Category Archives: contributed article

A Post-Lockdown Utopia

Posted on November 11 2021 | Comments Off on A Post-Lockdown Utopia

Contributed article

This is Amy. She works in Professional Services. Like many of her colleagues, Amy has learnt a lot from the pandemic, like the fact that she can (kind of) do her job without being on campus, and it is much cheaper for the University if she doesn’t take up any space. Therefore, Amy is one of the many people who now blend working from home with hot-desking on campus.

Amy has just arrived on campus, ready to face today’s exciting challenges. She hoicks her office chair out of the boot of her car, and wheels it towards the building where (fingers-crossed) she will be working for the day. She is a little bit late, because she is flexibly blending caring responsibilities with working full-time, but with any luck she is not so late that she will have to resort to the overflow office building on the White Lund industrial estate.

Most people now work in a flexibly blended way, and so there is no need to be on campus all the time. There are definitely enough desks, because it is really only necessary to be on campus once a week for meetings. Unfortunately, members of senior management don’t tend to co-ordinate their diaries with Amy, so although it is true that she only has one day of meetings each week, these tend to be spread out from Monday to Friday.

As she walks through the large open-plan building filled with rows of desks, she scans for a place to sit. You can sit wherever you like, and enjoy the opportunity to connect with a colleague from another division, thus aiding the fostering of cross-working collaborative synergy. Or it would do if it hadn’t become a bit of a taboo to engage in gratuitous conversations, what with the noise levels. Passive aggression isn’t a nice thing to feel, is it? Still, there’s a real feeling of camaraderie when someone takes pity on you and lets you perch on the corner of their desk.

Of course, if you want to work in a collaborative way with members of your own team (i.e. you want to talk to them), you can get some of your 10,000 wellbeing steps in and wander round the building trying to find out where they are. Amy’s team all work in a blendedly flexible way, and she hasn’t seen some of them for weeks. Come to think of it, she’s not even sure how many of them there are anymore…

And of course all meetings can be held on Teams now, which is good because there is no meeting space anymore. Indeed the whole of this building is full of people having confidential Teams meetings. (If you’re using headphones, at least it’s only one half of a confidential conversation that you can hear.)

Actually, before the lockdown, it was becoming really difficult to find private meeting space. Now this has been solved by no longer holding private meetings (lol!). No, but seriously, once you get used to discussing reasonable adjustments and compassionate leave with your reportees on the steps in Alex Square, it starts to feel less of a big deal. When you think about it, doors are really just a barrier to agile flexibility.

Amy’s strategy for holding Difficult Conversations with staff or students is actually to hang around Bowland North quad waiting for a seminar to kick out early, so she can nip in for ten minutes. This is usually just enough time to give someone the link to the staff wellbeing pages or counselling service, before the next seminar starts. Job done.

In fact, this is a testament to the wonderful resilience and creativity that is being shown by colleagues, and it’s become pretty common when walking round campus to stumble upon a committee meeting efficiently going about its business in one of the larger disabled toilets. Amy is on an interview panel next week, but thankfully the chair of the panel has just bought a Ford S-Max with a nice roomy boot, so there’s no worries.

Amy nears the end of the aisle, and is just about to give up hope of finding somewhere to sit when, to her delight, she spots a free desk. Not a prime location, what with the afternoon screen glare and noise from the hand dryers, but it’ll do. She settles in and begins the process of adjusting the height of the desk, the brightness of the screens, getting the dock to recognise her laptop, and wiping the ick off the mouse. After only 40 minutes, she’s ready to start work, proud to be a valued team member in such a flexibly blendable modern workplace.

Comments Off on A Post-Lockdown Utopia

Posted in contributed article

Tagged , , ,

Diary of a Rent Strike Organiser

Posted on February 19 2021 | Comments Off on Diary of a Rent Strike Organiser

Contributed article by Jude Rowley

Lancaster students have spent the last five weeks calling on University management to cut the rent and start taking student wellbeing seriously.

When the pandemic hit last March, students — fed-up with being abandoned by University management and following in the footsteps of their predecessors in the 1974–75 academic year — decided to take action and organise a rent strike. The strike was largely successful, with millions of pounds worth of concessions having been won back in rent.

At the start of this term, students found themselves in a very similar boat. Instructed not to return to campus and to instead continue online learning from their current residence (with some exceptions, including for critical courses like Medicine), the majority of students have not returned to Lancaster. It is difficult to say exactly how many students remain on campus and how many have stayed home. Indeed, even University accommodation teams have been struggling to work this out themselves, with repeated emails to students asking them to confirm their whereabouts, likely in recognition that this would determine the scale of the reductions (if any) management may see fit to offer to students. This has since escalated, and students are now prevented from accessing their course materials on Moodle until they state their current whereabouts. However, anecdotal evidence suggests a roughly 70/30 split between those at home and those on campus.

With students on- and off-campus both being charged full rent amidst the University moving online, we decided, as a group of student organisers, to call a rent strike. Within a matter of days, over 1,300 students joined the strike, and we gathered over 1,500 signatures on our open letter calling for the rent strike demands to be met. These demands were fourfold:

– 50% rent reductions for students on campus;
– 100% rent reductions for students off campus;
– improved student well-being support, including mental health provision and hardship funding; and
– no repercussions for students on rent strike.

The most important priority of the rent strike was that no-one would be left behind. Though the 2020 student rent strike won major concessions, international students and others who were trapped on campus were not offered reductions or waivers. This time, the organisers resolved to keep pressure on the University until they made an offer that provided something for every student, regardless of their whereabouts, accommodation type, or fee status.

Management at first sought to ignore the rent strike, refusing to accept it as an organised movement rather than individual students independently deciding to withhold rent. However, we found the most effective tactic was to turn to the local and national press to put pressure on the University. It turns out that management will tolerate many things, but they draw the line at negative publicity that might undermine that prized top 10 status we hear so much about. After interviews and features on BBC News and in the local media, management eventually came out with the offer of a £400 rent reduction as a gesture of their good-will, but were quick to stress that their good-will only extended to students who: (a) were unable to return to their campus accommodation; and (b) paid their outstanding rent for the term in full. For many students subject to ever-rising campus accommodation costs, this amounts to less than 3 weeks’ rent, and was therefore met with anger and righteous indignation. An online survey found that more than 7 in 10 students rejected the offer outright.

Students felt they were not being listened to, so we called for University management to meet with rent strike organisers for constructive discussion on striking students’ demands. Eventually, with mounting student pressure, management agreed to a meeting, facilitated through the Students’ Union and informally chaired by the Students’ Union President.

This seems to mark a shift in management’s approach to student activism, as they had certainly not agreed to meet organisers of other recent student campaigns, aside from an impromptu confrontation with the then-acting Vice-Chancellor in Alex Square last February over institutional bullying (see the subtext 192 editorial). Despite these meetings, management remained predictably non-committal. Keen to insist that they are listening and that we are all in this together, they promised movement on the priority issues for the rent strikers, without actually delivering much at all.

Upping the offer for those off-campus — with nothing for those lured back to campus by necessity or by University encouragement of a return to normal after Christmas — appeared to be an attempt to turn the two groups of students against each other, in an attempt to divide our rent strike. We made it clear that students were united and would not give in until there was something offered for everyone. We were equally quick to stress throughout that we fully support the campus UCU, Unison, and Unite branches and would not tolerate any attempt by management to divide staff and students. We have been grateful to have the full support of Lancaster UCU from the outset.

