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subtext ***************************************************** 'Truth: lies open to all' ***************************************************** Issue 148 27 May 2016 ***************************************************** We sympathise with our loyal readers on D Floor who hung around after work yesterday in expectation of receiving this issue of subtext but we do not apologise. Firstly, they shouldn't have been there as there was a strike on, and secondly, the collective wouldn't dream of using University IT systems to distribute subtext on a day when so many had chosen to withdraw their labour. ***************************************************** 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, from the picket line, the power of subtext, Jocelyn for Position, from the cutting room floor, exploding on impact, more people in the news, cat on a hot tin roof, january effect, anthropology corner, fuel on the fire, aggre-vation, fiction corner, brothers of war, architecture, shart attack, letters. ***************************************************** EDITORIAL Anybody not familiar with the one about the Labour leader, the art student and the box has probably been living under a cardboard Corbyn for the past week. To summarise: last week, a Facebook event promoting a lecture by Jeremy Corbyn began doing the rounds, and obsessive politicos were quick to note that Mr. Corbyn was highly unlikely to pay our humble university a visit on the day of the state opening of Parliament - no matter how strong his republican leanings may be. It turned out to be an elaborate hoax by an art student, who, as part of her second year project on object oriented ontology, left a cardboard box with ‘Jeremy Corbyn’ written on it in a lecture theatre. No damage was done, and the worst fallout was a number of students chest thumping about ‘real’ degrees. Some also suddenly became experts on academic ethics, and decried the project as unethical. For those who appreciate the finer points, FASS’s guidance for UG ethics reads: “any coursework [...] involving the generation of empirical data involving human participants, undergraduate and taught postgraduate students [must complete ethical approval forms”. Given no empirical data was collected, she is, by our reading, in the clear. Some, however, weren’t taking the mild humiliation lying down. One LUSU Full Time Officer-elect gleefully announced to the baying mobs that she had reported the student to the University Deanery, while Cat Smith MP went one further, publicly revealing that she had reported the student to the Vice-Chancellor, who, presumably, has nothing better to do than come down like a tonne of bricks on a student. A curious response from an MP who is a supporter of disruptive activism, strike action, marches, protest etc., but apparently not of artistic stunts that elicit a couple of confused tweets. She also thundered to the Daily Mirror about the “dozens of people” who incurred travel and parking costs - a rather different picture to the one painted by those at the scene, who reported an attendance number of a whopping five people, all of whom knew it was a hoax. Furthermore, unless some poor soul pre-paid for a flight from Aberdeen, or purchased a plot of land on campus on which to park their car, it’s difficult to understand how anybody could realistically have incurred a cost, but subtext is sure that the MP was just taking her constituents at their word. Any student success is pleasing - in this case, the student found herself quoted in the Huffington Post, interviewed by The Guardian, and in a BBC studio; all without being disciplined or losing her degree. Sometimes, we like to complain about the erosion of expression and academic freedom within HE - on this occasion, however, it’s reassuring to see that, despite the overblown interventions of elected representatives, someone was able to carry out such a stunt without any repercussions. You can read up on it in the national news: tinyurl.com/zqh3enu ***************************************************** STRIKE REPORT Early though it is to assess the full impact of this week’s strike action, local UCU activists are quietly pleased with the initial reports from the picket lines. Picketing took place over the two days on the main drive, the approaches to Alexandra Park and at the entrance to the cycleway, and the volume of traffic was, reportedly, markedly down on what would be expected at this time of year. Moreover, the size of the pickets was larger than on previous occasions, with many taking part in action for the first time. Our correspondents reported a carnival atmosphere, with music, song and chocolate biscuits featuring prominently throughout. Some of the old stagers were positively misty-eyed on hearing the choruses from the Pete Seeger union songbook. The highlight for many was a beautiful solo rendition of Nessun Dorma (all the verses) by a colleague from the Management School. He should not be at all surprised if he is approached for the next season of Britain’s Got Talent. The main drive picket was visited by a delegation from the local NUT whose secretary, Sam Ud-din, gave a rousing, warmly received speech of solidarity. Another visitor who expressed his support turned out to be the local organiser for UKIP. Although his engagement was much appreciated in