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INKYTEXT 311
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Issue No 311 Monday 6th September 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. News: Novel, Ninian Smart, Building works, Debenture restructuring, Phones.
2. Readers' Letters: Dave Boyle, Bob Bliss, Plagiarism. Planning,
Attachments, Cycle Track, Fume cupboards.
3. Small Ads: House for sale, Accommodation to let, Citroen BX, Variety
Show, Hispanic visitors, Domain names.
Minutes, Amendments, Matters Arising
------------------------------------
Reports of differences of opinion at the highest levels over the best
response to the Chemistry situation. Some disquiet, and suggestions
that a decision should not be forced upon us (effectively by
Sheffield's go-ahead VC) without a Senate meeting.
1. NEWS
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CONGRATULATIONS TO SARAH MAY whose first novel, The Nudist Colony, has
just been published by Chatto and is shortlisted for the Guardian
Prize. Sarah was an undergraduate student in the Department of Creative
Writing during 1991-1993.
WELCOME BACK TO EMERITUS PROFESSOR NINIAN SMART, founder of Religious
Studies (the department if not the discipline) who has returned to the
area for at least part of the year. Finally retired from Santa Barbara,
he is selling his flat in London and has bought a property in Over
Kellett. Prof Smart's suntanned figure enviably belies his years.
RESTRUCTURING THE BOND: Official announcement that a substantial
majority of our debenture-holders have agreed a deal under which Ambac
Assurance UK guarantees our 35 million bond. Bond holders meet on the
22nd of this month to ratify it.
This is the good news that has presumably grown out of our engagement
of Rothschild's to give us advice (at 40K I think). It is claimed to
save us in total about 3 million over the remaining 21 years of the
life of the bond.
This putative saving presumably means an easing of cash flow and
derives mainly from the new way in which repayment of the principal
will be accumulated (which may involve paying interest to ourselves or
something similar). It is a fairly modest figure given what our
interest repayments over the period will total.
More importantly it uses total assets to replace some of our property
as security. This is the truly significant part of the deal, since it
will for example allow the sale, or sale and lease back, of some recent
buildings that at present serve as security for the debenture. Hence
increased freedom of manoeuvre for our financial wizards....
Ambac Assurance Inc. is a holding company that provides through its
affiliates financial guarantee insurance and financial services to
clients in both the public and private sectors worldwide.
Ambac's Financial Management Services Division provides asset and
liability management and other services to governments and governmental
entities. Ambac Assurance is primarily engaged in insuring municipal
and structured finance obligations and is the successor of the oldest
municipal bond insurance company, which wrote the first municipal bond
insurance policy in 1971. Ambac Assurance has been assigned triple-A
claims-paying ability ratings, the highest ratings of Moody's Investors
Service, Inc., and Standard & Poor's. [NB: Plagiarism (Ed.)]
The commission/ premium we are paying AMBAC for this insurance is not
known. (Accountants: suggestions of ball-park figures, please.) The
financially naive ask who is the loser, given that the bond-holders are
sitting pretty and aren't going to disadvantage themselves, we claim a
cash saving, and Ambac earns its money this way.... But such are the
holy mysteries of Higher Finance.
TELEPHONES: THE NEW VOICE BANK has been delivered and installed.
Operators have begun to receive training in its use. It is hoped that
it will be operational in the next few weeks. Instructing new users is
feared by some to be a long process, but in fact now that even children
readily learn to use their own mobiles in an hour or two this fear may
be exaggerated.
(Some have distant memories of the 'trickle-down' process used last
time to instruct a chosen group of users on Plessey's own terminal.
Unfortunately when it went live an enthusiastic user's narrow-cast
message to senior officers rather phased recipients' secretaries, who
hadn't yet learnt how to switch it off when it got to the end...
Unfortunately a bug in the system prevented the engineer deleting the
message as well....)
PS A new (long overdue) internal phone directory is due in October.
TERMS: This year's Christmas vacation will be 3 weeks, starting 18th
December and the Easter vacation 5. (Still not sure why this has to
be....)
BUILDINGS: Ummm. Delays in the start of the building work in the new
financial year. Alan Ellis, surveyor responsible for negotiating and
issuing contracts, left at the end of July and has not been replaced.
