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INKYTEXT 282 Part I
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THIRD INKYTEXT OF LENT
International non-smoking day
Issue No 282 Wednesday 10th March 1999
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Editorial correspondence should be sent to InkyText@lancaster.ac.uk
Subscription requests to Inkytext-distribution-request@lists.lancaster.ac.uk
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AGENDA
Minutes, Amendments, Matters arising
1. Editorial: Standards, Damned Standards and the DfEE
2. News: Corporate Plan Draft 3, Salaries, SU elections, CVCP, Music posts,
Agenda Group, Teaching ratios, HEFCE, Marketing LUSI, DCE, UMAG, TEP.
3. Guest Contribution: Pascal Desmond on Motoring Subsidies
PART II
will appear anon and contains
4. Paris Diary: Air Miles afford four days of beatific beavering (Part II)
5. Small Ads: Flat share; Atlas-ti course, Chest of drawers, Cars, Furniture,
Houses to rent, Wool wanted, Transcribing machine wanted, Peer Gynt, Events.
6. Readers' Letters: Hitching, Linux, TESOL, Ruskin, Garstang Incinerators,
Y10K, Alumni Bay Walk, HEFCE grant reports.
MINUTES, AMENDMENTS, MATTERS ARISING
------------------------------------
Seven short-listed candidates for the post of university secretary
made presentations to the appointment panel yesterday. They also had a
buffet lunch in the new conference centre with Pro-VCs, the Librarian,
Director of Personnel and Mrs Gardner. University House staff were
struck by their relative youthfulness (mostly early forties). Three
will be called back for interview.
As well as Ruskin, the Library extension is causing concern. Fungal
discoloration is spreading rapidly on the north-facing cladding and the
wall bearing the Ruskin nameplate. Apprehension about some panels on
the southern side also.
Medecine and Liverpool: UMAG was concerned the level of uptake of
Lancaster modules might not make them financially viable, but has
responded very positively, subjec to clarification of such issues.
Short term action on Catering is to include the appointment of a
Commercial Manager to oversee a reamalgamated Catering and Conference
function, opening of a coffee bar in a central location and improved
degree ceremony provision. Current turnover is about 800K. The
consultant's report is understood to have cost 12K and this sum is
reported to have been charged to the Catering account.
The 'total resources' referred to in last week's HEFCE grant
announcements are the sum of teaching and research grants plus assumed
student fees.
1. EDITORIAL: STANDARDS, DAMNED STANDARDS - AND THE DfEE
--------------------------------------------------------
Light-bulb fittings, diskettes, coffee filters, CDs, tapes and other
recording media, camera film, razor-blades, paper sizes, computer
operating systems, clothes sizes, wine-bottle sizes, credit card shapes
and sizes, maybe even, indeed, sealing wax, shoes and, if not ships, at
least classes of small racing dinghy.
Some standards, examples above, be they national or aspiring to
universality, are undisputedly functional and beneficent. We bless the
fact that they have been agreed - especially those of us old enough to
remember the days when they had not. Where standards do still vary -
e.g. voltages and electric plugs - travellers soon spot the
disadvantages, however ingenious may be the conversion devices they've
bought from Boots.
However. Even slower readers have spotted that these inanimate objects
are fairly mono-functional and mostly belong to the category known in
Biz-speak as FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods).
Here indeed there is value in standardisation, for the 'worth' of the
objects lies in their function, which is fairly constant and narrowly
definable. Where value is purpose it even reinforces the perception
that true competition between different manufacturers, including price
competition, can both exist and be perceived by the end-user. This
perception is almost always false, but it brings us the consoling
delusion that we can make rational and cost-effective choices.
Students, however, are neither light-bulbs to be switched on nor wine
bottles to be filled. However inert some may sometimes seem, they are,
without exception, sentient individuals with a will of their own. Like
all other humans their 'worth' is intrinsic. To see and treat them as
merely job-market fodder or an economic resource is arrogant and
grotesquely dehumanising. Also educationally counter-productive.