principle, his views on migration and his lack of knowledge about his party’s position on the Trade Union Bill met with rather less favour among the picketers. The university management has yet to respond to the strike but their stated position beforehand was somewhat confusing. On 18th May members of staff received an email from HR Director Paul Boustead which, among other things, threatened that those who intended to ‘work to contract’ after the strike may be subject to pay deductions as this may be seen as ‘partial performance’. This caused some puzzlement among staff, as it was not made clear exactly how someone fulfilling their contractual obligations could be deemed ‘partially performing’. This was followed by a second letter on 24th May which conceded that yes, staff who stuck to their contract would not be breaching that contract (!) but (just in case you thought they were going soft) any hint of partial performance would be punished by the withholding of up to 100% of pay. One noticeable and perhaps related event, which may however have been as much to do with the University’s divestment flip-flopping (see below), was a lock-down of University House to safeguard against a possible student occupation. However, with the markedly cosier relationship between LUSU and the Uni House bigwigs this year, it is questionable whether there is much appetite for this sort of direct action among the wider student body. ***************************************************** ANOTHER GLORIOUS VICTORY In subtext 147, we noted with some chin stroking and humming that the FST faculty forum had been scheduled to take place at precisely the same time as the aforementioned UCU strike action. A mere four days later, the FST announced a reschedule for the 8th June. Now, we don’t know that it was subtext’s ferocious intervention that led to the rearrangement. But we can heavily imply that it was. ***************************************************** JOCELYN FOR POSITION In the last two issues of subtext we wondered about the role in University management of Ms. Jocelyn Prudence. Since leaving UCEA after 11 years as Chief Executive, Ms. Prudence has had a number of jobs, including a year as University Secretary at Stirling. We now learn that she has been appointed ‘Interim Director of Governance Services’. That someone of such high calibre and experience has chosen to come to Lancaster – even for a short while - speaks volumes for the Vice-Chancellor’s powers of persuasion. Speaking of the VC, we are delighted to hear that he has been nominated as one of the eight UUK Vice-Chancellors to serve on the UCEA Board of Directors. He has in the past mourned the fact that Lancaster is constrained in much of what it would like to do regarding pay, pensions and responses to industrial action because of its membership of UCEA. He will now be able to deploy his renowned persuasive skills to bring about a more conciliatory approach from his fellow-Board members, aided, we assume, by the influence and insider knowledge of Ms. Prudence. He is undoubtedly taking his new UCEA duties seriously. One the first day of this week’s strike he was in London chairing a conference titled Supporting and rewarding shifting academic pathways which, among other things, looked at the likely impact of TEF on academic careers and how they might be ‘rewarded’. Something more than the 1.1% currently on offer from UCEA, we would hope. ***************************************************** LU TEXT LOST AND FOUND Yet another major story shockingly overlooked by LUText is the news last week of the jailing of Lancaster graduate Martyn Dodgson for insider trading. Dodgson, who graduated in 1994 with a First in Economics, has begun a four year stay in the slammer for his role in providing confidential information to a small group of investors while he worked as a director of Deutsche Bank. Despite pulling in an annual salary of £601K (nearly as much as some Vice-Chancellors) Dodgson, according to a bugged conversation, had ‘done his bollocks in, financially’ and was in need of urgent cash. His information on future share movements enabled him and his fellow conspirators to make over £7.4m. The operation to catch them, the largest ever mounted by the Financial Services Authority, took over seven years and cost just under £14m. Dodgson’s four year sentence was the longest ever for this type of crime. Surely it should have rated at least some mention in the University’s official media? ***************************************************** DEEP (BUT NOT SO MEANINGFUL) IMPACT subtexts past have often critiqued the ways in which our performance as academics is assessed and used to determine everything from our inclusion (or otherwise) in the REF to our prospects of promotion. One of these bean-counting exercises that is starting to cause consternation across the campus is the use of so-called journal impact factors to determine the value of publications. In a various departments there is a direct link between the number of articles published in so-called "high-impact" journals and the amount that research is counted towards overall workload, with a corresponding reduction in teaching, admin, second-marking and other apparently irksome duties. There are plenty of reasons to be critical of the use of metrics, and particularly citation metrics, in research performance evaluation