Our main message throughout has been that we want recognition of the difficulties facing all students and concessions that benefit every member of the Lancaster University community. Despite assurances that this had been taken into account, management strategy did not appear to have changed. At the start of Week 15, they doubled the £400 rebate for students who would not return to campus before the 8th of March, whilst ignoring the other demands and, significantly, refusing to acknowledge that their hand had been forced by striking students.

We attempted to keep up the momentum and sustain the strike, but this became increasingly difficult. Unfortunately, management’s divide-and-conquer tactics were more successful than we’d hoped. By the end of Week 15, our numbers had dropped significantly with many students taking the £800 offer and paying their rent. At the outset of the rent strike, we set ourselves a red line: if the strike fell below 500 participants, we knew we could no longer safely continue without running the risk of repercussions or disciplinary action against individual students. Having fallen to just over half of this number, we had to take the hard decision to call off the strike.

This may feel like a defeat, but in many ways it is not: we have won £3 million worth of concessions in rent, significantly improved mental health services for students, and a reformed and streamlined student support fund. Perhaps even more significantly, students have mobilised and taken collective action, and there is momentum to take this forward.

Comments Off on Diary of a Rent Strike Organiser

Posted in contributed article

Tagged , , , ,

Inglorious Partnerships

Posted on February 19 2021 | Comments Off on Inglorious Partnerships

Contributed article

Lancaster University’s penchant for entering into partnerships on vague promises of internationalisation, i.e. how to increase overseas tuition fees, is well known (see subtexts passim ad nauseam). One doesn’t need to be reminded of COMSATS, or Goenka, or indeed several other partnerships that didn’t live to see the light of day.

But some recent alliances, with partners that have a seemingly colourful history, seem to indicate that LU’s strategy of internationalisation might come apart one day. Tempted by income expansion, and overriding any ethical or pedagogical concerns, LU operates with wild abandon when it comes to outsourcing education provision to private companies like UA92, Navitas and Study Group, and accommodation service provision to companies such as UPP, to name a few. Trade unions in the past have raised concerns about the lack of transparency in governance and decision making, including concerns about lack of consultation with staff and students, to no avail. LU partnerships remain shrouded in secrecy with no clear financial or academic accountability.

Now read on…

This story starts way back in 2007 when the university outsourced its foundation year provision to Study Group (SG) to run the International Study Centre (ISC) on campus. The initial contract was for five years, with a remit to increase international student numbers on campus. The partnership achieved this, to some extent, but only by recruiting students mainly from one country (greater than 80%). With the impact of COVID on international mobility, this opportunity has now turned into a threat. More importantly, the contract was renewed before the expiry of the first contract, in 2011, for another 10 years.

Prof Andrew Atherton came to Lancaster as Deputy Vice-Chancellor in 2013, having previously been Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Lincoln. Prof Atherton got to know SG Director Paul Lovegrove whilst at Lincoln, when SG was given a lucrative contract to run its first-year provision. Readers will remember that in 2014, a similar plan to outsource LU’s Part I to SG didn’t succeed (see subtext 121).

It is believed that Lancaster’s SG contract, which was set to expire this year, has been given another extension, but it is not clear for how long or if another deal has been struck on D Floor.

Having jumped onto the international student gravy train, the University announced in 2017 that it was entering into a partnership with Manchester United’s Class of 92 to open UA92, a football-themed university academy in Manchester. Presumably designed to attract Man U fans, the academy struggled to recruit for its first cohort in 2019–20, with just 83 students enrolled at the time of a (supportive) Quality Assurance Agency visit in January 2020. It is not yet clear whether the numbers have improved during 2020–21.

Despite several queries and concerns, the partnership remains shrouded in secrecy. LU maintains that the football university (sorry, academy) is a separate entity and not a part of Lancaster University in any way. However, Lancaster has a substantial stake in the academy (the Vice-Chancellor is a director of the holding company) and, not unsurprisingly, has reportedly made substantial losses in the venture to the tune of £1.1 million last year. It is expected that cohort size will be sufficient to break even in 2022–23, although till then the partnership will continue to make losses and is seeking a further £5m in funding. LU has acquired a further tranche of share capital in a joint venture, University Academy 92 Limited for an undisclosed amount. One wonders what research was conducted by Lancaster to gauge whether the scheme was pedagogically desirable, or even commercially viable. All cloaked in commercial in confidence. The Chair of the UA92 Board, Marnie Jane Millard, is a clear winner however — with her extensive experience of getting kids to drink Vimto, she might have some refreshing ideas for the students taking sports courses…

Things change, people move on. In 2017 Paul Lovegrove moved from SG to Navitas, another private provider of outsourced higher education provision, as CEO. A couple of years later, in 2019, Andrew Atherton moved to the University of Dundee, as Principal. Just two months after Prof Atherton left LU, the University announced another partnership agreement with Navitas to open a campus in Leipzig, Germany. Given that partnership agreements with providers on overseas territories typically involve months of multi-party negotiations, including several layers of compliance with rules and regulations of the host country, we can all safely assume that old friendships played absolutely no part in this deal. To top everything off, no staff consultation took place, which has by now become the hallmark of Lancaster. It was all going smoothly… but one can’t predict the twists and turns of fate! Unfortunately, just a few months after joining Dundee, Prof Atherton resigned his role following allegations of bullying and an investigation for failure to pay rent. Disgraced, but not out of favour, he found new employment with Navitas as Global Director Transnational Education.

Fast forward to 2021, when the University announces a new partnership between LU, Navitas and UA92:

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/international-students-to-benefit-as-ua92-and-navitas-sign-new-partnership

The Vice-Chancellor welcomed the new development, which will attract more international students to UA92’s unique degree programmes – good for students and good for the overall diversity of UA92 and the local area. In what ways? Mr Lovegrove announced that Navitas was delighted to be partnering with UA92 and this new relationship strengthens our existing partnership with Lancaster University. Was, one wonders, Prof Atherton involved in the deal in some way? If so, he seems to be keeping a low profile as he doesn’t appear on any of the media releases. A wise move, perhaps, lest it have rekindled former colleagues’ memories of his allegedly less-than-collegial behaviour as Deputy Vice-Chancellor. However, there may be another twist to this: is Navitas seeking to take over the running of the lucrative ISC from SG? Readers may be interested to know that the SG partnership in Leicester University has now been taken over by Navitas, where Mr Lovegrove was reportedly influential in clinching the deal.

Finally, allegations of bullying have recently emerged at LU Ghana, run in partnership between Lancaster University and the Transnational Academic Group, another private provider. Concerns have also been raised at LU-BJTU College over health and safety issues, under-resourcing of provision and misleading staff about life at the Weihai campus. For those not familiar with the location of LU-BJTU College, it is based at Nanhai, in a relatively remote area about 60km from Weihai city centre, although the marketing materials and all references to LU-BJTU College refer to it as the Weihai campus. One staff member described this as similar to a college building in Morecambe being called the Manchester campus [older readers may know this trick as the EasyJet shuffle – Eds].

Comments Off on Inglorious Partnerships

Posted in contributed article

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Middle Management Mindfulness

Posted on February 19 2021 | Comments Off on Middle Management Mindfulness

Contributed by a reader

They come, they go, head honchos called Deans,
Each one instigating yet another counting of beans,
Trim trim the gold standard crew,
Yet another, yet another, PS review!

Need to make cuts, budget slicing, push push,
Take the quality service, reduce to homogeneous mush,
Think central can students support, no, just a number, no chat,
Academics watch out, your workloads to grow with new hat.

