is no longer a contractual right to sabbatical leave. This is incorrect. Staff members still enjoy a contractual entitlement to sabbatical leave because it is spelled out in the Terms and Conditions which form part of their contracts. It is a conditional right, but importantly there are conditions on both sides. The Terms and Conditions state as follows: "If you are employed as a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader or Professor, you will be entitled, subject to approval, after seven terms, and after every successive seven terms, of qualifying service in a post carrying eligibility to sabbatical leave to take a period of leave. The amount of such entitlement is one term for every seven terms of qualifying service . . . ." Simple enough, one might think. The HR/782 document fills in certain details. It states that sabbatical leave is "subject to Faculty approval mechanisms" and that "a Head of Department (aka The University) may refuse an application on the grounds of (a) timing, (b) purpose, and (c) taking into account the outcomes of the last period of sabbatical leave". Fair enough, most would say. The crucial phrase that governs all of this is the statement in HR/782 that, in response to an application for sabbatical leave, "consent may not be withheld unreasonably" – in other words, there is a presumption that sabbatical leave will be granted if it is requested unless there is a reason not to. The Q & A document does not say that anywhere. It is also confusing insofar as it muddies the waters around how far in advance a staff member may book a sabbatical. Further, it ignores the necessity for legal documents to be grammatically correct and (as far as possible) unambiguous - "The completion of 7 full terms in post allows you to apply for 1 term of sabbatical leave…" (so far so good)"… and thereafter for each successive 7 terms". Damn, so near and yet so far. The phrase "thereafter for each successive 7 terms" is misleading and close to meaningless. The contractual Terms and Conditions, by contrast, are precisely correct in grammar and idiom: they state that staff members accrue entitlement to one term of sabbatical leave "after seven terms, and after every successive seven terms". It is unfortunate that HR could not manage the same level of linguistic precision. HR's Q & A document tries to say that one does not have an entitlement to sabbatical leave but that one has a right only to ask for sabbatical leave. It works so hard to make this point that it ties itself up in linguistic knots. The actual position can be summed up very simply: There is a contractual entitlement to sabbatical leave subject to Faculty approval mechanisms and conditional on appropriate timing, purpose, and successful performance in prior periods of leave; the granting of leave may not be unreasonably refused. That is not too hard to understand, is it? And it is squarely based on the Terms and Conditions of affected staff and on the University's own HR/782 policy document. Job done. The HR/782 document says that any change to the University sabbatical policy must follow consultation with the relevant union's branch. The Q & A document has bypassed the consultation process and is a unilateral attempt to revise existing policy. The campus UCU branch has asked for the document to be withdrawn. We await developments. ***************************************************** COSTA Subscribers may by now have availed themselves of the new Costa coffee bar on campus. The coffee isn't bad. They may have found, as we have on a number of occasions, that, despite the appearance of frenzied activity behind the counter, one has plenty of time standing and waiting in the queue to look around and see what's going on. What mostly seems to be going on is people with laptops working. It seems that for most Costa customers, Costa is just the Learning Zone with coffee. We wonder how long it will be until Costa notice that their tables are all full but no-one is buying anything, and if they will find it necessary to do something about it. Of course, some of us remember that the Learning Zone was originally intended to be just that – the original design was an L-shape, and the bit on the spine would have been a coffee bar. And, let's not forget the argument some years ago about the Non-Alcoholic Social Space. That idea got kicked into the long grass by the University; ironically, it may now be happening by accident. Thanks, Costa. ***************************************************** LIBRARY A while ago subtext got quite exercised about the fact that when the Library buys a new book, it will only buy a hard copy if specifically requested to do so. We recall that the justification for this policy at the time was essentially two-fold. The first justification was that a digital copy takes up a lot less room than a hard copy, thereby freeing up library space for a) more computers and b) more social space in which students can Do Learning. (It's our impression that a) the vast majority of students already have their own laptops, and b) see article on Costa above, but never mind that for now.) The second justification was that a digital copy is infinitely viewable – a hard copy can only be read by one person at a time, whereas a digital copy can in theory be viewed by everyone on a course simultaneously. Makes