The more varied and multi-functional the nature of their educational
experiences, the more polyvalent and unforeseeable the purposes it
serves become, the less sense it makes to try to impose upon them
uniformity of experience or attainment.
Which, being translated, means that normative and nation-wide
standards or 'gradings' make most sense with narrow, specific and
relatively low-level activities whose purposes are relatively
unchanging and broadly agreed: reading, writing, rithmetic, swimming,
judo, learning an instrument, low-level language acquisition.
In these cases, climbing a ladder of achievement with badges and
certificates to prove it may even provide a ludic form of motivation
for the learner.
Yet 'degrees' too are, by definition, 'steps of a ladder'. The naive
quality assessment question then becomes why, if national gradings
'work' (= are valuable) for some activities, can they not be equally
valuable for university degree schemes, when all it takes is to break
the latter down into bite-sized chunks.
Well they ain't, and if you can't see why you perhaps you should seek
work with the Department for Education and Employment or the QAA, where
you'll find naught but kindred spirits. More next time.
2. NEWS
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THE THIRD DRAFT OF THE CORPORATE PLAN may now be down-loaded from the
Planning Office Website, complete with Section 6. See what kind of
future your department is to have. Perplexity and mild outrage in some
Humanities circles at the fact that the Faculty's carefully worded
suggestions appear to have been largely ignored.
CONGRATULATIONS TO NEW STUDENT UNION SABBATICAL OFFICERS elected yesterday:
Womens Officer - Lou Edge
AU President - James Crouch
SCAN Editor - Sarah Smith
Education and Welfare - Debbie Srao
General Secretary - Stu Aitken
President - Rob Massy
(The huge turn-out of 2 536 voters represents a significantly better
voting ratio than in most student elections.)
AUT SALARY CLAIM: The HEFCE grant letter contains a strongly worded
reminder that universities will be expected to stick by public sector
salary norms. At Lancaster, a 3.5 percent payroll increase is being
built into next year's budgets, but there are fears that in avoiding
industrial action a realistic settlement may be between 4 and 5
percent. If unfunded this would create difficulties for a large number
of institutions in our sort of position. The VC has twice expressed
concern that UCEA (employers' side negotiators) is not taking into
account the differential ability of institutions to pay the sums spoken
of.
BAND D TEACHING RATIOS: The CVCP last week noted that the
student-staff ratio now implied by the basic per capita TEACHING
funding of Humanities and other Fee Band D students is 33-1. Classes
are kept below this only thanks to QR (Research) money and resources
notionally diverted from elsewhere. It is hope a campaign on 'class
sizes' may be initiated from the top.
TAX EXEMPT PAY: PriceWaterhouseCoopers have been auditing the
operation of last year's scheme. If all's well participants may receive
a small bonus with their March salary.
THIS MORNING'S UMAG is discussing the HEFCE grant announcement and its
implications (scores of documents from the Planning Office). Also a
paper from Prof Shepherd on HEDEC and the latest drafts of bits of the
Corporate Plan. Discussion of the Student Union 5 Year Plan has been
postponed because of the illness of the SU General Manager.
MARKETING LUSI: Our in-house student record system is to be
commercially marketed. A version is already operating in Nottingham
University by special arrangement.
ACTION ON THE COMMERCIAL EXPLOITATION of research and marketing of
research expertise, it was agreed that the group which had prepared the
report, with the addition of Pro-VC Davies, should consider further
action within existing resources. Yet another UNIAC report will assist
the group in developing policy. Bids have been submitted for European
funding to support temporary appointments in these areas
HEFCE now require an annual operating statements in July 1999; to seek
full corporate plans in future on a 3 year cycle rather than annually
as current practice. Sanity at last (and maybe less work for the
Planning Office....?)
THE EVOLVING CORPORATE PLAN, well behind its brave initial schedule,
is now being geared to reach the June Council meeting
WOMEN IN MANAGEMENT: a body calling itself 'The Agenda Group' and
comprising a large number of senior female academics and administrators
submitted a document on the presence of women in the upper echelons
which was discussed at UMAG. The latter agreed that the Vice-Chancellor
should reply, noting Council's existing policy to address the issues
raised. Pro VC Whitaker and the Director of Personnel are (through the
Employment Committee) to assess the effectiveness and outcomes of
processes designed to ensure appropriate representation, not only of
women but of ethnic minority groups in posts in different sectors of
the University.