Better to trim faculties to essential management,
Keep the gold standard service, avoid student lament,
Do you see, do you listen, what keeps us afloat?
Oh hey, too late, they’re on the elsewhere boat.

Comments Off on Middle Management Mindfulness

Posted in contributed article

Tagged ,

Widden’s Review – Songs in the Great Hall

Posted on October 28 2020 | Comments Off on Widden’s Review – Songs in the Great Hall

Contributed by Martin Widden

It is good to be able to report that some things are getting back to something like normal, or at any rate to New Normal: the University’s International Concert Series resumed on the evening of Thursday 8 October. The furniture in the Great Hall had been rearranged to provide the necessary distance between the social bubbles in the audience. One might have feared that this would destroy any atmosphere that might otherwise have been generated, but – all praise to the organisers – it had been done very thoughtfully: each little group had its designated space, consisting of one or more chairs at a small folding table with a tablecloth, on which had been placed a sheet bearing the names of the members of the little group, and beside it a small vase of flowers. If the group had pre-ordered drinks, they were waiting on the table too. The Hall looked almost festive.

The programme for the evening consisted of two song cycles by the composer Franz Schubert, both of them setting poems by Wilhelm Müller. Each is for a solo singer and pianist, and consists of a series of twenty or so songs on a single narrative theme. The first to be performed at the recital, die schöne Müllerin, tells the story of a young journeyman miller walking through a wood beside a stream, which leads him to a mill. He falls in love with the miller’s daughter, but his love is frustrated by the arrival of a glamorous hunter, who supplants him. It is not completely clear how the story ends, except that it doesn’t end well for the young man, who submits himself to the stream and presumably drowns. The young baritone Huw Montague-Randall told this story well, with excellent German diction.

The second cycle, Winterreise (winter journey), is again a tragic tale of a young man’s love for a girl, but it is not just about his failure to capture her love. As the narrator wanders through a winter landscape, he bids his farewell not only to his beloved who has forsaken him, but this time he appears to be leaving all human company. Appropriately, Schubert’s setting of these downbeat poems is set almost entirely in minor keys. This second song cycle was sung by another baritone, Roderick Williams, who acted it out in a quite moving way.

In his song cycles Schubert uses the piano very skilfully to illustrate the songs, for example to evoke the sound of the water in the stream in die schöne Müllerin. In fact, the piano part is perhaps of equal importance with the sung part. We were fortunate at the Great Hall recital to have Gary Matthewman at the piano, for he was able to reflect the mood of the songs in his playing very sensitively. The final song in Winterreise, der Leiermann, describes a hurdy-gurdy man who is standing just outside the village hoping to collect money on his little plate, but sadly the plate is empty. The piano reproduced the sad music of the hurdy-gurdy quite accurately.

This was a very satisfying start to the season of Great Hall concerts – let’s hope further concerts will be able to go ahead.

Comments Off on Widden’s Review – Songs in the Great Hall

Posted in contributed article

Tagged , ,

SPECIAL FEATURE: Black Lives Matter

Posted on June 19 2020 | Comments Off on SPECIAL FEATURE: Black Lives Matter

VIRTUE SIGNALLING MATTERS

Much like a number of ‘brands’, including fashion labels, supermarkets and tech companies, Lancaster University’s social media accounts took part in ‘Black Out Tuesday’ on 2 June. The following day, the University’s Instagram account featured a series of images featuring slogans beginning with ‘What now?’, followed by slogans like ‘Support’ and ‘Educate’ and a few details of what the University is supposedly doing to support its black community (https://www.instagram.com/p/CA-nUaWgvkO/).

Warm words are always nice, but do little to address the real and sometimes shocking inequalities that currently exist at the University. While we are reminded every March of the University’s continuing failure to effectively tackle its gender pay gap (subtexts passim), things have been very quiet around the statistics relating to ethnicity at Lancaster. According to the most recent HESA data available from 18/19 (see https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/staff/table-2), just over 10% of staff at Lancaster were BAME. Black colleagues made up just over 1% of the total. At senior levels, the figures look even worse: There were no black professors at Lancaster University in 18/19 according to the HESA data, and around 4% of professors overall were BAME. In the absence of Lancaster and other institutions publishing information about their ethnicity pay gaps alongside gender pay gaps, we are unfortunately left with a somewhat uncertain picture, but a 2019 report by the UCU (https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/10360/Black-academic-staff-face-double-whammy-in-promotion-and-pay-stakes) found that black academic staff are paid on average 14% less than white academic staff.

Returning to the University’s Instagram feed, one of the posts raised a few eyebrows in the subtext warehouse, not to mention among members of Lancaster University’s Race Equality Network (REN): ‘Unite. Staff and students can unite through the LU Race Equality Network to share, campaign and support one another.’ As the open letter sent to the VC by the REN (see below) states, the previous VC promised in 2016 as part of the EDI Strategic Vision 2020 that Lancaster would sign up to the Race Equality Charter (REC) by 2017 with an eye to accreditation by 2020. It appears that nothing at all has been done about this since then.

It may be tempting to consider this a problem not experienced in our leafy, progressive climes, but Lancaster is by no means immune to racial harassment and discrimination. Take 2018, which brought us the Snow Sports Society white t-shirt scandal and controversial suspension of the black BME Officer who went to the press with details (see subtext 183), instances of swastikas daubed on office doors (see subtext 166) and the charming emergence of a fascist student society that disrupted lectures both public (see subtext 173) and academic (see subtext 176).

The HE environment can be at best negligent, and at worst actively hostile, for black academics and students. Recently the hashtag #BlackInTheIvory has been used on Twitter and other platforms by black academics and students from around the world to highlight the many, many different forms of discrimination and abuse they have encountered at universities. And this is where we return to the University’s virtue signalling versus a lack of concrete action and commitment to real change: there is no point putting ‘Black Lives Matter’ on social media, if the University’s actions suggest that they don’t, when it counts.

***

OPEN LETTER TO THE VC

Dear Andy Schofield,

We hope you are well and settling into the new role at Lancaster. A turbulent time to start.

We are writing regarding your inclusivity statement of 12 June. From the Lancaster University Race Equality Network’s (https://www.luren.org.uk) perspective, it was certainly good to hear of the University’s abhorrence of racism from the top. It was equally important to hear an acknowledgement of the dearth of activity thus far in attempting to address race equality at Lancaster. In the current moment this lack of action appears ever more stark.

Your statement referred to admissions criteria and representation in the Lancaster community, both key, yet the shocking race pay and attainment gaps also require attention. What was notably absent from your statement was any reference to decolonising Lancaster curricula. Unfortunately you are not alone in your reluctance (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/11/only-fifth-of-uk-universities-have-said-they-will-decolonise-curriculum). Yet decolonising work, including both specifically addressing curricula and more systematically interrogating and modifying practices in relation to student/staff recruitment, engagement, retention and attainment, has long been considered central to addressing race equality at all levels of education. Such work is currently being carried out by staff and students at Lancaster without Senior Management support, financial or otherwise.

If as you say you are committed to listening and learning, we hope you will take some time to listen to students from Lancaster University’s Why Is My Curriculum White? campaign, speaking at Decolonise UoK – Stories of Unbelonging (https://youtu.be/irkeT2aalIE), an event run by the University of Kent in March this year. These are our students’ lived experiences. They need to be heard.

