| subtext | |
| Home
|
subtext | Truth: lies open to all Issue 153 - "harter Untertext" 10/11/2016 ***************************************************** Fortnightly during term time. Letters, contributions, & comments: subtext-editors@lancaster.ac.uk Back issues & subscription details: www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext In this issue: editorial, Brexit, visas, contracts, Senate, Morris, PDRs, masterplans, UCU I, Venezuela, UCU II, LUSU, UCU III, the Sheffield model, branding, review, lack of letters ***************************************************** EDITORIAL At a time when many of us are reflecting on the sheer power of democracy(!), it's refreshing to be able to welcome the announcement of five newly-elected members of the Senate. Well done to: Dr Sandra Awanis, Marketing (representing LUMS); Dr Sean Hughes, Health Research (representing FHM); Dr Amber Leeson, LEC (representing FST); Mr Masud Khokhar, Library (representing those who are not teaching or research staff); and Dr Siobhan Weare, Law (representing FASS). That's right, elected. In online ballots of staff, with each staff member receiving one vote. The turnouts haven't been disclosed, but even if these were low, the fact that everyone received an email giving them the opportunity to vote, in an election for their highest academic governing body, will have been noticed and hopefully appreciated. True, these initiatives are relatively minor when compared with the power exercised by the Cambridge Regent House or the Oxford Congregation - but every little helps. The directly-elected members of the Senate were added a few years ago, as a compromise following a revolt against the removal of elected college syndicate members - and we appreciate that some subtext readers will still lament the reduction in syndicates' influence. subtext thinks that, however the ballots are conducted, we should celebrate the principle of elections for those who govern us. It's sad, then, to reflect that democracy no longer extends to our other main governing body, the Council. In the past, the Council included several members elected by the Court - many of whom were alumni - who always exercised their roles with diligence and dignity. More importantly, whilst we're not going to claim that they were household names on campus, the very fact that they submitted themselves for election every three years gave them a certain degree of authority. No more. Following principles of "best practice" in university governance (actually principles imported from the business sector), for the past ten years or so we've had a Nominations Committee to decide on such matters. Admittedly some members of the Nominations Committee are elected by the Court, but this isn't the same. So here's a thought. No-one is suggesting that the chair of the audit committee, or the chair of the finance committee, should be chosen in a direct election. For roles requiring real expertise, the Nominations Committee should be retained. But can't we celebrate the success of the recent Senate elections and, once again, agree to elect at least some lay members of the Council in future? ***************************************************** EU'VE DONE WHAT? While University House has not been completely silent about Brexit since July, staff inboxes have not exactly been overburdened by communiqués since the referendum. Now, following a Brexit-related staff information session last week which was so well camouflaged most people didn't even know it was taking place, there has finally been a comprehensive update from the VC setting out some clear policies and actions. Coincidentally (surely!), it reads almost like a point-for-point response to the last subtext editorial (subtext 152). For all that the VC and University are apparently doing as detailed in the email, both the message and the information session earlier in the week were rather underwhelming. The Associate Director of HR (Strategy) was able to describe the University's proposed actions at the meeting, but her response to a number of questions, including why it had taken so long to formulate a clear policy, essentially boiled down to "I hear what you're saying but I can't answer that because it was UMAG's decision". The fact that no one from UMAG attended and the out-of-the-way venue in Lancaster House Hotel suggest that once again the University had underestimated the strength of feeling around this issue. Staff members who are citizens of other EU countries fear for their continued future in the UK, and some were visibly upset at the meeting. While the promised information sessions led by legal experts are welcome, the decision not to fund even basic individual legal advice seems particularly strange given the opportunity costs that will arise from even a single EU staff member leaving for less uncertain shores. The limited financial support on offer, in the form of an interest-free loan, is welcome - but ultimately will cost the University very little, especially compared departure of a significant number of its staff. The "We are Lancaster" campaign is also promising, but has so far been rather modest - it appears to have no web presence, for example. The slogans are warm and feel-goody but by focusing on global diversity they rather miss the point made in the original listening sessions, that the University should visibly highlight its extensive links with and commitment to the EU specifically. There is a feeling among some colleagues that there has been very little direct involvement of