per se: for instance, they encourage risk-aversion, closing down potentially interesting but previously unexplored new research directions and encouraging people to stick with what they know they can get published in certain journals. They may also unfairly disadvantage early career researchers and colleagues who have taken parental leave or other breaks from their research. And they boil down the vast complexity of the knowledge and expertise that underlies research into often just a single number. On the other hand, they may potentially have some advantages, for instance in theory allowing a transparent and fair system for evaluation which is less dependent on personal relationships and biases. However, for this to be the case, the metrics used actually have to measure something useful... But for journal impact factors, this simply ain't the case. On a recent visit to our campus, Professor James Wilsdon (Sheffield), arguably Britain's leading expert on metrics and author of "The Metric Tide", described them as a piece of "statistical illiteracy". There have been many documented cases of journal impact factors being distorted or "gamed" by publishers, editors, and authors through insidious practices as inflated self-citations (where authors are encouraged to cite their own work and the work of others in the same journals), citation rings (where a group of journals all agree to cite each others' publications heavily), simple lying (claiming to have a higher impact factor than is actually the case), negotiating a better impact factor with the publisher on the threat of closing down the journal, and many other such dodgy doings. In fact, one study found that far from correlating with research quality, journal impact factors are in fact a good predictor of a high article retraction rate - in other words, the lure of a high impact factor encourages authors to submit shoddy research and falsify results to get published. And there are systemic issues too - the data underlying journal impact factors is owned by Thomson-Reuters, and as such is not transparent nor openly accessible. And there have been numerous studies showing that impact factors cannot be compared between disciplines or even fields and research areas within disciplines. There is a certain amount of pushback - for instance, the San Francisco Declaration (http://www.ascb.org/dora/) and the Leiden Manifesto (http://tinyurl.com/jzmsnxl) both call for an end to the use of journal impact factors, and for more responsible and scientifically valid use of metrics in general. Journal impact factors were specifically excluded from research quality assessments in the last REF (well, officially anyway) and this looks to be the case for the next REF too. But metrics do sadly seem to be here to stay for good, not just for research but also the forthcoming Teaching “Excellence” Framework. At the local level, research-active subtext readers might wish to reflect on how far they wish to be complicit in the use of a patently unsuitable metric in the evaluation of their own research, and raise this issue with colleagues, on research committees and departmental boards and wherever the opportunity arises. ***************************************************** BOY DONE GOOD The subtext collective feels it is important to commend the work of one particular Lancaster alumnus, Professor Phil Scraton, whose tireless research uncovered the police statements tampered after the Hillsborough disaster, and has given a whole city vindication after 27 long years. Prof Scraton was awarded his PhD from our very own Sociology Department in 1989, and his thesis ‘Unreasonable Force: Class, Marginality and the Political Autonomy of the Police’ can be requested from the Library, for those keen to explore policing strategies during the 1984/85 Miners’ Strike. Without wanting to hang on coattails, we can’t help but feel it is lamentable for the University to have an alumnus who has been such force for justice, whom they have seemingly forgotten. And while we’re sure that at this stage Prof Scraton does not need Lancaster University, for being a positive example of the good academic research can do – away from impact and the REF – subtext would like to extend a very heartfelt ‘thanks’. ***************************************************** CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT... … Or at least, landed her with a bit of a headache. The BBC reported on Tuesday that Lancashire Police has received a complaint on alleged ‘improper’ expenses returns by Lancaster’s MP, Cat Smith, during the general election. Claims about the alleged impropriety of Ms Smith’s expenses were made by the blogger Guido Fawkes – who himself may one day be outed as an elaborate wind-up in the name of art – and concern staffing costs and rent claimed for the Fleetwood campaign office. Ms Smith has ‘utterly’ denied the allegations. In a short statement on the matter Lancashire Police said: "We have received a complaint and we are in the early stages of looking into the matter to establish whether there is anything to substantiate the allegations being made.” subtext readers may care to speculate on whether the complaints may be at all linked to the fact that Morecambe’s MP, David Morris, is currently implicated in the Electoral Commission’s ongoing investigation into the so-called Tory ‘Battlebus’. The