sense, we thought, but of course, as with almost everything, it turns out to be a bit more complicated than that. Digital books (quite rightly) require the purchase of a licence in order for the library to let people view them. This licence is different from something like a PPL licence, which gives blanket permission to do something. Each book is licenced separately. The standard licence is for three viewers only at any one time. That adds up to a whole lot of licences needed to provide enough digital copies to satisfy a big undergraduate course. subtext don't have comparative costings for a book and a licence, but we look forward to someone letting us know the figures. That aside, the logistics surely don't really add up. A hard copy book can only be read by one person at a time, but once you've paid for it, it's yours, and it can be leant out repeatedly for years without further purchase. Licences have to be renewed and paid for repeatedly. Presumably at some point on the graph the line of the short-term saving generated by using digitally licenced books will intersect with the line of the longevity of hard copies, and after that the hard copy will always be better value? Are we missing something? Perhaps a statistician with a few spare minutes would like to do the mathematics. **************************************************** CAUTION: DOES CONTAIN ALLERGEN INFORMATION In the last subtext, we asked why the allergen information had been removed from the menus in Fylde Bar. Quick as a flash, our mole, close to those at the top of Commercial Services, informed us that the information is present on the menus behind the bar and all staff should be able to inform their customers. This is the second time subtext has been able to swiftly answer queries about our commercial services - it seems there is nothing that our informant doesn't know. Let us put them to the test - send in your questions to the usual address! *************************************************** DIS-UNION The debate inside the Union and in the pages of SCAN over BDS, an issue on which subtext resolutely has no official stance, has had the interesting side effect of re-igniting the debate over what the Students' Union is actually for. If subscribers care to thumb their way through the most recent SCAN they will find the debate on BDS set out in two opposing articles. What is interesting is that the argument is less about whether or not the Union should Boycott, Divest and Sanction the University's connections with Israel, and much more about whether or not the Union as an institution should be concerned about the debate at all. Central to the 'anti' case is the statement (repeated in several different forms) that "the Union should be concerned solely with student welfare". The opposing case obviously takes the contrary view. Hence it seems plain that the issue of what the Union is actually for should precede any debate about what it should and should not be doing. This uncertainty over the purpose of LUSU was graphically illustrated by the publicity for the candidates in the week 8 elections, which fell broadly into the '24/7 Party' Party or the 'World Peace In Our Lifetime' Party. It might help to shed some light here if we take a look at what the Lancaster University Students' Union own website says that its purpose is. (See http://lusu.co.uk/about/strategic-direction/.) There is a perhaps surprising amount of management guff-speak here about 'empowerment', 'baselines'. 'matrices', 'engagement', 'authenticity', 'incremental steps' and 'cross organisational indicator implementation', along with pie-charts, graphs and other clever stuff. All essential tools for calculating student welfare, one supposes. Buried deep amongst all this may be found reference to both 'Green Sustainability' and 'Community Engagement'. The former may of course refer solely to recycling plastic water bottles and the latter solely to polishing the University's image in Lancaster, but nevertheless some might argue that there is at least a small implication here that the Student Union's brief does not stop with a screech of tyres at the University gates. Another place one might look for illumination about the purpose of LUSU would be the Lancaster University Students' Charter. (It's on the window of the Learning Zone if you want to check.) The Charter suggests the following things that a student can expect from their Union. The Students' Union is, we are told, expected to: "Support student engagement in enhancement and quality assurance procedures." We knew that some people thought that perhaps the Union shouldn't be paying to arm students with assault rifles in order to go on anti-government marches sponsored by Class War, but it hadn't occurred to us that what they thought the Union should really be doing was getting students to engage with Quality Assurance procedures. And the Union will: "Encourage students to study diligently, ethically and responsibly". Can of worms alert here, no? Is the word 'ethically' to be restricted, say, to ethical research methods, as might well be argued, something to be thought of solely within a strictly academic context? Or, does it mean a concern with wider ethical behaviour in academia or the wider world? And if, to take an extreme example, a student feels that the government is launching