And another thing about that lowercase Law School sign… Lancaster seems to have long had an unwritten rule (see what we did there?) that buildings should not have department names engraved on them, not least because there seems to be a tip in the ‘Modern VC’s Playbook for Keeping Departments in Line” that departments should be regularly moved when buildings are refurbished, or merged with others, or just closed, to stop them from getting too comfortable. However, with new buildings springing up all the time, and Engineering getting its very own shiny lowercase letters a few years ago, it’s possible the Law School had a bit of sign envy. Or perhaps it’s a North Campus/South Campus thing? With the huge sign outside the FASS building now a thing of the past, it’s possible someone felt the sign balance needed to be shifted again.
There’s only one problem: as regular visitors to Bowland North know, the building is home not only to Lancaster’s legal scholars. It also accommodates the Departments of Languages and Cultures, and Sociology, as well as the occasional band of itinerant Linguistics PhD students who seem to have been banished from County South. And that’s just the top three floors. The ground floor houses two lecture theatres, 27 seminar rooms (some of which even have windows, see subtexts passim) and two computer labs, all of which are used as teaching space by pretty much every department in the University, by conference delegates and by a number of summer schools. Why the Law School should be the only department that gets a huge sign on the side of the building is as yet not quite clear, but if readers know of any ‘cash-for-signs’ shenanigans, please do write in (for the benefit of any lawyers reading this, we are joking!). All the signs point to more signs in future.