Tag Archives: Issue 191

subtext 191 – ‘fresh from the fridge’

Posted on December 13 2019 | Comments Off on subtext 191 – ‘fresh from the fridge’
Every so often during term time.
Letters, contributions, & comments: subtext-editors@lancaster.ac.uk
Back issues & subscription details: http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/subtext/about/
*****************************************************
EDITORIAL
A new dawn has risen on a new day and a new government. Our next chance to change things in Westminster will probably be in 2025. Shall we just go back to bed?
The need for a university which challenges the marketisation of education, defends its international community and champions free speech has never been more important, but as subtext has reported in issue after issue, our management has been merrily pursuing exactly the opposite strategy for years. Our governing bodies show little or no knowledge of the issues which make our students and staff feel less and less welcome – and our students and staff have little or no knowledge of what our governing bodies do in our names.
There are, however, some reasons to be cheerful. Our students have finally realised that a students’ union governed by unaccountable appointed trustees and advised by ‘student juries’ is no way to represent their interests. The results of two referenda in Week 8, one on the proposed sale of the Sugarhouse (see subtext 190) and one on how many trustees should be elected, showed emphatic opposition to the former and widespread support for electing the majority of the latter. The trustees have decided this week to abandon the Sugarhouse sale – ‘you voted, we listened’ says a LUSU press release, which raises the question of just why the trustees had the discretion to not listen in the first place. Meanwhile, our UCU staff have recently taken strike action, with significant support from students and other campus unions.

This is no time to lessen the pressure on those in power, be they sat in University House or Westminster. If the last ten are any indication, the next five years will be dark. The most vulnerable amongst us – the disabled, those from overseas, the sick – will be bearing the brunt of it. It may be tempting to give up, but if we don’t fight now – when?

Comments Off on subtext 191 – ‘fresh from the fridge’

Posted in editorial

Tagged , ,

RETURN OF THE ANGRY DUCKS

Posted on December 13 2019 | Comments Off on RETURN OF THE ANGRY DUCKS
It was pure picket line déjà vu. Not just the buses and cars queuing on the main drive, trying to avoid running anyone over. Not just the hand-made banners and placards, the angry ducks and the picket discos. No, what most made it seem like February 2018 all over again was that staff had downed tools (or keyboards, in most cases) for pretty much the exact same reason as before: to protest against higher pension contributions, after employers refused to fully implement the recommendations of the Joint Expert Panel convened after the last strikes.
There were some differences this time around, however. Rather than just being about pensions, this was the first industrial action at Lancaster over pay and conditions for quite some time – no doubt helped by the focus on workload and equality (in particular Lancaster’s massive gender pay gap). Unlike last time, this strike seems to have enjoyed widespread student support, including from the previously rather apolitical Students’ Union. Successively more senior managers visited the picket lines to chat with the unwashed masses. When the interim VC eventually found his way there, he faced some difficult questions, but was not subjected to quite as thorough a grilling via megaphone as the previous incumbent (see subtext 175).

Rather than striking for an increasing number of days each week spread over a month, this strike was a contiguous period of eight working days. UCU activists were said to be split over the purpose of this different pattern, with some claiming that the current structure was not conducive to negotiation. And in fact, on a national level, there seems to have been very little movement by employers. It seems likely at this point that the pickets will return in the new year, ducks and all.

Comments Off on RETURN OF THE ANGRY DUCKS

Posted in news

Tagged , , ,

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST?

Posted on December 13 2019 | Comments Off on ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST?
In classic Parliamentary style, MPs are not technically allowed to resign their seats. A member who, say, wants to retreat into a shed to write a self-congratulatory memoir after calling a disastrous referendum in a misguided attempt to unify their party is instead said to have ‘taken the Chiltern Hundreds’, accepting the role of Crown Steward and Bailiff of an ancient region (or manor) that no longer exists. The role has no responsibilities and provides no benefit to the holder.
On an unrelated note, news reaches us that LUSU CEO Claire Geddes has stepped down from her role and is now ‘working on a strategic project for the university on secondment’, according to a brief LUSU press release. The LU intranet contains no mention of this, and the University declined to comment when asked by SCAN.
SCAN has characterised Ms Geddes as yet another casualty of the recent Sugarhouse sale affair (see article ‘Sugar Plot Timeline’, Week 9 issue), a list that so far includes the former LUSU VP (Activities) and a number of Trustees. We can neither prove nor disprove a connection, but we note that the timing of the announcement and the silence from the University might lead one to wonder.

We wish Ms Geddes all the best in her stewardship of what will surely prove to be a very exciting, albeit vague, ‘strategic project’.

Comments Off on ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST?

Posted in news

Tagged , ,

ARE YOU STILL HERE?

Posted on December 13 2019 | Comments Off on ARE YOU STILL HERE?
Our last issue recounted the University’s decision to remove the email accounts of hundreds of retired staff on a cost-benefit analysis that determined that they were no longer worth the expense. Since then, we’ve heard from a further six readers: all retired members of staff; all dedicated supporters of the university; and all cheesed-off at having been told to Foxtrot Oscar by the organisation to which many of them have dedicated over half of their lives. In a letter to subtext, Gerry Cotter observes that, even as it tells its former members to go away, the University manages to add an extra helping of unpleasantness. Another reader notes that ‘the excuse this time seems to be a change of Microsoft site licensing, when it was only last year that we were all forced to move to Microsoft!’