Conservative Party has blamed an ‘administrative error’ for not declaring £38,000 of battlebus spending. There may also be something of the quid pro quo involved: Ms Smith's associate, Michael Crick of Channel 4 News, is the journalist who has led the charge into the Conservatives’ alleged election irregularities. This angle has been lacking in other press coverage of this incident to date. Food for thought, we feel. ***************************************************** JANUARY EXAMS The idea of introducing January exams for Michaelmas-only modules has been on the table for a number of months, after a referendum held by the SU found that just over half of the voters would prefer it. Specifically, respondents from LUMS and FST (both of which offer greater numbers of small credit modules) were more in favour than those from FASS, who produced a 50/50 split. It is a bold scheme to put on the table, with qualities and faults. Students in favour will tell you that finishing a module at the end of December, only to have to swiftly re-familiarise themselves with their topics alongside a slew of others come summer term, increases the summer workload and contributes to already skyrocketing levels of stress. Then again, introducing January exams for Michaelmas-only modules will, if the rest of the assessments remain untouched, do nothing more than ramp up workload - surely spending the Christmas holidays completing assignments or reading ahead (!) as well as revising for examinations will further dampen the festive cheer. (And spare a thought for the poor sods who have the mark the things, surely a recipe for the January Blues, though on the flip side it may give invigilators chance to work off those Christmas inches.) The traditionalists among our subscribers may argue that any student who wants their exams moved closer to the end-point of certain modules to ensure they don’t ‘forget’ anything isn’t doing education right, and that such a move reinforces the notion that we are training students to pass exams, but in the current climate, that’s where we’re at. Opinion on the matter is diverse among the subtext collective, and we would be interested to read any opinions from the collective on this matter. ***************************************************** CROSSING THE PICKET LINE - AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY People driving onto campus during the UCU strike have been displaying an interesting array of traits when faced with a picket line. Here are a few. The rally driver style - in which the subject, rather than politely slowing down to take a leaflet, actually speeds up and/or swerves to avoid the assembled pickets. Characterised by: anger. Often exhibited by: students very keen to emphasise that they're paying nine grand fees. The “bemused” style - in which the subject clearly has no idea what is going on but politely takes a leaflet anyway. Characterised by: confusion. Often exhibited by: students who have been focusing very heavily on their exams. The "look straight ahead" style - in which the subject does their best to pretend the picket line just isn't there at all and drives, slowly but surely, straight past the assembly. Characterised by: sheepishness. Often exhibited by: UCU members who would be joining in were it not for that really important committee meeting that morning. The "oh no, they're here as well!" style - in which the subject tries to sneak in via the southern entrance only to find the pickets have that one covered also. Characterised by: frustration. Often exhibited by: people who just want a quiet life, free of confrontation. The "thumbs up" style - in which the subject doesn't take a leaflet but proffers an enthusiastic sign of their approval . . . before driving in to work as usual. To be honest we're not sure what this means. ***************************************************** AN INVESTING DEVELOPMENT There is a rather enlightening documentary called ‘The Yes Men Fix the World’, in which a ballsy activist appears on BBC News posing as a representative of the DOW Chemical Company and announces that the company would pay billions of dollars to the Indian people in atonement for their role in the Bhopal disaster of 1984. He was quickly sussed, but the objective - to have DOW Chemical step forward and deny that they would be doing any such thing - was achieved. Let’s talk about Lancaster’s investments. Many people were left flabbergasted last week when People & Planet announced that, after several years of campaigning by student activists, the University of Lancaster had agreed to divest from fossil fuels, the arms industry, et al. No one was more surprised to hear this news than the University of Lancaster, as the press office swiftly contacted People & Planet to deny the whole thing and denounce their statement as a load of old hooey. So where did the confusion come from? According to People & Planet, they were going off a statement made by the university a number of months ago, in which they announced that they would seek to “[shift] the emphasis of its investments strategy into new technologies as part of its commitment to environmental sustainability” and “[research] companies and technologies which will positively deliver on environmental sustainability.” After a number of months during which they were unable to get a clear answer from the university as to whether