We note also your commitment to seeing the University sign up to the Race Equality Charter, ‘and all that this entails’ by which, we presume, you refer to applying for Bronze Accreditation within 3 years of becoming a member. Having been promised this before in the EDI Strategic Vision 2020 (https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/edi/strategic-vision-2020/) you will forgive us if we do not wait with bated breath. LUREN understands that a feasibility study is currently ongoing to identify whether the University can fulfil its commitment to race equality without becoming a member. LUREN is clear that REC membership and accreditation by 2025 is vital if Lancaster is to fulfil its commitments to race equality, and concrete move in the right direction would be the establishment of a Self-Assessment Team and the appointment of a dedicated member of staff with relevant experience.

Race, as a protected characteristic, has long been ignored at Lancaster University, and our attempts to engage Senior Management in the experiences of staff and students from diverse ethnic backgrounds has fallen on deaf ears. But the public consciousness is shifting: Black Lives Matter. Prioritising the education, experience and wellbeing of staff and students is long overdue, but right now institutions, particularly HE institutions, are coming under the microscope. Empty words of commitment are considered simply insufficient (https://twitter.com/divanificent/status/1267746578615480323?s=20). What is required right now is action. We have attached the report by Sofia Akel (https://tinyurl.com/yc6zbocd) from 2018 outlining the situation at Lancaster specifically alongside recommendations. The REC, too, comes with an inbuilt set of requirements and recommendations. As David Lammy so eloquently put it on Radio 4 yesterday (https://tinyurl.com/ya3xtchp), instead of another review commission (or in Lancaster’s case a feasibility study) – implement them.

We wrote to Maria [Piacentini] regarding the suitability of a donation by the University to the Black Cultural Archives (https://blackculturalarchives.org), but have not heard anything further. This would be a good first step in demonstrating the University’s ‘commitment’ to race equality to your staff and students.

We are hopeful that your leadership represents a fresh start to race equality work at Lancaster University. We are tired, and angry, and disappointed. But we are also hopeful. We have every confidence that you will fulfil your responsibility to initiate action, given the broader mainstream narratives of racism in the UK right now. Lancaster has a dubious history of slave trading (https://tinyurl.com/y83n7wqt) but our past does not have to reflect our future. The University has the potential to become a leading light in HEI race equality. We hope that you will see fit to make it happen.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The LU Race Equality Network

If any subtext readers would like to be added to the LUREN mailing list, please contact m.barty-taylor@lancs.ac.uk

Comments Off on SPECIAL FEATURE: Black Lives Matter

Posted in contributed article, news, special feature

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cancel the Rent

Posted on June 19 2020 | Comments Off on Cancel the Rent

A contributed report from your socially distanced subtext correspondent

Student members of ACORN, the tenants and community union, put up a banner saying cancel the rent above the University underpass, and cancel the rent and housing is health posters onto white boards across campus on Monday 25 May, as part of the current student rent strike on campus. In order to comply with lockdown regulations, the exercise involved a very small number of activists who live in campus accommodation and it lasted only c. 40 minutes. Physical distancing was adhered to at all times.

Students involved in the exercise said that there are currently c. 200 students still on rent strike over unfair rent claims made by the University. Many students are stuck on campus due to the lockdown; this affects international students in particular. The University had not yet shown its willingness to negotiate with the students, who made their demands several weeks ago. The students stuck on campus still have to pay the full rent despite many services not being provided, and those who, due to the lockdown rules, had to leave belongings in their abandoned rooms still have to pay 25%.

The students involved in the banner action said that they now struggle with the supply of basic essentials on campus, especially a scarcity of fresh fruit and vegetables. They have had to rely on the heavily overpriced campus Spar and campus central markets, which they say have only a very limited supply of everyday essentials. Fruit and vegetables currently sold in the shops on campus are limited and often near their expiry date. They are also overpriced, compared to the prices for the same items in grocery shops in town. The students also lamented that due to the COVID-19 lockdown, cleaning doesn’t take place in their halls, yet they are still asked to pay for it.

The students reported that it feels strange and somewhat eerie to live on an almost deserted campus.

Comments Off on Cancel the Rent

Posted in contributed article, news

Tagged , , ,

Nuttall Officers

Posted on June 19 2020 | Comments Off on Nuttall Officers

Contributed article by Ronnie Rowlands

Back in those heady, wistful days of February 2020, subtext reported that the students’ union (LUSU) had passed a drastic restructure of its executive officer team without adequate consultation.

LUSU’s reorganisation continues apace, with the sacking of President George Nuttall and the resignation of Vice-President (Welfare & Community) Grishma Bijukumar in April. This follows the departure of Vice-President (Union Development) Hannah Prydderch and Vice-President (Activities) Ben Evans, who both resigned earlier in the academic year, citing a ‘toxic workplace culture’ as the primary reason.

LUSU sabbatical officers skedaddling before their time is a rare, but not unheard of, thing. Throughout its history, LUSU has seen a handful of officer-elects failing their exams and therefore being ineligible to take office. Then there was the guy who won, then immediately resigned in horror upon learning who the other winners were. One officer elect was arrested for assault and barred from taking up office, his insistence that he could adequately execute his duties from a jail cell not quite cutting it with the powers that be.

But LUSU has never found itself down four officers. Just what the bloody hell went wrong?

Throughout his election campaign in 2019, George Nuttall was exalted by the snarky student social media as the saviour of the student voice, which had been sorely lacking since LUSU jettisoned most of its accountability structures in 2015 (subtexts passim). He had a history of activism (well, of giving off the impression that he did…) and, having served on the JCR Executive of the County College, was an obvious choice.

Having barely got its legs under the table, the Nuttall Ministry was immediately beset by the decision of LUSU’s Trustee Board to close the Sugarhouse, swayed to a majority by the vote of one sabbatical officer. A series of tactical (but not particularly subtle) leaks led to the very public outing and larruping of Vice-President (Activities) Ben Evans, who resigned shortly thereafter citing a toxic bullying culture within the officer team.

But still, the Sugarhouse was saved, and the Nuttall Ministry rode the wave of good PR as a substitute for doing much else. In February 2020, Nuttall was re-elected in an unopposed contest. Moments after his re-election, Vice-President (Union Development) Hannah Prydderch resigned.

Her resignation did not follow a surreptitious smear campaign. She left suddenly, citing bullying among the executive officer team as the reason, its concurrence with Nuttall’s re-election open to one very stark interpretation.

LUSU, which was spinning its tyres in the mud and failing to implement any of the policies that were passed at its general meeting in November, limped along.

*

On May 1, LUSU released the following statement:

‘George Nuttall was dismissed from office today following an independent investigation into complaints received by the Union […] Following a hearing, it was decided that […] Mr Nuttall should be dismissed from his post with immediate effect.’

At no point in LUSU’s history has a President been dismissed, either by the Trustee Board, or following a vote of no confidence. An army of sycophants, many of whom are friends with Nuttall on Facebook, immediately took to social media to decry LUSU’s senior management for turfing out ‘the most popular President in institutional memory’.

‘This is what happens when you try to stand up to Uni management – you’re destroyed’ thundered one unhappy student. The verdict of the Facebook Friends of Democracy was that a Good Man had been ousted for ruffling too many feathers.

This just doesn’t ring true.

Your author is proud to have served as a Vice-President of LUSU in 2014-15, and to have been a notoriously obstructive arsepain during his entire time at Lancaster.

Yes, it is true that the journeymen at LUSU’s top table would prefer a supine officer team and a quiet life. Nevertheless, my team and I: picketed open days; plastered campus with photoshopped posters of the Vice-Chancellor; occupied University House; and routinely showed up university management in front of its stakeholders. Yet we were never sacked.