and consultation with EU staff themselves in the University's strategy and responses outside the listening and information session. There are some signs in the VC's email that the folks on D Floor have finally woken up. Apparently a member of the Senior Management team will attend future information sessions, and there is now a direct email address for comments about what the University is doing (or not doing) in this area (EUReferendum@lancaster.ac.uk). This does little to mitigate the emotional impact of this new form of precarity that a large number of staff find themselves in, but it is a start at least. ***************************************************** WE ARE GLOBAL (SORT OF) D-floor's tone-deafness is not restricted to the EU staff who may be subjected to various kind of pre and post-Brexit fallout. A subtext reader who wishes to remain anonymous has pointed out that when the Government brought in health surcharges for Tier-2 visas, there was nary a peep about any support for existing non-EU employees. Currently a non-EU employee renewing their visa has to pay a minimum of £600 health surcharge and another £664 in visa application fees, plus an additional equivalent amount per dependent. Given these costs are tied to the employment and the employment is a condition of the visa's validity, there's an argument to be made that the renewal cost (for the staff member at least) should also be borne by the University. Somewhat predictably, HR was apparently unsympathetic to the plight of its non-EU staff when approached by a group of affected colleagues. The reader in question is worried about being left at the bottom of a three-tier employment structure, with non-EU staff ignored as the University fights to retain EU staff and things get even worse for everyone in terms of Government immigration policy and employment rights. ***************************************************** CONTRACTS The great debate over the use of zero-hours contracts will roar on until they are either outlawed, or made the norm. The most ardent defenders of these contracts are, oddly, students. They will tell you that working under such conditions allows them the flexibility to juggle their academic work with their "real work". A better alternative, subtext feels, would be "flexible hours" contracts, but hey ho. Regardless, they aren't so wonderful once one's entire income is entirely dependent on them, and some regular faces behind the college bars are beginning to get a little unhappy about it. The Assistant Venue Managers and Venue Managers are, quite rightly, on full-time contracts, while the students, rightly or wrongly, are not. But there are a number of regular faces behind the College bars who, post graduation, have continued in the part-time jobs they held as students on a more full-time basis. Technically, we must note, our bar staff are not on zero-hours contracts, but ones which specify they will work at least 100 hours per year. subtext learns that Commercial Services have, on repeated occasions, denied requests from catering and bar staff alike to be placed on full-time contracts. While the University might be able to absolve itself from guilt by holding up the general satisfaction of active students with their contracts, are they really complacent with putting those who are relying on a regular wage under such a yoke of uncertainty and insecurity? It isn't fair to reward longstanding staffers in this way, and it would be a cruel prank to suddenly sweep them aside for people who don't need the hours. subtext believes that the university ought to at least consider their requests for more secure contracts. It's nice to have constant, familiar faces behind our college bars. These would not only allow for regular hours, but also allow them to get parking permits, provide the council and their banks with proof of wages, and bring all the usual benefits such as sick pay and paid holidays - things which are currently lacking. What would our Chancellor Alan Milburn think of such a crushing blow to social mobility, one of his key specialties? ***************************************************** SENATE REPORT In what was to be the "dud", mid-season episode of Senate, the Vice-Chancellor opened the meeting to address the results of the US Presidential election. He suggested that we should go the way of European universities, who took advantage of the UK's exit from the EU by trying to recruit British academics, and all pile in to try and grab hold of as many talented American academics as we can. All very funny, but also completely in the realms of deadly seriousness. On, then, to a short discussion about our education strategy, which one senator suggested was focused too much on education on an individual and not on improving education at the institutional level. All in all, though, there were few words of discontent from the rest of the meeting, who approved its direction and moved swiftly along. Senate is seldom a hotbed of political dissent on a national scale, but it came as close as it will to being so when the VC announced that HEFCE was requesting that a University's highest governing body (in our case, the Council) be the ones to sign off its quality assurance. The Vice Chancellor sees this as HEFCE overstretching its remit and becoming regulatory, noting that the Senate was the body with the academic experience and therefore should be the place where educational matters are settled. However, as he couldn't risk not signing off on the 2015-16 QA, the Vice-Chancellor asked senate