{"id":91,"date":"2017-10-12T15:43:43","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T15:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/?p=91"},"modified":"2017-11-22T11:44:18","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T11:44:18","slug":"court-in-the-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2017\/10\/12\/court-in-the-act\/","title":{"rendered":"COURT IN THE ACT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-family: 'courier new', courier\">David Allen, the Court Effectiveness Review Group&#8217;s &#8216;external reviewer&#8217;, is visiting campus this week to meet with those who asked to be interviewed by him, as part of his review. Mr Allen is a former Registrar at the University of Exeter and we hope he&#8217;ll enjoy his visit. He&#8217;ll be putting together a report for the Review Group, who&#8217;ll be making final recommendations to the University Council in November. The Court won&#8217;t get to discuss the group&#8217;s recommendations before they&#8217;re presented for approval.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-family: 'courier new', courier\">Readers might be wondering:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"list-style-type: circle\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-family: 'courier new', courier\">Why is the review happening? The official position is that it simply makes sense, following a Senate review in 2012-13 and a Council review in 2016-17, to review the way the Court works. We know that the Vice-Chancellor thinks the composition of Court is not especially diverse.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-family: 'courier new', courier\">Hasn&#8217;t there already been a Court Effectiveness Review? Yes there was, in 2007-8. That review group was established by the Court and included several members elected by the Court. The current review group was set up by the Council and we&#8217;re not sure how its members have been chosen. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-family: 'courier new', courier\">Why does it need an external reviewer? According to the Director of Governance&#8217;s &#8216;Green Paper&#8217;, to provide an external perspective (well, yes) and to undertake the review process.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-family: 'courier new', courier\">We&#8217;re sure Mr Allen will do his job diligently, but several omens suggest that the future doesn&#8217;t look bright for the Court. In January we saw management put on a Court meeting that was deliberately as mediocre and unwelcoming as possible &#8211; moving the start time forward, cutting the advertised duration to just one hour, and getting rid of lunch (see subtext 157). In June the Court was unceremoniously stripped of its key role in appointing the Pro-Chancellor (see subtext 165). There was no open call for expressions of interest in serving on the Review Group.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-family: 'courier new', courier\">And there was something about the choice of a former Registrar for the University of Exeter to do the review that got us thinking&#8230; why Exeter? Well, it&#8217;s notable amongst the chartered universities in that, back in 2008, it abolished its Court! The minutes of Exeter&#8217;s University Council meeting in April 2008 record that Council resolved to &#8216;thank Court for its work over the years and to stand it down from the end of the current academic year&#8217;. &#8216;Stand it down&#8217; &#8211; now there&#8217;s a euphemism. Who was the Registrar in attendance at that meeting? Lo and behold, one David J Allen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-family: 'courier new', courier\">Court members thinking of booking train tickets in advance for January 2018&#8217;s Court meeting should be careful &#8211; they will probably find that there&#8217;s nothing left for them to attend.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;font-family: 'courier new', courier\">The deadline for Court members to respond to the Consultation on the Future of Court is Friday 13 October &#8211; so if you&#8217;re a member and have not yet responded, there&#8217;s still time.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Allen, the Court Effectiveness Review Group&#8217;s &#8216;external reviewer&#8217;, is visiting campus this week to meet with those who asked to be interviewed by him, as part of his review. Mr Allen is a former Registrar at the University of &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2017\/10\/12\/court-in-the-act\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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":[4,38],"tags":[40,39,41,42,121],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-official-meetings","tag-community-relations","tag-court","tag-david-allen","tag-exeter","tag-issue-166"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99sHo-1t","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":732,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/09\/13\/university-court\/","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":0},"title":"UNIVERSITY COURT","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"September 13 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"2018 saw the demise of the University Court, one of Lancaster's oldest and most diverse decision-making bodies. The University Court was an annual gathering bringing together a whole array of stakeholders. It made recommendations to the Senate and the Council of the university, was responsible for appointing the Pro-Chancellor, had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;history&quot;","block_context":{"text":"history","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":299,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/01\/18\/the-last-court\/","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":1},"title":"THE LAST COURT?","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"January 18 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The 2018 meeting of the University Court will take place on Saturday 27 January in George Fox Lecture Theatre 1. Many observers will be pleasantly surprised that the Court is meeting at all, given the 'effectiveness review' which took place in late 2017 (see subtext 166). The report and recommendations\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;news&quot;","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":311,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/01\/22\/university-court-newsflash\/","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":2},"title":"UNIVERSITY COURT NEWSFLASH","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"January 22 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"GOODBYE TRANSPARENCY Regular readers of subtext will know that issues outside the regular fortnightly cycle are released very rarely, and only on issues that the collective deems to be urgent. As predicted by subtext, the University Court is to be abolished (subtexts 166, 169, 170, 171). Its final meeting, where\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;news&quot;","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":223,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2017\/11\/23\/senate-report\/","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":3},"title":"SENATE REPORT","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"November 23 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The November session started with a written question to the VC asking if there were any plans to build lecture theatres capable of accommodating larger groups of students. The lack of such space was causing major problems for the larger teaching departments. Replying on behalf of the VC, Deputy VC\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;official meetings&quot;","block_context":{"text":"official meetings","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/official-meetings\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":246,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2017\/12\/07\/letters-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":4},"title":"LETTERS","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"December 7 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"An Open Letter to readers of subtext The announcement at the annual meeting in January 2017 of a review of the effectiveness of the Court \u2013 a body often likened to the annual shareholder meeting in a private company \u2013 seemed at the time relatively inconsequential. Six months elapsed before\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;letters&quot;","block_context":{"text":"letters","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/letters\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":323,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/02\/01\/court-the-final\/","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":5},"title":"COURT: THE FINAL","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"February 1 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Unloved by the people organising it, but defended by the people attending it, the final meeting of Lancaster University's Court on Saturday 27 January 2018 in George Fox Lecture Theatre 1 ended up being very long, occasionally lively, and rather enjoyable. By subtext's count, 116 members turned up, with 53\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;official meetings&quot;","block_context":{"text":"official meetings","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/official-meetings\/"},"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\/91","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=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions\/93"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}