Hell! My President, Laura Clayson, was the most notorious megaphone militant leftie of her era. She went on to be tried for terror-related charges in the Stansted 15 case, and you’re seriously telling me that this guy was subjected to a calculated whitewash for putting his name to a few terse open letters to D-Floor?

Give me a break.

* 

Irrespective of the choreographed outcry, LUSU is an employer, bound by employment law. If a thorough investigation into a complaint is undertaken and that complaint is substantiated, then any organisation worth its salt will follow its HR policy. It seldom ends well for organisations which choose to cover up complaints and protect their figureheads.

There were demands for the nature of the complaints to be made public, but anybody with the brains of a centipede knows that such a move would compromise the anonymity of complainants. Given the way in which the choreographed sycophants have already publicly shamed LUSU officers and Trustee Board members this year, it is easy to see why LUSU might want to protect the complainants.

Some of the choreographed sycophants suggested that Nuttall should have been subjected to a motion of no confidence, to afford the students an opportunity to democratically remove their President.

I harbour some support for this idea. What a pity, then, that a motion of no confidence in George Nuttall, lodged by a student via the LUSU website in March, was summarily withdrawn due to unspecified ‘legal reasons’! Oddly, the Facebook Friends of Democracy had little to say about this.

Then there’s the suggestion that Nuttall is ‘the most popular President in institutional memory’. I would be interested to know what metric was used to make that claim. Whilst it is true that Nuttall was re-elected to the Presidency with ‘70% of the vote’, this isn’t particularly difficult when you’re the only candidate running. Even then, 70% is low for an uncontested election! For most people on campus, the ‘institutional memory’ only stretches back for about three years.

Nuttall does not fare nearly as well in your author’s ‘institutional memory’, which stretches back a decade. In the context of ten years, and using the same metric, Nuttall’s popularity is historically low. There have been three other uncontested sabbatical elections in the last decade – one victor was returned with 83% of the vote, one with 79%, and one with 82%. Furthermore, Nuttall’s re-election campaign attracted 552 votes to Re-Open Nominations, the highest vote share for RON in any sabbatical contest for at least ten years.

Had I the time or inclination, I’d go back further, but this isn’t about sticking the boot into someone while they’re down. It’s about believing people who have been victimised.

I was utterly horrified to see the scorn, deflection, and denial from an organised army of sycophants on social media, their blind rabidity dwarfing the sparse voices of concern for the victims of bullying. The University of Lancaster has been beset by a culture of bullying this year, and it is disheartening to see that culture running so rampantly through LUSU; ostensibly the ‘Good Guys’; its victims dismissed by a court of public opinion that should know better.

Last year, I didn’t envy Nuttall the mess he had to clear up. This year, I do not envy our President-elect the task of lifting LUSU out of the ditch that Nuttall has left it in.

Comments Off on Nuttall Officers

Posted in contributed article, news

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

WIDDEN’S REVIEW – CONCERT FOR REFUGEE CRISIS

Posted on March 27 2020 | Comments Off on WIDDEN’S REVIEW – CONCERT FOR REFUGEE CRISIS
Contributed by Martin Widden
Prompted by the refugee crisis across the Mediterranean, the programme for the recital given on 5th March by the twelve-strong a capella choir Stile Antico was focused on John Dowland’s set of pavans for voice and lute, Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares. (According to Dowland’s contemporary Thomas Morley, a pavan was ‘a kind of staid music, ordained for grave dancing’.) Although dating from the early 17th century, these pavans seem completely appropriate to the tragedies being played out in the 21st, before our eyes as it were: indeed, the first pavan, which opens with the words ‘Flow my tears, fall from your springs! Exiled for ever let me mourn’, could have been composed for the recent Syrian crisis.
Only one of the seven pavans, the first, had a text; the remaining six were purely instrumental pieces, although all were melancholy in flavour. However, Stile Antico commissioned the poet Peter Oswald to provide texts for the remaining six pavans, highlighting contemporary issues of displacement and exile through the prism of Dowland’s music. These pieces were performed in the Great Hall recital on 5th March, alongside the superb Lamentations by Robert White, a contemporary of Dowland. The verses of these Lamentations describe the grief and desolation of the Israelites exiled in Babylon, but they will have had extra significance for White: being almost certainly a Catholic in Elizabethan England, he may well have felt like an exile himself.
Also on the programme was a series of pieces for oud (a form of lute from the Middle East), played by Rihab Azar, a Syrian oud player.
The final piece in the recital was a new work Bodrum Beach, commissioned by Stile Antico from the composer Giles Swayne, which was first performed at the 2019 Brighton Festival. This takes as its starting point the poem Dover Beach, by Matthew Arnold, but the piece was animated by the press photographs of the dead body of a three-year-old boy face down on a Turkish beach opposite the island of Kos – another refugee tragedy.
This piece closed what had been a very well rounded programme, illuminated by excellent programme notes, and brilliantly performed by the singers of Stile Antico.
It also closed the season of Great Hall concerts, since the final concert unfortunately had to be cancelled owing to the COVID-19 emergency.

Comments Off on WIDDEN’S REVIEW – CONCERT FOR REFUGEE CRISIS

Posted in contributed article, review

Tagged , ,

DEMISE OF THE PIE

Posted on March 27 2020 | Comments Off on DEMISE OF THE PIE
Contributed by Paul Arthur
Perhaps it is my age. Or my impoverished 70’s upbringing. Or, just maybe, it is that pies taste good and salad… well, let’s face it, it’s no competition.
For a number of years I have enjoyed lunchtime forays into the pastry-encased joy* of the Bowland Pie. In fairness I had not made the pilgrimage for some time when I discovered, to my utter horror, that Bowland is now a Salad Bar.
‘What?!!!’ My outrage was evident to colleagues (it is hard not to be evident in the closely-packed virus-fermenter that is the workspace favoured by University House). The discovery had been triggered by a suggestion that we should embark on a pie lunch as we had not done so in some time. Over the next few minutes the office buzzed with comments ranging from muted dismay to shouted demands for industrial action.
To understand my sense of loss you must first appreciate the extent to which pies are at the very core of my existence. Whilst travelling in New Zealand some years ago I wrote a blog in which I sampled pies as I travelled (New Zealanders make very good pies). My well-thumbed pie bible ‘Life of Pies’ by the venerable Martin Tarbuck is oft reached-for if I am to travel in the UK. I have shares in Greggs, although that is actually making the best of a bad lot where campus pie-provision is concerned.
Why? Why would you replace pie with salad? Salad has its place, of course. Somewhere in the footer of a menu that features a long list of excellent pies, perhaps.
So, my plea to our revered University Catering colleagues is this. Bring back the Bowland Pie, lest I fade away living a life of quiet despair as I rock in a corner of University House.
* Disclaimer: I am aware that the Bowland Pie was not, in fact, encased in pastry. As a pie topped in pastry it did not, in my somewhat puritanical approach to the world of pie, achieve full compliance with the definition. ‘Joy’ is also stretching things a bit, but I am using a little artistic licence here in order to make my point.