for three things; to approve that for one time only, Council can sign off on the QA; to approve of the QA; and to approve that the VC sends a stiff letter to HEFCE expressing his concerns. All were approved. The last vaguely noteworthy item came with the suggestion that it was time to update the University Strategy. Why a strategy put together a couple of years ago and designed to take us through to 2020 needs updating so frequently we don't know, but then, with recent political developments it wouldn't be surprising if our strategy had been torn up entirely. Members are encouraged to give their views: https://portal.lancaster.ac.uk/staffintranet/?landingTab=strategyupdate#/strategyupdate ***************************************************** A LETTER FROM ACROSS THE LUNE As residents of a marginal seat, people in Lancaster are used to receiving personally addressed letters from their local MP. Receiving a personally addressed letter from someone else's MP is a new experience entirely. This is what happened last Saturday, however, when thousands of residents of the Lancaster & Fleetwood constituency received hand-delivered letters from David Morris, MP for the neighbouring Morecambe & Lunesdale constituency, encouraging them to complete and return a questionnaire on the Boundary Commission's proposed new Lancaster & Morecambe constituency - something Mr Morris is strongly against. The letter had no header, didn't include the sender's address and had no "printed by" imprint, just a Freepost Plus envelope giving the address of Mr Morris's constituency office. "Thank you for your help," the letter concludes, "in keeping our two communities independent." subtext presumes that this behaviour, whilst slightly odd, must be lawful. It just looks a little, well . . . desperate. Just how much does he not want to take on Cat Smith? ***************************************************** FAULT LINE IN THE COMMUNICATION MATRIX? Grammar traditionalists and those who are inherently wary of managerialism will be united in their unease at the way certain modes of expression are taking root on campus. Colleagues holding, for example, the traditional view that "cascade" is not a transitive verb find themselves in something of a minority. Its use as such – as in "cascade this message" – seems to accompany a top-down vision of how the University ought to be run. (By definition, cascades only travel downwards. As one contributor to the BBC has put it, "it sounds like we're being wee'd on. Which we usually are".) Similar criticisms apply to the abuse of such otherwise perfectly pleasant words as "scope" and "foreground". The increasing prevalence of management speak is indicative of the growth of the professional managerial class at the University (and in Higher Education in general). It is no coincidence that this comes after several years of pro-marketization government reforms. But memories of an earlier time have not been completely effaced. Longer-standing members of staff may stubbornly cling to romantic ideals such as academic freedom, and may (god forbid) be unconvinced that empowering managers to order their staff members around will make the University a better workplace. Broadly speaking, two views of the University which could be called the hierarchical view and the collegial view stand opposed to each other. The hierarchical view appears to have been bolstered by several recent appointments to the senior management team. The conflict between these two views has surfaced recently in relation to the University's PDR scheme, which has been the subject of a campus-wide review. Opinions and observations from various members of staff were gathered in a Consultation Group. Both hierarchical and collegial views were represented on the Consultation Group. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the hierarchical view appears to have won out in the final report of the review, which was submitted to UMAG in October. Some hierarchical ideas which were the subject of long discussions and disagreement in the Consultation Group, e.g. ending confidentiality of PDRs, and introducing a "behaviour" section in the PDR form, have appeared in the report as specific proposals. The proposed changes to PDR are now undergoing consultation with the campus trade unions. It is unclear how this formal consultation might interact with various other discussions which will take place in the coming weeks, such as at the FST Faculty Forum on November 16th. (The FST Dean is one of the principal enthusiasts for the hierarchical view. He has also been very keen to initiate changes in line management systems in FST departments, interpreted in some quarters as pre-empting the review's outcome.) Whatever details emerge from the formal and informal consultation process, it seems unlikely that the changes to PDR will be greeted with universal enthusiasm. In other words, there is potential for misalignment in the employer-employee communication matrix. Or something like that. Watch this space. ***************************************************** IT'S RAINING MASTERPLANS At Lancaster, we're used to masterplans. The current facilities masterplan, much trumpeted by the Director of Facilities, talks of "opening the campus - unbuttoning it, as it were, releasing its atmosphere of containment. It will become more convivial to study and live in. It will look better, and be easier to navigate; faculties will seem less separate. It will become a campus with far more ability to respond to the change and experiment that