The most frustrating aspect of this, of course, is the lack of any serious recourse. When, in 2015, University Council discussed removing privileges from retired members (see subtext 128), at least the matter was being discussed at senior committee level. This decision seems to have just happened, as a way to balance the books, with no approval needed. How many of today’s Council members are even aware of the issue?

Comments Off on ARE YOU STILL HERE?

Posted in newsflash

Tagged , , ,

HONG KONG PHOOEY

Posted on December 13 2019 | Comments Off on HONG KONG PHOOEY
Lancaster University does not seem to be showing a lot of solidarity with its Hong Kong students at the moment. Private Eye and SCAN reported recently on the college accommodation manager who ordered a student to remove a display of sticky notes in a kitchen window which spelled out ‘Stand with Hong Kong’ – SCAN’s story is online at:
https://scan.lancastersu.co.uk/2019/12/04/hong-kong-posters-raise-free-speech-questions-on-campus/
This was not the only recent incident of censorship. On 13 November, a reader wrote to let us know that, at 8:50am that morning, three members of Security were taking down pro-Hong Kong posters. Our reader made enquiries and was told that the University was removing all such posters because they were ‘against the Students’ Union’s rules.’ Lancaster Poster Code 1, Freedom of Speech 0.
On a related note, a group of Hong Kong students came down to the Sports Centre picket line on the first day of the UCU strike to share their stories and to show their solidarity:
https://twitter.com/ZoeFLambert/status/1198982862013370368

Readers with other tales of anti-HK censorship on campus are encouraged to contact subtext at the usual address.

Comments Off on HONG KONG PHOOEY

Posted in news

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 , , , ,

GAME OF THRONES

Posted on December 13 2019 | Comments Off on GAME OF THRONES
A lighter note now. Your subtext correspondent was astonished to find a toilet seat in their building split in two, and even more so to find that a colleague in ISS had seen the same thing. Over decades of toilet use, neither had ever seen such a thing before. They wondered just what the scale of the problem might be, so did the only natural thing: issued an FoI request to the University asking how many toilet seats they had got through over the last few years.
In 2016, the University purchased 337 seats. In 2017, 271. In 2018, 163. University residents and visitors do appear to be getting less destructive in their sitting, but 163 is still almost one every two days.

Just who are the granite-bottomed monsters responsible for this overlooked slaughter?

Comments Off on GAME OF THRONES

Posted in newsflash

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 , , , , ,

LETTERS

Posted on December 13 2019 | Comments Off on LETTERS
Dear subtext,
I read with interest the letter in subtext 190 from ‘Name Supplied’ on the vexed issue of Vacancy Management. I heartily endorse all their sentiments relating to the way that Vacancy Management works in practice, and the lamentable way that the concept of ‘career development’ for Professional Services staff has been sidelined in the wake of the PS Review – even though it recommended the opposite and the Athena SWAN process specifically asks institutions what they are doing to enhance the career development prospects of their PS staff. LU’s long-term failure to grasp the nettle on this issue may not be unconnected to the all-too predictable failure of the institution’s submission for a Silver Athena SWAN award in November 2018 – luckily (!) the Bronze institutional award which we are about to apply for conveniently fails to include PS staff in its purview. This situation does not bode well for the meaningful improvement of Gender Equality in this institution, something that is badly needed as our woeful Gender Pay Gap attests.
However, the specific point I wanted to address was Name Supplied’s comment on the belated claim that of course Vacancy Management would be affecting academics too, and that this would be handled in the departments rather than centrally. What does this mean in practice? In my experience it means that when a much-valued academic colleague takes early retirement on medical grounds, their role is left unfilled for virtually two years. Their work is picked up by a variety of colleagues, several of whom are not on academic contracts. From my own perspective, I am about to cover for this colleague’s absence for the second year in succession on a distance-learning course… and here I am on a PS contract. Presumably if I was to go off on sick leave at the crucial moment my role would not be backfilled, leaving the students without a tutor… or perhaps another academic colleague would be leant on to pick up the slack. Either way it is a most regrettable situation whereby the standards that our students are led to expect can only be delivered thanks to the goodwill of colleagues… over a matter of weeks, months and even years.
Keep up the good work, one and all.
Name supplied
***
Dear subtext,
I’m one of the continuing members who has just lost their email account. The day after it finished I checked it and was greeted by this message:
You have repeatedly attempted to log in with a username or password that is invalid. Your account is currently locked out and cannot be used.
The ‘repeatedly’, apart from being nonsense, makes what is already a charmless message sound positively threatening. I wasn’t expecting thanks for all the years of hard work, but did this have to be so harsh and unpleasant?
Best wishes,
Gerry Cotter

Comments Off on LETTERS

Posted in letters

Tagged , ,