or not this meant they would be divesting from Bad Stuff, People & Planet seemingly took an executive decision to press ahead with their statement. So, objectively; People & Planet’s statement was inaccurate, but it did bring to the surface an inconsistency between the university’s rhetoric and its reality. Namely: how can we trumpet a commitment to ‘environmental sustainability’ whilst simultaneously funding industries that are responsible for the exact opposite? Maybe that was their intention all along. As subtext goes to press, the university’s Director of Finance has agreed to hold more meetings with activists, and the campaign continues. There has apparently been a statement by the university that they will fully divest from ethically problematic industries for the portfolios over which they have control. Readers might wonder what kind of institution makes investments over which it does not have any control, but these issues will have to be explored further in future issues of subtext. Those interested in getting involved in the issue can start by signing the following petition: http://tinyurl.com/zs3a7xy ***************************************************** DEATH LETTER Entering what for some reason everyone seems to have agreed this year to call “the marking tunnel” brings to mind - again - the nature of the decision-making process at the University. Does subtext ever tire of this? No. For almost fifty years the University has used a percentage scale for marking. It has advantages and disadvantages, of course, but the advantages are, one might think, very much in the areas that we have been told that we are supposed to be moving towards in order to improve Student Satisfaction. To take but three points: numbers are simple, numbers are clear to students, and numbers are seen as being precise. Then, in a decision that contravened an important principle of decision-making good practice, which is to BLOODY WELL CONSULT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO HAVE TO IMPLEMENT THE CHANGE AND MANAGE THE EFFECTS OF IT, academic staff were informed that in future they be marking in letters instead, and that each letter would cover a range of numerical marks. We’re not saying no one was consulted, we’re just saying that we’ve never met anyone who was, and that there was no rationale whatsoever produced for the change. (If we missed it, feel free to forward it: we’d love to know.) Occasionally someone would mutter something like “It’s because Maths and Chemistry mark out of 100% and departments like History and English mark out of 75%, so there’s no comparison, whereas if you give letters, then an ‘A’ is an ‘A’ whatever the subject.” Which is so monumentally fat-headed an idea that it hardly seems worth pointing out that a) Chemistry and History students rarely go for the same careers so such comparisons need rarely be made, and if such students were in competition then this would almost by definition be for careers that didn’t hinge on the comparative quality of their Chemistry or History degrees, and b) has anyone ever actually found this apparent discrepancy to be a problem in practice? Meanwhile, letters might lead to consternation, as students come in and complain that their B minus is a blight on their otherwise straight-A transcript, whereas the marker meant it as an encouraging “good enough to go on to postgraduate study but you can do even better”. Student complaints about marking are now given more credence because, quite understandably, students don’t understand their mark. Whatever their reaction to their 62%, at least there was no confusion about what the actual mark was. Why are we telling you this? Because now we are given to understand that in a few years we’ll be going back to number marking. Presumably if that happens then those who thought it was a good idea to change to a letter system will be arguing for its retention? We look forward to hearing that argument. [During the editorial process, negotiations over the merits of letter grading and aggregation broke down between the FASS and FST delegations to the collective. As such, we have presented the above in its original form, and invite readers to send us their thoughts to be published in the next issue.] ***************************************************** A STUDENT ALWAYS PAYS THEIR DEBTS Readers will not want to miss the gripping 83 pages of ‘Success as a Knowledge Economy’, the new White Paper from the government department that brought you 2011 tuition fee topper ‘Students at the Heart of the System’, and last November’s teaser ‘Fulfilling Our Potential’. This next stage of the on-going saga, ‘A Game of Loans’, builds on the major plot points of the earlier works: the Houses of HEFCE and OFFA are set the merge into Office for Students, while alternative and private providers will find their quests to becoming full universities easier than expected. Student Choice – a character that has suffered from a lack of development – is given a powerful boost, as students are given more power to shift their alliances(/transfer credits) between universities. Sharp readers will also spot that some of the more unpopular characters – such as the insidious TEF - will be introduced more slowly than the Green Paper foreshadowed, while fan-favourite FOI Requests appears to have narrowly escaped being written off. The subtext collective is