characterises 21st century education policy and student expectations." So far, the most visible change has been that we're currently getting wet on a daily basis due to the lack of a spine roof, but hopefully that'll pass. Such grand visions are dwarfed, though, by the most recent masterplan - Lancashire County Council's Highways and Transport Masterplan for the District of Lancaster, approved by the county council's cabinet on 6 October. The 61-page document is well worth a read - and it's not often we say that about council documents - although given the county council's increasingly limited sources of funding, we wonder how much of their vision will actually come to pass. How would this mega-masterplan affect the university? A great deal, to be sure. The council confirms its intention to relocate part of M6 Junction 33 to the north, to "enable residents and businesses in South Lancaster to access the motorway network without having to travel through either the city centre or Galgate. The south-facing slip roads would remain where they currently are, meaning that traffic travelling between the north of Wyre district and the M6 south would not need to pass through Galgate." This would, it is acknowledged, "be expensive. It will not be affordable by either the County or City Council without Government support. The Lancashire Enterprise Partnership has included the reconfiguration of Junction 33 as a priority project in its bid for Growth Deal funding submitted to the Government in July 2016. A substantial private sector contribution from developers will also be necessary to secure its delivery." Reconfiguring the junction is important, due to the university's plans for a "Health Innovation Campus and potential development to the east of the M6. Development at the University is currently restricted due to the congested nature of the surrounding road network." Lovers of the green space between campus and Scotforth will get jumpy at this bit, though: "Adjacent to the Innovation Campus and University in South Lancaster is a location that has previously been identified as having the potential to help meet the future housing and employment needs of the district. This area includes sites, identified in 2012, at Bailrigg and Whinney Carr, which could deliver up to 1,500 new homes." Surely we don't need just another housing estate? They've thought of that. Move over Letchworth, here comes Bailrigg Garden Village! Yes, this "alternative to a traditional urban extension" would "incorporate the existing University campus, along with the land referred to above, to create a high quality residential environment integrated with the University." Bailrigg Garden Village (yes, that's the name) is "expected to be included in the deposit draft Land Allocations Development Plan Document as part of the Council's new draft Local Plan to be consulted on in early 2017." It looks like the last rites for our rural village setting, then. As far as subtext is aware, the owners of the land between Bailrigg and Scotforth have long been keen to sell - and if we accept the need for new housing, it's got to go somewhere. We worry, though, that much of the charm that causes students to choose Lancaster is going to be lost if we're subsumed inside a Garden Village with its own motorway junction. Such is progress. ***************************************************** THE BBC VERSUS THE IVORY TOWER It is often said that academics live in sublime indifference to ordinary life, wrapped in the blanket of academic freedom, protected from the common cultural pursuits and interests of their fellow citizens, safely ensconced in their ivory towers. subtext does not recognise such a tired cliché but you have to wonder what goes through some of our colleagues' minds. One of the very few public events held in the city, a panel discussion on the Higher Education and Research Bill, organised by the Lancaster University UCU and Lancaster, Morecambe and District National Union of Teachers (NUT) was held on Wednesday 26th October at 7.30pm in the Storey. This was scheduled to occur when the Great British Bake Off final was happening on BBC that evening, at 8.00pm. Bake Off was 2016's most-watched programme. The current series has dominated TV ratings, with the show occupying every place in the top five most watched programmes of the year with just short of 15 million viewers for the final. The seventh series was the last one to be shown on BBC adding an extra degree of interest to the occasion. The show is moving to Channel 4 next year. Mind you, despite this not inconsiderable alternative distraction there was a reasonable turn out to listen to Jenni Dybell (third year Lancaster University student), Mark Campbell (sacked chairperson of London Metropolitan University UCU) and Siobhan Collingwood (Head Teacher at Morecambe Bay Community Primary School). All the speakers acknowledged that education generally was under threat but each spoke to his/her strengths. Jenni gave a heartfelt account of the trials and tribulations that accompanied her journey from Cheshire council estate to university and offered some personal insight into what it was actually like to be a student in an institution that appeared to treat students as monetary units rather than colleagues in a worthwhile endeavour. Siobhan opened her talk with the observation that after 29 years in the profession she genuinely believed that the ongoing and cumulative attacks on primary and secondary education had reached a point where enough was enough and she and others