an irresponsible war, or the University authorities are making irresponsible changes to statutes, what should that 'responsible' student do? Is there, indeed, a difference implied here between being a responsible student and being a responsible human being? And, finally, LUSU should "Provide a range of sports clubs and societies". At last, something uncontentious that most people can agree on! The Union provides societies. Including, presumably, supporting both students who want to form a 'Stop BDS' society and those wanting to join a 'BDS Max' Society. And if not, one wonders where the dividing line is, given that there are long-established Conservative and Labour Societies? Tricky, isn't it? ***************************************************** STOP PRESS - UNION UPDATE Subscribers may be aware that the BDS referendum delivered the following result. Yes: 752 No: 545 Abstain: 787 Not a bad turn-out, but it seems that neither side managed to make their case stick. We draw no conclusions from the large number of abstainers – who did not, we are glad to report, abstain from voting. ***************************************************** SLOGANS And while we're on the subject, is it too much to hope that slogans should be grammatically consistent? 'Boycott. Divestment. Sanctions.' doesn't really work, does it? If they are verbs – as most good slogans tend to be - then it should read 'Boycott. Divest. Sanction.', which is actually pretty snappy. Anything else, rather than sounding like a call to arms, suggests something like 'We want to be in an ongoing state of boycotting, divestment and sanctioning', which lacks the punch that one might desire. Has anyone actually used the word 'divestment' in a conversation? ***************************************************** MORE SLOGANS The above reminds us of our favourite slogan, heard being loudly chanted outside a Lib Dem party conference. 'What do we want?' - 'Gradual and orderly change.' 'When do we want it?' - 'After appropriate consultation and time for reflection.' ***************************************************** THAT SWEET SWEET TASTE OF BRIBES The word "divestment" has been in the news lately (at least the student news - see several articles in this issue). But a recent news story sent the subtext collective into a reverie about a call for divestment last academic year: namely, the LUSU campaign headed by then President Laura Clayson that aimed to embarrass the university into divesting from ethically problematic companies in industries such as the arms trade, fossil fuels and tobacco, and reinvest in renewable energy and other more ethically palatable areas. Perhaps it is time to revisit this issue: a recent BBC Panorama investigation has reported bribery in East Africa by British American Tobacco, one of the beneficiaries of Lancaster's investments. As the University tries to build its reputation as one of the few UK institutions to have a branded presence on the African continent via its LU Ghana campus, it seems not only prudent but essential to point out that we should be careful about the company we keep. Or the companies we keep investing in. ***************************************************** LOGOS Just a quick one – given the letter (see below) pointing out that it is not only the Management School that have their own personal cut-up version of the exciting new shield logo thing, subtext wonders if a) absolutely any academic discipline or department can now choose to do the same, and if not why not, and b) if the University Marketing droids have a plan in place for this sort of thing, or if anyone who wants to opt out of the straightforward boring "all-shield" version of the new logo and use something a bit sexier and left-field and even less comprehensible than the full shield are allowed to just pick a bit of the shield that takes their fancy and slap a whizzy font of their choice onto it? We think that subtext needs a logo. We're going to use the bit on the shield that would be where the number 3 on a clock face is – it's just three wavy lines. Then we'll rotate it 90 degrees, and it'll be three wavy lines going upwards. It'll look like a sort of wobbly swoosh. How appropriate. Other suggestions for a subtext logo are welcome. The bit of the shield which has the lion's back foot, because we're always on it? The bit with the open book, as an ironic comment on something or other? The lion's backside, because……no, maybe not. Pick your favourite bit. Everyone's doing it. ***************************************************** TEF Subscribers may be wondering what to make of the idea of the Teaching Excellence Framework. There are plenty of factual reports available (though most of them aren't clear on exactly what's going to happen, 'cos no-one knows yet). For some rather cogent analysis, subscribers might like to have a look at the following, which also has some other useful posts: http://tinyurl.com/nomw7oy ***************************************************** CONCERT BECOMES PARIS TRIBUTE The concert by Manchester Camerata in the Great Hall on 19 November opened with a short speech by the Director, the violinist Giovanni Guzzo, dedicating the evening to those who died in the terrorist incident in Paris the previous week. The programme for the evening had been fixed long in advance and had not been designed with