UMAG HAS AGREED TO RE-ADVERTISE one of the two available posts in
Music at Lecturer or Senior Lecturer grade.
CONTINUING EDUCATION: Long discussion by UMAG of the UNIAC (auditors)
look at the DCE.... The recent and unexpected investigation of
Continuing Education produced a sympathetic report. Professor
Abercrombie is to consult further on the implications of adding CETAD
to the Board which now deals with the development and business plans of
MDD and PDU. He will also consult further on a revised and more
focussed mission for DCE, geared primarily to its Open Studies,
Community Access, and Widening Participation programmes. 'For both DCE
and CETAD there was though to be a need to clarify and distinguish
their strategic relationship with the mission of the University and the
reporting and management lines which ensure their full integration.'
(Apologies for the language: that was a quotation.)
3. Guest Contribution: MOTORING SUBSIDIES by PASCAL DESMOND
-----------------------------------------------------------
Your motoring correspondent had some interesting things to say in Inky
279. The responses in Inky 280 were also useful. I hope my contribution
helps to inform the debate.
It is true that motorists pay nearly 84% tax on fuel. This illustrates
how cheap it is to get the stuff out of the ground in Nigeria, Ecuador,
Colombia, Iraq or Kuwait [and how cheap human life is in these places].
Subsidies: (1) car manufacture. Since New Labour came to power, the
government has provided significant and substantial subsidies to Ford
... to keep them at Halewood on Merseyside and GM/Vauxhall ... to move
their R&D unit from Germany to the UK; and it is likely that BMW will
receive a lorry load of used tenners to rescue Rover.
Subsidies: (2) company cars. Typically, a 15,000 pound car will cost a
company just 8,000 pounds. In addition, the cost and the annual road
fund licence can be written off against tax and there are tax rewards
for driving more miles [thus adding to existing congestion and
pollution]. This is inequitable.
Air Pollution: The Committee On the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants
(1998) "The Quantification of the Effects of Air Pollution on Health in
the United Kingdom" DoH/HMSO, London, concluded that *at least* 12,500
people [and it may be as many as 24,000] die each year from
traffic-derived air pollution in mainland Britain. It concluded that a
further 9,900 are hospitalised annually because of the effects of
traffic fumes. To put this in perspective, there are approximately
11,000 staff and students at Lancaster University. All this hospital
treatment and lost work time costs the taxpayer an awful lot.
Overall costs: Those with the inclination would find it rewarding to
read David Maddison et al., (1996) "The true costs of road transport"
Earthscan, London. They estimate that the cost of supporting road
transport is 50 billion per annum. In contrast, the total excise, road
fund, VAT and tax income from all road transport is 24 billion per
annum - or considerably less than half the cost. There are some 24
million vehicles out and about on the UK's roads. They pay 1000 pounds
each year in taxes. All those who do not own or use cars subsidise each
vehicle, on average, by *at least* 1000 pounds each year.
As a taxpayer, pedestrian, public transport user and cyclist, I object
to subsidising the car industry. In particular, I dislike subsidising
company cars. More importantly, I find it distasteful that a *minority*
of car users slag off other taxpayers who subsidise their travel.
Finally, there is one wonderful irony in what your motoring
correspondent wrote "How often does one see a cyclist, unless they are
riding on the pavement, riding in darkness without lights ..." Sadly,
in the courts, all too often one will hear car drivers bleating "Sorry,
I didn't see you" when they bulldoze a pedestrian or cyclist in broad
daylight even though in 3/4 of such accidents the motorist is at fault.
God bless your eyesight!
May I finish by sharing the telephone help line for RoadPeace with
your readers - 0181 964 1021 [RoadPeace <http://www.roadpeace.org.uk>
assists victims and families involved in crashes, and recommends
victims to contact them sooner rather than later - especially for legal
advice].
PART II SHORTLY PERHAPS