most intrigued though by the introduction of the new character Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO). LEO who will, we read, “link higher education and tax data [a character from a different book series from the same publisher] to chart the transition of graduates from higher education into the workplace better”. Some may say it is brave of BIS to give a new character such central importance to the developing plot. We can’t help but feel they have captured his essence well, and it is easy to see how he will fit into the main storyline – shaking England’s universities out of the stuffy idea of knowledge for the sake it and into developers of a highly trained army for the great lord, Knowledge Based Economy. We felt this passage in particularly captured his spirit well: “[LEO] will give students the information about the rewards that could be available at the end of their learning, alongside the costs. This innovation is at the heart of delivering our reform agenda ambitions: improving choice, competition and outcomes for students, the taxpayer and the economy. By increasing transparency and making better use of public data than ever before, we will shine a light on the employability outcomes of courses and institutions for students to evaluate alongside other considerations. We hope this will also be used by providers evaluating their provision and considering how they can tailor it to better deliver relevant skills for the labour market.” We hazard a guess there may be a blossoming romance between LEO and KBE, though whether TEF will ever get any love remains to be seen. ***************************************************** THEY DO BUT DREAM ON SOVEREIGNTY For those who enjoy following the bloody family dramas of the ruling classes, subtext would also recommend keeping an eye on the relationship between White Paper (forward) author, Jo Johnson, and his older brother Boris. Bojo is keen for the UK to leave the EU (just in case you’ve been living in a Jeremy Corbyn for the last six months), while Jojo’s portfolio – HE – is one of the areas very, very keen to stay In. Jojo himself has said that a Brexit would damage research and in having delivered a White Paper that is apparently going down very well in the Tory inner circles may not be in a bad position to fulfil that most favoured role of younger brothers of randy rulers: usurper. ***************************************************** BOWLAND-ON-THE-NEVA One of our subscribers has drawn the collective’s attention to the remarkable similarities between Lancaster’s Bowland Tower and an even more famous modernist landmark in the city formerly known as Leningrad. This is the Kirovski District Soviet building, designed in 1932 by the radical architect Noi Trotsky (no relation). The style, dimensions and proportions are similar to Bowland Tower’s but, crucially, it appears also to have the same function – to disguise a tall and ugly chimney: www.mimoa.eu › Projects › Russia › St. Petersburg It is generally known that the original design for Lancaster University by the main architect Gabriel Epstein did not envisage having a tower block on Alexandra Square. However, the decision to site the main boiler house in the south-east corner meant that the plan had to be changed to accommodate the resulting chimney, hence the building of Bowland Tower to hide a potential monstrosity. A close examination shows that the Tower does not quite fit into that corner but this is brilliantly concealed in Epstein’s redesign. So where might Epstein’s inspiration for the Tower have come from? As an architect in the European modernist school he would of course have been familiar with the revolutionary Soviet architectural movement of the 1920s and early 1930s (before it was snuffed out by Stalin) which had such a profound influence on European and American architecture. But the links may have been closer than that. In 1937/38 Epstein was briefly a pupil of the German architect Erich Mendelsohn who, in the 1920s, had been commissioned by the Soviet government to design several buildings in Russia. He was highly regarded by Soviet architects, among whom was Noi Trotsky, the designer of the aforesaid Kirovski District Soviet building. Is it possible that Epstein, through his association with Mendelsohn, was aware of Noi Trotsky’s elegant solution to the chimney problem, and applied it to Lancaster? Our reader would like to think so. ***************************************************** SHART ATTACK FROM: Hewlett Venkklinne, Head of Excellence Demonstration. TO: Mike M. Shart, VC, Lune Valley Enterprise University (LuVE-U) DATE: 15/5/2016, 9:53AM SUBJECT: Donald J. Trump Visit Mike, It is confirmed. According to my highly placed sources, Mr Trump, on his first overseas visit as presidential candidate, will indeed include a visit to LuVE-U in his itinerary, on the 20th of May. Mr Trump will travel with an entourage of 11 people including four hairdressers and two press officers: After meeting with Mr David Cameron at Chequers, Mr Trump will travel by helicopter to our campus, bypassing traditional seats of learning such as Oxford and Cambridge, so cementing his credentials as a non-establishment figure. I’ve arranged an urgent planning meeting with all department heads. This is going to be the biggest day of our lives! Hewlett. *** FROM: Mike M. Shart, VC, Lune Valley Enterprise