were fighting back. She told the audience of the shambles surrounding the new-style SAT tests, the results of which were so unreliable that they should never even have been published. The introduction of the tests was rushed and chaotic and pupils were being treated as participants in some big ideological experiment. This was just one example of how starkly the government are gambling with the futures of our young people. Schools are struggling to function adequately on a day to day basis, school finances were so stretched but head teachers like her were not prepared to do the government's bidding anymore. And parents had been very supportive of heads' protests about funding and changes to the curriculum. "Parents get the unfairness," she said. In his brief impassioned speech Mark spoke about the changing nature of universities and how, in many cases, these were becoming teaching factories. How they should be spaces of critical thinking and debate. It was also noted that academic freedom cannot survive in a state of perpetual fear. Such a culture has a human cost and Mark reminded the audience that London Metropolitan University (LMU) has been at the cutting edge of all that is worst in higher education: industrial-scale redundancies, trade union victimisation, increased casualization and absurd work-loads. 395 staff - a full third of permanent employees - have been given their marching orders this year. Staff that remain are being told that they must teach for a full 550 hours of contact time a year, or have their contracts and pay cut. He spoke about how LMUs "restructuring" fits perfectly with the marketization logic of the Government's Higher Education and Research Bill. A brief period for questions was allotted followed by some celebrative photos and then the chair of the event, Julie Hearn (UCU NEC member) thanked us all for our attendance and we all traipsed out into a dark and very quiet night – everybody else was indoors glued to their TV. Candice Brown won Bake Off. ***************************************************** DOES ANYONE KNOW . . . . . . who's responsible for the posters put up all over campus last week, supporting a right-wing coup in Venezuela? Venezuelans, presumably. But we would like to know more. ***************************************************** THEY THINK IT'S ALL OVER – IT ISN'T! The Lancaster UCU General Meeting on 2nd November was a rather poorly attended affair. Barely quorate, the feeling in the room was rather sombre and somewhat muted, although old friends were obviously pleased to see each other. After greetings by the Chair and the passing of previous minutes the meeting moved on to discuss the actual purpose of the gathering – the ongoing pay dispute. Members spoke about the Trade Union Act passed in May 2016 (although not yet in force) and what it says in relation to industrial ballot thresholds. The Act requires a 50% turnout. UCU turnout for the most recent ballot was 36%, which is roughly in keeping with UCU past national industrial action ballots. The point being made was that this has major implications for UCU as they decide whether to continue with their live ballot. The question asked was if we vote to abandon this ballot in which 65% voted for strike action and 77% voted for action short of a strike (ASOS), will we ever get a ballot again? The question remained unanswered. However, speakers confirmed that there continues to be a strong case for tackling not only pay erosion in Higher Education, but also the issues of gender pay inequity and the treatment of casualised staff. However, the message from UCU nationally regarding casualisation and gender was that pressure would continue but in the form of campaigning predominantly at local level with no national targets and oversight. This deepened the mood and a number of speakers spoke of the sacrifices already made by members in the dispute, and the value of strike action which they have taken in an impressive effort to improve the employers' offer. Members at this point were reminded about the link between ASOS (i.e. a marking boycott) and strike action. A couple of "local" points were made, such as the elevation of our own VC to the chair of UCEA and the possible impact that could have on negotiations – "none" was the strong verdict. Reference was made to the recent UCU publication "Holding down women's pay" which showed Lancaster as the 2nd worst HEI with regard to the gender pay gaps for academic-related staff: One of the final points made was that members generally were of the impression that the dispute had been settled - this would partially account for the low turnout at the meeting. Because members had received their pay rise then they believed it was all over. The final whistle has been blown. This stirred those present to vow to make a determined effort to remind their colleagues that it jolly well wasn't. Those present voted unanimously to continue to fight the good fight although which particular battle and on which field your correspondent was not sure. ***************************************************** THERE IS POWER IN OPINION? If things felt lacklustre at the UCU's General Meeting, they seemed close to lifeless at LUSU's. Held the same day, the Students' Union's General Meeting did not even manage quorum. Rather a shame, as they had the small matter of the nature of British higher education to contend with. The agenda included a discussion item on higher education reform and its impact on students (a.k.a. the HE Bill), and another on the NUS's proposed