Comments Off on DEMISE OF THE PIE

Posted in contributed article

Tagged , ,

LANCASTER DEBATES THE FUTURE OF UNIVERSITIES (AND TRIES TO SELL A FEW BOOKS)

Posted on February 19 2020 | Comments Off on LANCASTER DEBATES THE FUTURE OF UNIVERSITIES (AND TRIES TO SELL A FEW BOOKS)
Contributed by Megan Marxel
A full room, including many recognisable as dedicated subtext readers, attended the book launch for ‘The University Challenge’ on Monday 3 February, hosted by the Institute for Social Futures. This wide-reaching book on the challenges facing (Anglo) universities was a collaboration between Prof Ed Byrne (VC of King’s College London) and Charles Clarke (former MP, former Home and Education Secretaries, Visiting Professor to Lancaster PPR, graduate of Highgate School [est 1565], Cantab, former President of the Cambridge Students Union and of the National Union of Students). I was impressed by this biography and was curious about what he had to say. But what stands out most in my memory of Mr Clarke is that he looked very bored, especially considering that this was his party.
I didn’t actually make it to the book launch itself (I was teaching), but that was just as well. I was far more interested in the panel discussion that followed. Pro-VC for Engagement Sue Black led a panel discussion on ‘What’s Wrong with Universities and How Do We Fix It?’. As the discussion was only an hour and a half long, we barely even scratched the surface.
Sue started by, somewhat defensively, clarifying that she had not set the discussion topic, which assumes that something is actively wrong with our universities. On the eve of more strikes across 74 universities, her caveat was, at best, disingenuous. She then warned the audience to avoid being ‘too strident’ in expressing our views. Her pre-emptive tone was perhaps understandable though, as Charles Clarke is the man responsible for introducing the university fees that have since gone on to indebt millions of British students.
The panel members each had 5 minutes to reflect on challenges facing universities. Little surprise, these were fairly unmemorable, generic statements about ‘collaborating more’ and ‘better clarifying mission statements’. There were a few exceptions, including when Prof Byrne argued that universities were making active choices to either serve as ‘engines of equality or engines of inequality’. Another exception was Dr Shuruq Naguib, Lecturer in Islamic Studies, who described the findings of over 1,000 interviews with British university students that highlighted the need to meaningfully tackle endemic Islamophobia across our future universities.
Despite these spikes of interest, something felt odd about the panel’s overall response to the prompt: not one person mentioned the plague of managerialism, the tragedy of student debt, relentless growth, the burdens of industrial action, or the risks of instrumentalism. Their polite skirting of the larger issues provoked a knowing sigh, ‘Ah, this is what is wrong with English universities.’
The audience’s questions were rectifying, perhaps because they included impassioned interventions from members of the Lancaster UCU Executive. Particularly memorable was an emotive question about the panel’s recurrent use of the personal pronoun, ‘we’. If ‘we’ are collectively responsible for defining the future of universities, then why do most staff and students feel so disempowered? Prof Byrne responded by highlighting a range of encouragingly democratising initiatives being undertaken at King’s College that left me envious. If true, the trajectories of Kings and Lancaster could not look more different.
Nevertheless, the panel discussion began to open up the types of honest, public debate that Lancaster so badly needs. Even if it comes under the guise of book sales, these conversations must form part of how we begin to fix the many things wrong with our universities.
Near the end of the event, a student was invited to ask a question. Unfortunately, he uttered the word ‘marketisation’. This clearly ruffled Mr Clarke, who retorted that he ‘did not quite understand what is meant by terms like marketisation, commercialisation and neoliberalisation in Higher Education’. I ended my evening by shaking his hand and offering to explain these concepts to him. He declined.

Comments Off on LANCASTER DEBATES THE FUTURE OF UNIVERSITIES (AND TRIES TO SELL A FEW BOOKS)

Posted in contributed article, official meetings

Tagged , , , ,

WIDDEN’S REVIEW – PIANO QUARTET CONCERT IN THE GREAT HALL

Posted on February 19 2020 | Comments Off on WIDDEN’S REVIEW – PIANO QUARTET CONCERT IN THE GREAT HALL
Contributed by Martin Widden
This concert on 30 January 2020 was given by a quartet of violin, viola, cello and piano – a fairly unusual combination, because the modern concert grand can easily drown out the three strings. But Mozart, that brilliant pioneer in all things musical, wrote three works for this combination, and of course he set a very high standard for everyone who followed in his footsteps. Even though the modern grand piano is far more powerful than the pianos of Mozart’s day, he wrote in such a way that (in the hands of skilled performers) the strings always seem to be equals of the keyboard instrument.
Not only were the three Mozart piano quartets object lessons in how to write for this group of instruments – they are also marvellous pieces of music. So it was entirely appropriate that this concert opened with a Mozart piano quartet, K 493 in E flat. It formed a highly satisfying beginning.
The second item in the programme was a piano quartet by the Latvian composer Peteris Vasks. Vasks was born in Aizpute in 1946 into a Baptist family. At that time Latvia lay behind the Iron Curtain, and his Baptist faith prevented him from studying composition as he wished. He therefore moved to neighbouring Lithuania, where he was able to study at the conservatorium in Vilnius. Since the Iron Curtain was lifted in 1991, he has been able to travel and work elsewhere, and has followed a mildly international career, working in Sweden, Austria, Estonia and (surprisingly) Wales, where he was composer-in-residence at the Presteigne Festival in 2006.
His music is sometimes considered minimalist, and is compared with the works of Penderecki, Lutoslawski, Arvo Pärt and George Crumb. The quartet is skilfully written and was remarkably well played, since the performers had had rather limited time for rehearsal. However, its duration of some 40 minutes didn’t seem totally justified by the rather repetitive material.
The concert finished with the Opus 25 quartet by Brahms, written when Brahms was reaching the height of his powers. All four movements of this quartet are wonderful music, but possibly the final movement, a gipsy rondo, is the most outstanding. It finishes with a fast section marked presto, which is very exciting music, to which it is easy to imagine dancing taking place in an increasing frenzy.
The three string players, who have taken the name Moricosta Trio, are all members of the BBC Philharmonic, so they are used to playing together; and Martin Roscoe is a well-loved pianist who lives locally. They played together remarkably well, and this was a very satisfying evening.

