{"id":552,"date":"2018-05-10T13:01:44","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T13:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/?p=552"},"modified":"2018-07-26T13:02:54","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T13:02:54","slug":"ceremonial-evenhandedness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/05\/10\/ceremonial-evenhandedness\/","title":{"rendered":"CEREMONIAL EVENHANDEDNESS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harry S. Truman once famously pleaded for a one-handed economist, tiring of his questions being answered with ‘On the one hand … and on the other’. And so it is with the proposal to have some PhD students share their conferrals with summer graduates, which has split opinion in the subtext warehouse.<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea is that a number of PhD graduands will be spread across most of the July ceremonies, with around ten attending each event. Allocating them in this way will ensure the message of the university’s research mission and impact on the wider world reaches multiple ceremony audiences. Whether that message would actually be interpreted as intended by the parents in the audience is an interesting question. As in last December’s PhD ceremony, the title of each thesis would be read out. As readers may know, the world of academic research is a far more inclusive, eclectic and unusual place than some parents may assume. We suspect eyebrows would be raised at some of the more interesting PhD titles that would be read out – especially ones from those degenerate disciplines like sociology, criminology and linguistics. There might even be swear words! Current PhD title favourites (not from Lancaster) include ‘Jesus Potter Harry Christ’ and ‘Intimate Relationships With Artificial Partners’. The proposal suggests that listening to some of the work being announced in this way would not be ‘engaging for the guests’. subtext begs to differ. We feel this could generate quite a frisson of wonderment. Is that what they do at University?<\/span><\/p>\n

subtext understands that, under the current system, PhD students need to submit any corrections by 30th Sept to guarantee a place at the December ceremony. From 2019 onwards, this deadline moves forward to 31st August (with 28th Feb as the deadline to get into the July ceremony). Someone students finishing their corrections in September would be massively disadvantaged by the proposed changes. Previously, they would get their PhD within 3 months, while under the new proposals they would have to wait 10 months! Many PhD students have their vivas in June, July, August or September, and then work solidly on corrections (if needed) by the end of September.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand(!), under current arrangements, someone submitting in October would have to wait 14 months until their conferral. It would be good to look at some actual figures on completion dates, but alas, no statistics were provided in the proposal. If the figures for completing corrections are uniformly spread across the year, then the proposal has some merit. On the other other hand (CLANG), if there is a late summer spike, then the change might disadvantage more students than it helps. subtext welcomes the views of one-handed or two-handed subscribers on this particular topic.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harry S. Truman once famously pleaded for a one-handed economist, tiring of his questions being answered with ‘On the one hand … and on the other’. And so it is with the proposal to have some PhD students share their … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[322,310,323],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-graduation","tag-issue-177","tag-phd-students"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99sHo-8U","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":767,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/10\/11\/heaton-heat-off\/","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":0},"title":"HEATON, HEAT OFF","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"October 11 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A few readers may still have distant glimmers of a memory of Chris Heaton-Harris, the Conservative MP who tried to force universities to reveal which nasty academics were poisoning the minds of young and impressionable students with the idea that Brexit might not all be jam and prosecco (see subtext\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":145,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2017\/10\/26\/upon-fuhrer-investigation\/","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":1},"title":"UPON F\u00dcHRER INVESTIGATION","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"October 26 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"As promised in the editorial, here is everything we know regarding the defacing of posters with Nazi graffiti. The story that we published in subtext 166 refers to three separate incidents in the Sociology Department over the summer. We understand that all of the incidents took place in the evening\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":838,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/11\/23\/hostile-environment-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":2},"title":"HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT UPDATE","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"November 23 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A petition has been launched against the fees charged to non-EEA citizens working at Lancaster, and the University's (in)activity in helping those who have to pay them. Supporters note that, whilst some universities fully cover these costs, Lancaster's loan scheme fails to cover all relevant expenses and must be repaid\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":260,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2017\/12\/07\/immovable-type\/","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":3},"title":"IMMOVABLE TYPE","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"December 7 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1010,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2019\/05\/23\/meanwhile-in-dundee\/","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":4},"title":"MEANWHILE IN DUNDEE","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"May 23 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Our former Deputy Vice-Chancellor Andrew Atherton looks like he's got off to a storming start in his new role as VC at Dundee. 'Blind student facing deportation says university reneged on support,' reports The Guardian on 13 May. Bamidele Chika Agbakuribe, from Nigeria, was promised 'state of the art' facilities\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":139,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2017\/10\/26\/valued-members-of-staff\/","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":5},"title":"VALUED MEMBERS OF STAFF","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"October 26 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In the last edition of subtext we reported on the problems of staff on termly contracts and their inability to get a staff bus pass. subtext has learnt of similar problems concerning hourly paid teaching staff who drive to work, and although we have historically avoided publishing stories about parking,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":553,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions\/553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}