boycott/sabotage of the NSS. The small turnout and a minimalist approach to advertising the meeting betrayed the importance of the topics. The Full Time Officers reported on their activities over the summer, and there was a potentially interesting discussion over whether LUSU should support a boycott of the NSS, but the union officers' stance appeared to be "we'll take it to the court of popular opinion", these days called referendums. For full disclosure, your correspondent did not manage to get to the LUSU general meeting, but SCAN was there to live blog the event, so through the power of student media, an account can be cobbled together. SCAN reported that a lay student member proposed the radical suggestion that the Students' Union should develop a stance on the HE Bill, but was informed by the Vice President Education that, again, LUSU wanted students to form their own opinions. It is a tune that was repeated on Monday, when at the PGR Forum students were told that the Union is running "a student voice led campaign" on the HE Bill and "would like to hear your opinions". The power in the Union relies heavily on opinion these day. Ideas for policies will come from students' opinions; anything that is deemed too "controversial" and may split that student opinion goes to a jury, so that those lay students may decide based on their opinions; if that still doesn't work, there are the referendums, a veritable feast of opinion-guided policy making. There is little need for officer accountability because the responsibility for the implications of these opinion-based policies lies with the student body, and not its elected representatives. This adherence to policy-making based on public opinion brings to mind that old Edmund Burke line: "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." Full-time student officers as student representatives are paid for their industry but also their judgement. Their industry informs their judgement, as they are able to spend time grappling with complex issues like the HE Bill, so that lay students who don't have the time or the knowledge can feel confident that someone better informed than they are will be acting on their behalf. It is a quaint idea in this world of post-expertise politics, but if you take away representatives' capacity to use their own judgement, politicians quickly become populist parrots. Plus, it's just bad academic practice: any student who bases an essay argument on the comment pages of the Daily Mail would indeed be reflecting opinion, but without any critical judgement, they're not passing the course. And yes, we are aware of the irony of saying that, having just squeezed 500 words out of a throwaway line from a SCAN blog. If any forum of politicking should reject the idea that ill-informed public opinion is preferable to judgement based on evidence and an informed knowledge of the topic, it should the politicking of higher education. But if LUSU has opted to contend with the small matter of the nature of British higher education by believing that popular opinion it always right, it may have formed a more favourable opinion towards the ethos of the HE Bill than it realises. ***************************************************** UCU NIGHT OUT Departmental representatives and other members of Lancaster UCU went on a social night out on Wednesday 9th November. Comrades went to the Dukes to see Ken Loach's latest film, I, Daniel Blake. Ken Loach's latest Palme d'Or winner is both a personal and political film. It is the story of a single mother and an ailing widower in depressed but resilient Newcastle. Both characters are falling through the cracks of a cruel benefit system that pushes those caught up in its cogs to breaking point. It is a moving and often surprisingly funny film about the unbreakable social bonds of so-called "broken Britain". In his review of the film Mark Kermode describes one of the scenes (in a food bank) as one of the most profoundly moving film sequences he has ever seen. Dukes staff reported that it was one the best attended movies they had ever shown. Not sure what that says but we think it says something. ***************************************************** FROM SHEFFIELD WITH LOVE subtext reports good news on the subject of student voter registration. Readers will know that, thanks to the government's Individual Electoral Registration scheme, under which campus residents must place themselves on the voting roll rather than being registered automatically, the proportion of eligible campus residents on the Lancaster electoral register dropped from near-enough 100% in spring 2014 to around half this number at the 2015 general election and the 2016 referendum. During the autumn of 2015, as political parties traipsed around campus desperately trying to persuade freshers of the importance of civic participation, activists could be heard discussing "the Sheffield model" in reverential tones. At Sheffield, you see, the university invites students to enroll as voters when they register, or re-register, for their course. Simple but effective . . . . . . and, one year later, thanks to the combined efforts of the Student Registry, LUSU and the City Council, the Sheffield model went live at Lancaster. The impact has been spectacular - at the end of Welcome Week 2016, a total of 7,420 students at the university, including 3,136 campus residents, had opted to register. Not quite 100%, but pretty close. This is just as well, as the City Council by-election in University & Scotforth Rural Ward has now