University (LuVE-U). TO: Hewlett Venkklinne, Head of Excellence Demonstration DATE: 15/5/2016, 9:54AM SUBJECT: Re: Donald J. Trump visit. Hewlett, This is a disaster! Did you not read Trump’s statement about this?! He says, and I quote, ‘I am super excited about my visit to the UK, and most especially to see one of the world’s leading places for innovation and education, U-LuVE. I can’t remember what that stands for now, but I have a really great relationship with them and it sounds like there will be beautiful women there; I meet the best women, I really do, I meet the best women in the world, and I go to the best places in the world with the most beautiful women in the world, and I can’t wait to visit the place, whatever it is, because they have the best researchers in the world, and I’m gonna meet those researchers, you know, because I have a great relationship with them, and they’re gonna do the best research, and their Vice-Chancellor, he’s a physicist, he knows the best physics, so I’m gonna ask him to help us design the wall, and it’s gonna be great’. Is this acceptable to you? After all of the focus groups, branding and marketing you have done, he goes and calls us ‘U-LuVE’!?! Clear your desk Hewlett... I’m writing to HR now. Mike. *** FROM: Hewlett Venkklinne, Head of Excellence Demonstration TO: Mike M. Shart, VC, Lune Valley Enterprise University (LuVE-U) DATE: 15/5/2016, 9:55AM SUBJECT: Trump Let’s not be hasty Mike! I see this as an opportunity for a root-and-branch, full-spectrum rebranding – let’s learn to love U-LUvE! I’m on my way over to see you in person to discuss… *** FROM: Mike M. Shart, VC, Lune Valley Enterprise University (LuVE-U). TO: Hewlett Venkklinne, NOT Head of Excellence Demonstration Anymore DATE: 21/5/2016 02:23am SUBJECT: “The Great Donald Diddle” (Lunesdale Echo) Hewlett, I’m finding it difficult to putt into words at this time of the night my feelings about what happended today – the day of Mr Drumpf’s alleged visity to our now rebranded campus. I have been reacqainting myself with my very good friend Mr Talisker. He my only solace at a tome like this, so excuse ant typos. When I strode across the square to meet Mr Trump I never expected to found myself confronted wit a large cardbord boxx, upon which sat the largest tupe I have seen in my LIFE… made out of what appeared to be straw,and then to be photongraphed by some bloody studnet telling me that this was an exercise in abject disoriented oncology. We are the laughing sock of the HE world I of coarse hold you fully responsible Hewlett. Youhave led me and your colleagues down yet again,, Mkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkl;’ ***************************************************** LETTERS Dear subtext, I’m sorry to hear you didn’t have any letters last week. I’d like to help out for this week, here’s a letter from me: “Q” You’re welcome :) Rob Lewsey. [Oh you’re such a wheeze, Rob - Eds.] ******** Dear Subtext Editors, I feel somewhat drawn to say you have excelled with this edition of your always fine, august publication. I am indebted. Keep up the great work. Andrew Lucas. ******** Dear subtext collective, A new wave of signs appears to have popped up across campus over the past few months, but this one in particular took me by surprise - http://s33.postimg.org/bpqsyuz7i/IMG_8206.jpg. Not only have the good people of LUSU long considered themselves physically a part of Bowland College, but so have those professional service departments above the Learning Zone whom overlook Alexandra Square. Those in family flats, along the southern edge, are also considered Bowland College. So then why, I ask, has "Bowland College" been relegated to merely the porters' lodge, admin offices, and bar? If space cannot be labelled as a toilet, a set of stairs, or a lift, then what is it? Is it just no-man’s land? Whilst it is clearly an attempt at better directing people towards the administrative centre of the college, my critical side notes that college boundaries are becoming significantly smaller than they once were. Are colleges losing their footprint? Or is this just an inaccurate sign? Mathew Gillings. [This is but the latest in a trend which began some time ago, starting with the abolition of the Senior Common Rooms (yes, these actually existed for the benefit of staff), followed by the central control of the college bars and, as each college ‘refurbishment’ took place, more space being removed from what a college could call its own. All this was happening while the number of students in each college increased year on year. At one point the Director of Facilities decreed that the ‘social space’ allowed for each college should be around 650 square metres but this has not stopped the continuing shrinkage of college space. In Bowland’s case the real allocation per student is less than 0.45 square metres. Bit of a squeeze if they all come down to the JCR at once but just about possible if they are all on very friendly terms with each other. But spare a thought for the students in the Graduate College, who have to get by with just over 0.1 of a square metre per student - Eds.] ***************************************************** The editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order) of: George Green, James Groves, Lizzie Houghton, Ronnie Rowlands, Joe Thornberry, Johnny Unger, and Martin Widden. |