Comments Off on WIDDEN’S REVIEW – PIANO QUARTET CONCERT IN THE GREAT HALL

Posted in contributed article

Tagged ,

PENGUINS, A FIRE AND A NASTY CASE OF HYPOTHERMIA

Posted on February 19 2020 | Comments Off on PENGUINS, A FIRE AND A NASTY CASE OF HYPOTHERMIA
Contributed article
As a diligent and (short of annual leave) member of University staff I dutifully made the first-day-after-Christmas pilgrimage to our office in University House on 2nd January. Following the many complaints over previous years I arrived confident that the building would be toasty-warm. How wrong I was. Entering University House was akin to walking into a four-storey freezer.
Arriving at my desk I elected to keep my coat and scarf on. The radiator was stone cold and, as individual fan heaters were banned some time ago, I resigned myself to making the best of it. Jogging on the spot was the thing. Jogging, however, makes it very difficult to work, so after two minutes I sat down.
A short while later a polar bear, which had taken up residence during the break, appeared at the door and demanded that I surrender my coat to him. For a moment I contemplated resisting his request, but he gave me an unfriendly smile and off he went with my coat.
After fifteen minutes waiting for my PC to process essential updates my fingers were numb. I wrapped my scarf around them, but soon discovered this made typing difficult and resulted in my first email being somewhat ruder than I had intended. I was still debating what to do (send emails full of verbal garbage or risk frostbite in my fingers), when I was interrupted by voices. Poking my head around the office door I noted three penguins deep in conversation with the polar bear. There was some gesticulation with flippers and glances in my direction. I retreated to my desk and had barely begun wondering what was going on when the penguins appeared beside me.
‘We want the scarf.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your scarf, we want it. Don’t be difficult or this could get ugly.’
‘Erm…’
‘Right. Grab him lads.’
Ever been slapped by a penguin flipper? It hurts. As the penguins waddled off with the scarf a figure wrapped in furs stumped past. Followed by a sled and a miserable-looking camera crew.
‘Mmmph mmph mm bfff.’
The camera crew looked at each other, nonplussed. The fur-clad figure pulled the covering away from the lower half of his face, and Sir Ranulph Fiennes indicated the corner of the office:
‘Set the fire over there. By that Yucca. Be quick about it or we’ll freeze.’
Stolidly refusing to be distracted further I returned to my PC. By this point my legs were numb and thinking was becoming difficult. Why was Sir Ranulph Fiennes in our office? Andrea was not going to be very pleased if they started a fire next to her Yucca. Maybe I’d be warmer if I had a little lie down.
I woke in the ambulance at around midday. The crew told me it had been a close thing, hypothermia being generally bad for you. Ah. I must have been hallucinating.
‘We found your coat and scarf. Why on earth weren’t you wearing them?’ The ambulance crewman looked concerned.
‘I have no idea, but I had a very odd dream about them…’
‘Think your boss also wants to speak to you urgently about some odd scorch marks in your office.’
The moral of the story? A plea to Facilities. Next year could you turn on the heating just a little earlier? I cannot otherwise be held responsible for my actions.

Comments Off on PENGUINS, A FIRE AND A NASTY CASE OF HYPOTHERMIA

Posted in contributed article

Tagged , , ,

TIERS 4 FEARS

Posted on December 13 2019 | Comments Off on TIERS 4 FEARS
Contributed article
Many have found fault with the recent efforts of the Student Registry to track postgraduate research (PGR) students’ attendance by ‘provision in Moodle PGR Records to record supervisory meetings’ (email to supervisors, 16.10.19).
This new online system of recording all meetings between PGR students and their supervisors is being touted as a way of protecting the rights of students from negligent supervisors, as well as complying with UK Visas and Immigration’s increased scrutiny of students on Tier 4 visas.
Since the new online system offers a non-obligatory notes section in which to log the content of meetings, all the process appears to achieve is a numeric record of dated meetings. Quite how this ensures the quality of engagement from either party is unclear.
Thus we arrive at the secondary premise: surveillance of international PGR students. Students who already register with the Police, the Home Office, the University (through appraisals, registration and DNA tests) and their Departments. Students who are already the object of intense scrutiny by a Home Office intent on making life for them in the UK as uncomfortable as possible.
Caoimhe Mader McGuinness from Unis Resist Border Control (URBC) says these schemes are often presented as safeguarding students’ experience or health:
‘It is sold to lecturers as a way of making sure that the student is taken into account and sees someone, but this is also the sort of data that is used by the Home Office to, if they so wish, declare that that student hasn’t been to enough contact points and then potentially deport them.’
(See Guardian article – Hostile Environment: how risk-averse universities penalise migrants, dated 5.6.18)
It now appears the University’s need to maintain its license to recruit foreign national students (how else would we pay for all the new buildings?!) is, ironically, making it an accomplice to the Home Office, contributing to the UK’s increasingly hostile environment towards our foreign students.
I hope the readers of subtext need no wordy exposition on the intellectual and cultural benefits of a diverse PGR student population. This new system is yet another stumble down a slippery path towards exclusion, alienation and infringement of the rights of those from abroad who choose to enrich Lancaster University’s community through postgraduate research. Shame on management for their capitulation. Philip Pullman had it right: we need some scholastic sanctuary.

Comments Off on TIERS 4 FEARS

Posted in contributed article, news

Tagged , , , ,

WIDDEN’S REVIEW – CAN MUSIC COMMENT ON A POLITICAL SITUATION?

Posted on December 13 2019 | Comments Off on WIDDEN’S REVIEW – CAN MUSIC COMMENT ON A POLITICAL SITUATION?
Contributed by Martin Widden
Some music is composed to celebrate a person – probably the best known example is Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, composed in honour of Napoleon, although Beethoven later withdrew the dedication in disgust at Napoleon’s declaring himself emperor; some portray an actual event, such as Verdi’s opera The Masked Ball, about the very real assassination of King Gustav of Sweden in 1792. But music is usually a self-sufficient form of art, existing without needing to refer to any external person or event. Nonetheless, two recent recitals in the Great Hall have been programmed to respond to the present situation in the world.
The first of these was a performance on 7 November by English Touring Opera of The Silver Lake, by Kurt Weill. (Weill was the composer who collaborated with the playwright Bertolt Brecht on The Threepenny Opera, which includes the well-known song Mack the Knife.) The story of the opera centres on an impoverished youth, Severin, who steals a pineapple and is shot and wounded by a policeman, Olim. Conscience-stricken at what he has done, Olim visits Severin in hospital, and from this follows an increasingly fantastical story, leading the pair finally to a silver frozen lake, which they are able to cross and make their way to a new future. On the bare Great Hall stage without scenery, and to the accompaniment of a 30-strong orchestra, ETO gave a compelling performance of this story about poverty, hunger and deprivation. It is particularly encouraging that, as at all ETO’s performances, the chorus was recruited locally from choirs based in and around Lancaster.

On 5 December, the Great Hall hosted a recital entitled The Labyrinth by the Israeli-American pianist David Greilsammer. Based loosely on Janacek’s suite On an Overgrown Path, this was a series of short pieces, generally improvisatory in nature, by composers ranging from the 17th century German JJ Froberger, via CPE Bach and Mozart, to the contemporary American Philip Glass. The recital lasted only about 70 minutes, but afterwards Greilsammer returned to answer questions from the audience, and it was here that he remarked that he had put together the programme to reflect the chaotic times we are living in. It was a very interesting series of works which made sense in his hands, even though in the printed programme it looked like a random list. Greilsammer was able to master the varied styles of the pieces very convincingly.

Comments Off on WIDDEN’S REVIEW – CAN MUSIC COMMENT ON A POLITICAL SITUATION?

Posted in contributed article, review

Tagged , , , , ,

SPECIAL FEATURE: LANCASTER UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ DISUNION