this dedication in mind, yet the opening work, Fratres, by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, seemed completely appropriate. A slow-moving sequence of chords punctuated by interjections by the side-drum, it could easily have been composed as a funeral march: the chords grow gradually louder to the centre of the work, then gradually diminish again to the end. With the Paris dedication, the piece was an emotional experience for audience and players alike. Mozart's piano concerto no 14 followed, with Gabriela Montero as soloist. Both Montero and Guzzo are Venezuelan by birth and have no doubt benefited from the strong support for music in that country, although neither of them appears to have been involved with el Sistema, the ground-breaking programme of music for poor children of the favelas. Gabriela Montero completed the first half of the concert at the piano with improvisations on themes suggested by the members of the audience. In each case she began with the suggested theme and remembered eventually to come back to it at the finish (the first to be proposed was the Marseillaise, an inspiring but rambling piece that is quite difficult even to remember in its entirety unless you're French), but the middle seemed more like Rachmaninov in one case and Bach, or possibly Handel, in another. Still, her improvising facility is remarkable. The major work in the second half was Benjamin Britten's Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge. Written in 1937 when Britten was only 24 years old, the piece is a tribute to Britten's composition teacher Frank Bridge by his former pupil. Now recognised as one of the landmarks of 20th-century string writing, it was performed in the Great Hall with great verve by the Manchester Camerata, who were on excellent form. ***************************************************** CHRISTMAS PLUG We don't usually announce random events, but as both the Mayor, Councillor Barry, and Alisdair McKee are Lancaster alumni, and it's Christmas and it's a good cause, exception is hereby made. Please note that this does not in any way set a precedent. The mayor of Lancaster, Councillor Jon Barry, is holding a charity evening of food and entertainment on Friday December 11. Taking place from 7pm to 10pm in the Banqueting Suite at Lancaster Town Hall, the event will raise money for the mayor's charities; St John's Hospice and children's wildlife experiences at Leighton Moss. As well as food from Filbert's bakery and Fair Trade wine, there will be two sets of musical entertainment plus a short mayoral quiz (on all things 'mayors'). Spanish guitar virtuoso Howard Haigh, who has previously played for the Queen and on BBC TV's Blue Peter, will be taking to the stage. Joining him will be Alasdair McKee, a self-styled 'insensitive singer-songwriter'. He has a cult following in Lancaster for his mixture of blues and satirical song-writing. Tickets are priced at £12 with half the proceeds going to the mayor's two charities. The money for wildlife experiences will be used to fund coaches to take local primary school-children to spend the day at Leighton Moss, getting up close and personal to the Silverdale birds, mammals and insects. The Mayor said: "It promises to be a great night out. The two performers are both excellent local artists and I am hopeful that we will raise a lot of money for my two charities. Please come if you can." Tickets are priced at £12 and are available by contacting Jenny Kay at jkay@lancaster.gov.uk or by phone on 01524 582065. ***************************************************** LETTERS Hello, I am a PhD student due to submit my thesis imminently. I understand from alumni that, immediately upon receipt of my degree confirmation, access to the University library stops (along with University email etc). This seems foolhardy. Many students submit by chapter, and even if they submit by paper not all of these papers will be accepted as-is by journals. Surely the university wants to see our research published? Surely they also want to see alumni proceed into employment? Both of which would be made easier with a period of grace (say 6 months) when we could access the library's (excellent) resources? A departmental request for further information has not been addressed, so I have just enquired with the library. While I wait for the library's response, and in mind of my upcoming submission date, I thought I'd find out if you or your readership had any thoughts on the matter/information on why this is the way it is and whether it can be changed? Regards, PhD student (name and address supplied) ******** Dear subtext Not sure if this qualifies, but I was impressed to see the pic of the Chaplaincy Centre spires heading a Guardian article on 14th November (Review p9) as an example of the best architecture of civic buildings 1945-1975. Is it listed yet? If not, let's go for it. John Wakeford ******** Dear subtext Regarding 'LOGOS 1' in Subtext 139. LUMS is not the only part of the University to have its own variant of the University logo. The Law School does too: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/law/ - different fonts, different positioning of the shield. Best wishes Richard Evans Management School ***************************************************** 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. |