been called for Thursday 8 December, and had the Sheffield model not been implemented successfully (or had the council listened to Cllr Charles Edwards - see subtext 151), we'd have faced the likely embarrassment of a "Blackadder by-election" with more candidates than voters. Instead, the ballot will be used as a way of testing the model's effectiveness. Candidates' publicity is already starting to appear (the Lib Dems' posters have appeared first, we think). Well done all. One note of regret, though. If the Sheffield model had been implemented a year earlier, then the official campus electorate on 1 December 2015, the date used for the current parliamentary boundary review, would have been large enough for the Boundary Commission to be able to place campus in the proposed Lancaster & Morecambe seat. Instead, due to the official electorate in University & Scotforth Rural on that date only being 2,065, it's been placed in the very large, very rural North Lancashire seat. There's not a lot we can do about this now, but if only, if only . . . ***************************************************** MARKETING TOOLS One might think that we would grow tired of taking cheap shots at the way the University presents itself to the world. In thinking that, one would be mistaken about us. In this context, the recent LU Brand Guidelines (Staff Edition) provide yet more material for idle amusement. It all starts out quite sensibly, though the issue of presenting the University as a "brand" at all is unexamined – while we would not necessarily disagree with it, the idea that you can market a University as you market baked beans is, well, something that has consequences, not all of them necessarily good. Scrolling through, we learn that the University "sought the views of high achieving A-Level students on the type of visual branding they expected to see in a top ten university". We remember some kerfuffle a couple of years ago around this polling exercise. The feeling at the time was that this exercise was, at best, was a very small and rather skewed sample. Anyhow, the students polled, apparently, "had a very strong inclination towards shields, which they associated with history, tradition and high academic standards". Apparently the existing brand, then known as the "swoosh" logo, was felt by the students "to look too corporate and that it said nothing about the University". What is not clear is what other options they were offered – the swoosh, obviously, shields, apparently, but what else? Preferring shields to swooshes is not necessarily a wholehearted vote in favour of shields. And, leaving aside what high-achieving possible student applicants might think, what about other partners and stakeholders (we are so down with the jargon)? Ah, it goes on to say that "this view (i.e. shields not swooshes) was also shared by the majority of current students and staff". Apparently the majority of you were a) polled, and b) responded that you preferred shields to swooshes. Really? A swift and unscientific survey of nearby colleagues drew a blank. Please help - if any subtext reader was indeed pooled and responded on this issue, perhaps they could let us know?? Names can be withheld. Moving on . . . Gotta love the jargon. We learn that the "logomark" (ie the shield and the name of the institution) are a "lock-up", which we think means they shouldn't be separated (and nothing to do with something being locked-down), and that the "logomark" is always the "hero" and that its "integrity and legibility should never be compromised". Fair 'nuff. Presumably the pooled high-achieving potential students also confirmed that the exceptions to this edict, for example inter alia the Management School, which chooses as its logo to show just the top left-hand corner of the shield instead of the whole one, are just as easily identified as the whole shield apparently is. Oh, and on social media the logomark is "unlocked", just the shield will do, apparently. So, to be clear, the place where the majority of high-achieving potential students are most likely to see it is the place where the locked-in hero logomark is none of these things. Right . . . The marketing of the University is undoubtedly hip and up-the-moment, but some things don't change. For example, if you were forced to bet your mortgage on whether, in illustrating how the "logomark" fits onto a sweatshirt, the picture would be of: a) a sweatshirt, b) a sweatshirt on a man's chest or c) a sweatshirt on a woman's chest, which would you place most faith in? Yes, you get to keep your house, it's c). Twice. The second time in close-up. We're not saying that the spirit of Anthony Marsella lives on, we're just sayin' . . . Moving on to typography, we learn that the fonts chosen are because the use of a slab and a sans serif typeface is important as it "provides depth to the Lancaster personality". A slab serif typeface helps to provide "gravitas and authority", while a sans serif typeface is "clean, modern and is easy to read as body copy". Hmmm. We've said this before – qualities such as "clean, modern and easy to read" are perhaps empirically verifiable, but "gravitas and authority"? One wonders as to the criteria used to make such a statement. And how on earth do we tell if something adds "depth" to the Lancaster "personality"? This sort of statement is almost impossible to prove; fortunately for those who make them, they are also almost impossible to disprove. We also learn that the font called "Effra" (didn't he build a dyke to separate England and Wales