Posted on November 1 2019 | Comments Off on SPECIAL FEATURE: LANCASTER UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ DISUNION
SPECIAL FEATURE: LANCASTER UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ DISUNION
Contributed articles by Ronnie Rowlands
ONE SUGAR, PLEASE
When we covered the Students’ Union officer elections for the 19/20 academic year, your subtext correspondents observed that the new crop of officers ought to make short work of becoming popular. LUSU had been awash with scandal (sometimes justifiable, sometimes not), including the cancellation of Grad Ball, the Snowsports white t-shirt social and the initial decision (rapidly reversed) to officially recognise a society for literal, self-avowed fascists. The combustible elements lit up into a conflagration when a visceral outpouring of rage followed the decision to strip student radio station, Bailrigg FM, of its FM license and reduce its funding. The officers-elect were quick to promise that they would reverse this decision if the then-current officers did not. The decision was reversed before they took office, and all that the new officers – George Nuttall, Grishma Bijukumar, Ben Evans, Lewis Marriott, Bee Morgan and Hannah Prydderch – had to do to elicit a huge voter turnout was to promise to Make LUSU Not Sh*t Again. President Nuttall was already being exalted by Lancaster’s unofficial social media ‘sh*tposting’ pages as the bringer of a shiny new dawn.
Then LUSU announced that its Trustee Board had voted to close and sell the Sugarhouse.
It didn’t take long for the Full Time Officers to distance themselves from the announcement. Some not particularly well-disguised leaks left the student body under no illusion as to who was responsible – the non-student Trustees, plus one ‘rebel’ Full Time Officer whose decisive vote swayed the decision. This Full Time Officer has subsequently found himself ‘un-personed’ by his fellow officers, reviled by a student body that is seeking to remove him from office and doorstepped in the LUSU building by the student media’s TV cameras.
The students weren’t going to let the Sugarhouse go without a fight. And why would they? The Sugarhouse has remained a staple of Lancaster’s dwindling nightlife and enjoys both good and bad financial years. Perhaps more importantly, the Sugarhouse is regarded as a ‘safe night out’ by students, and there should surely be a space for student-led venues to accommodate the cultural, racial, and sexual diversity among our student population.
The wise decision to call a general meeting was taken, and a ‘Save Our Sugarhouse’ motion was duly proposed… along with a pile of others, on issues ranging from affordable housing to climate change.
Yes, seizing the opportunity to bellow at the union officers in front of a huge audience, a group of Labour students set about foisting a comprehensive campaigning agenda on them. The executive couldn’t rely on the meeting becoming inquorate to jettison the motions – with proxy voting now allowed, hundreds of students were able to make their decision before the meeting, arguably making any debate pointless since the motions were already decided.
Nor could the executive hope to run down the clock or suggest that the motions should be considered in a different forum – procedural motion after procedural motion was passed, and the meeting was repeatedly extended, while motions were moved straight to a vote. Those who stayed it out, delighted that they could finally actually mandate their representatives to do something – anything! – duly voted for every single motion.
It will come as no surprise to learn that the motions to save Sugarhouse were passed. The five LUSU Officers who showed up took the opportunity to stress that they personally had voted AGAINST the closure and sale of the Sugarhouse, in a ‘People vs Parliament’ style move that deflected the anger onto the rest of the Trustee Board.
All in all, the student body finally got to vent some steam, and the groundswell of resentment that has built up over several years may have softened for a while. Whether this was the start of some real steps towards a re-democratised students’ union – which could have prevented some real catastrophes over the last couple of years – or that’s your lot for the next five years, it was heartening to see that the volcano of student anger and rebellion is still active.
***
THE CASE FOR COUNCIL
subtext kept a watchful eye on the gutting of LUSU’s accountability structures in 2015. We predicted at the time that culling most of the officers and dissolving the Union Council – which met fortnightly and could be attended by any student (although policy could only be voted on by officers) – and replacing it with unaccountable ‘Student Juries’ would lead to the very vacuum of accountability and engagement that has led to some of LUSU’s more questionable recent decisions.
The Union Council was a great body. It met fortnightly and was comprised of all of the Full Time Officers, all of the College Presidents and Vice-Presidents, all of the Faculty Reps and all of the Part-Time Officers. The membership had the power to propose and vote on policy, but crucially, ALL students could attend and ask questions. At each meeting, the Full Time Officers were required to deliver information and take questions, meaning that they could not escape direct scrutiny in the public eye. The whole point of Union Council was for officers to consult with their respective ‘juniors’ (the Faculty Reps with their Academic Reps, the International Officers with international students and JCR reps, you get the picture…), and to propose and vote on policy with their views in mind. Sadly, the Council became infested with grandstanders who wanted to hold inward-looking discussions about tedious personal grudges and constitutional minutiae. This in turn became ammunition for an executive, who couldn’t be bothered to undergo scrutiny and face the public, to lobby for its abolition.

Look at the situation LUSU is in now. Can anybody name the last time that the ‘Student Jury’ sat? Do people remember when LUSU introduced a ‘scrutiny panel’, which involved Full Time Officers appointing people to write reports about them that were then buried on the LUSU website? A fortnightly public meeting with the minutes released in a timely way was an ample means of keeping the paranoid headbangers at bay. If anybody said that LUSU was unaccountable, officers could just say ‘we’ve got LUSU Council. Why don’t you show up?’ With no LUSU Council, a Student Jury and a scrutiny panel that never meets, and an Executive committee that doesn’t release its minutes, LUSU’s pressure valves of old are gone. If LUSU wants to return to transparency in any lasting way, it would do wise to reinstate the structures that were so needlessly abolished in 2016.

Comments Off on SPECIAL FEATURE: LANCASTER UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ DISUNION

Posted in contributed article, special feature

Tagged , , , ,

SOCIETY EMAILS GET ‘NUKED’

Posted on November 1 2019 | Comments Off on SOCIETY EMAILS GET ‘NUKED’
Everyone who uses Lancaster’s IT systems will have been briefed many times on the much-publicised phishing attack this summer that led to applicants’ data being stolen – for example, see:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/23/lancaster_university_data_breach/
For most local users, the changes to IT access since then have been a relatively minor inconvenience, though they’ve caused substantial increases in workload for staff who do still have access to relevant systems and data – basically we can’t all be as functional as we used to be, because we can’t stay secure that way. But for some student societies the problems are more significant – an anonymous correspondent submits the following (content redacted to remove all the swear words):
*
The uni decided, over the summer, that it’s too much of a data breach hazard for societies to have IT accounts. They decided this… because staff got phished. Clearly, staff getting phished and a data breach happening that way means society IT accounts are a problem. So what do they do? Do they make a sensible choice and enforce regular password changes for society accounts? Enforce more data protection training? Remind societies to be secure?
No, they just decide to nuke society accounts. Nuke ’em entirely. Do they communicate this effectively? No they don’t.
ISS were meant to get all this sorted before term started. Naturally, it wasn’t sorted in time, but for some reason they decided to not allow room bookings to be released to societies. LUSU front desk staff had to rescue societies by doing bookings for them. Any socs who wanted to have their meeting places on their freshers’ week advertising had only from the Monday of freshers’ week to go to LUSU and book rooms.
Otherwise many many societies would have been handing out flyers that said ‘WE’RE THINGY SOC, WE LIKE THE THING… FIND US… SOMEWHERE. WE GUESS.’
On top of this, the nuking of society accounts means that now, the only way to get any room bookings done is via the personal student accounts of any exec who’ve been verified as exec members. They now seemingly have to validate ALL student exec members EVERY YEAR… which will totally happen on time. And then de-validate them whenever execs change hands. Oh, that’ll be great, won’t it?
On top of that, there’s zero policy in place for non-student exec. At all. Not one bit of thought about us. We are a thing. I’m doing an important activity-coordinating role and now I can’t access room bookings or the society’s email inbox at all – not even room bookings viewing access, so I can’t go ‘Hey, President, please book exactly these rooms at exactly these times’, unless I physically use one of them for access. Similarly, I can’t send emails as the society.
Also, society web pages can be hosted on uni servers. Those are tied to the society account. Or were. We were told that ISS wouldn’t pull society accounts until they had a solution to this, and every time we ask anyone about it, they say ‘Oh, the unioncloud page?’ and we say ‘No, the society web page hosted on uni servers, this one’ and show them, and they say ‘Oh I dunno lol’.
*
This has happened, our correspondent suggests, because someone’s used ‘a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.’

subtext sympathises with our correspondent but also sympathises with ISS, who found themselves all over the press this summer and facing external investigations left, right and centre. We trust that an amicable solution can be found.

Comments Off on SOCIETY EMAILS GET ‘NUKED’

Posted in contributed article

Tagged , ,