back in the day?) has a "humanist" character shape, at which point one starts to suspect that we have truly moved into the Trump era via Lewis Carroll, where words now mean exactly what the user wants them to mean, no more or less. There is also a font called "Grotesk"; we read that "Grotesque fonts have been hugely popular over the last fifty years". Then there is a lot of stuff about how colours "enrich the University identity and personality". Maybe, or maybe it just looks nice. And there are the boxes with one curved corner, which apparently "can be used in conjunction with square boxes to give a sharper feel". Presumably this means that "it makes the other corners look pointier". This may be true, but we'd call that a "look"; how this constitutes "feel" is beyond us. There is a quotation attributed to just about everyone who has ever run a business which runs, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half". As the exam papers often say, "Discuss". ***************************************************** REVIEW - LIGHT UP LANCASTER Light Up Lancaster was a delight – two evenings of illumination, art, music, projection and performance in the city centre. Most of the events took place on Friday (4th November) after it went dark. Your correspondent and companions started in Dalton Square where the trees were adorned with white fairy lights. At the Town Hall end of the square was a falla – a fun sculpture entitled "D is for Dinosaur", created by Mario Gual del Olmo, a fallero artist from Valencia. This was supported by Lancaster University's Department of Languages and Culture and the Junta Central Fallera Spain. Also in the square was another chap from Valencia doing a roaring trade selling paella which was bubbling away in vast paella pans (rarely seen outside Spain and Borough Market, London) perched atop flaming wood fires. All this was accompanied by various gaggles of musicians in a small marquee belting out some very jolly songs. We did not linger long and swung a right en route to Market Square to look at the "The Tree of Light" - a combination of red roses and Chinese lanterns. This installation also had a Lancaster University connection, the Confucius Institute. Alongside this was the "Light Boat", described as the slowest ride on earth! Into the library we went where a host of children and older folk were creating various bits and bobs all with a light theme. We passed by the Museum where the queue was developing to go in and experience a sound and light performance illuminating and animating the unheard voices and untold stories from the King's Own Royal Border Regiment. Round the back of the museum was the "Light Weight" – a 360 degree projection mapping globe. A small child or in our case a babe in arms came in handy at this point - their photo is taken and then projected onto the giant inflated sphere, their face transformed by odd animations, in our case angel wings attached to ears. Magical stuff. Round the corner, through the passage to Sun Square and "Light Rain". Combining movement, projection and sound this was a fun experience, allowing yourself to be "drenched" by the coloured rain cascading down around you. Jolly good fun. Off down Sun Street and up to the Judges' Lodgings where it started to rain real rain. We marched up to the Castle where we were counted in and later counted out. This was fantastic - the earth shook with a loud techno beat whilst the entire courtyard was ablaze with ever-changing colour and light with patterns like mobile mosaics altering constantly. In the rear courtyard of the Castle was the Illumaphonium, a three metre high music making installation. 100 illuminated chime bells tinkling gently and spreading differing light patterns across the floor. Delightful. Out of the Castle and down to the Storey to experience electric fireworks, a mass of red balloons and a miasma of eyes! We walked back down to Market Square and were pleasantly surprised by "On the Edge of a Rising Tide" – we heard this mobile "steam–punk" contraption coming but the sight of the projections onto the walls and doorways made us jump and then giggle. We traced our steps back to Dalton Square, where the musicians were still hard at it, and into the Borough for a pint and fine chat about the last three hours. There were things we had missed but we thoroughly enjoyed what we had seen and experienced. The weather had been reasonably kind on the Friday with only pockets of rain to dampen the spirits. However, fortune certainly favoured us on Saturday night. It was an exceptionally good night for fireworks – clear dark blue sky perfect for viewing the short but spectacular display. We had walked down from Freehold to St George's Quay Meadow to watch the display. On our journey we noticed some friendly faces walking up from town to enjoy the stunning view from Williamson Park and an hour or so later we saw the same friendly faces walking down the hill back into town as we made our way up Moor Lane. The city was alive with rivers of people snaking their way around the street and lanes to find their favoured spot to ooh and aah at the whizzes and bangs. Thoroughly recommended and good to see elements of the university playing their part. ***************************************************** LETTERS None this time. Next time, perhaps? ***************************************************** The editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order) of: James Groves, Lizzie Houghton, Ian Paylor, Ronnie Rowlands, Joe Thornberry, and Johnny Unger. |