Building work has now to be authorized by an approvals group (Mr
McGregor et al), and this has occasioned some delay. The Director of
Buldings and Eastates has also been on holiday.
THE REFURBISHMENT OF LONSDALE BAR has cause some eyebrow-raising,
since it was actually in such good nick that the carpet is being bagged
for the college office. Not sure who approved it as priority. Some of
the light-fittings are barely 18 months old. The extensive work
involves demolising numerous partitions and creating a vast open space
that extends into the former Lawrenson's. This means that other
possibly more urgent work on the TV room and the study area may not be
done. Puzzling but presumably a commercial decision. Estimated cost
rumoured to be 80K (disputed).
COUNTY: this year's work consists of gutting the kitchens and
demolishing the utility rooms. The kitchen floors have been
quarry-tiled and much more workspace and cookers are being provided.
Attractive fittings and it even looks as if it may be finished on time!
After the new, lined curtains last year and the security locks and
bells on the corridors it is looking nice. Except for the carpet on the
stairs....
TALKING OF CARPETS: the Management School's one in the entrance foyer,
with its own green logo, seems to have reached the end of its life.
FYLDE BEDROOMS: The contract for this work will not be fulfilled in
time mainly because the contractor doesn't seem to have been told time
was of the essence. Most of the furnishings in bedrooms stripped for
refurbishment will have to be replaced. (A carpet is being laid in the
JCR and the bar re-opens today).
THE MOST PUZZLING WORK is that which isn't happening. For a third year
the vacant gift shop lies untouched. The SPAR/ bookshop premises are
the subject of many rumours, most reliable of which says a licence is
being sought for a Cafe-bar to be run in-house. Another says that
Wibbly-Wobbly is interested. But still not a sign of builders in the
derelict premises.
3. READERS' LETTERS
-------------------
After 4 years as a student and nigh on 3 as a member of staff, I'm
finally leaving the University for pastures new as Communications
Officer for Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council. Having taken courses
in 10 different departments as an undergraduate and postgraduate, been
a student college officer, a Union officer, a sabbatical officer-elect
(for 3 days), unemployed, and finally a member of staff and senior
college officer, it's safe to say that I've most of the things one can
do in a University.
Before I depart, I'd like to thank all those students and staff, past
and present, who have helped to make the past 7 years the most
enjoyable and rewarding of my life. There are too many to mention all
by name, but I'd like to single out David Denver and Mick Dillon
(Politics), Fred Botting and Scott Wilson (English) and Lynn Abrams
(ex-History) and the 1995-6 cohort of MA students in Sociology for
special mention.
I'd like to be able to thank everyone in person, but I haven't got
enough time between now and my departure to do this. So, instead, I'll
be in Cartmel Bar from 1pm on Friday 10th September (my last day) if
anyone wants to come along and say goodbye. I'll still be living in
Lancaster, and no doubt will continue to see people around and about,
and will of course still be an avid reader of Inkytext. When I've
finally got some contact details, I'll post them here.
I'd like to wish everyone I've worked with in the last 7 years a
successful future individually, and with a QAA audit of the institution
coming up next year, every success to the University collectively. No
performance indicator or league table can ever express or prove my
absolute conviction in the University's excellence, and my gratitude
for the work of inspirational and dedicated staff who have made it such
a fantastic place to live, work and study cannot be fully expressed in
words (or numbers). Once again, thanks to everyone and best wishes for
the future.
Dave Boyle
Academic and Postgraduate Adviser
LUSU
-------------------------------------
On seeing the piles of cookers and fridges outside various colleges
recently, someone did a bit of digging and discovered the "rumour" that
it's considered more important to keep cookers and fridges up to date
than it is to keep teaching equipment up to date because "the students
pay for the kitchen equipment".
--------------
I have followed your recent debate on plagiarism with interest.
However, I fear this is another area where the purist aims of academia
are failing to deliver the practical requirements of industry. Out here
in the big bad world we practice something called "re-use", and it's a
virtue not a sin!
In fact, since re-use is the single most important contributor to
reducing software development costs, I teach it as one of the main
tenets of good design practice. The relationship between "re-use" and
"intellectual property theft" is rather like that between "tax
avoidance" and "tax evasion" - the practical techniques are very
similar, but based mainly on an assessment of the perpetrator's success
we judge their morality and legality (with no guarantee that the two
judgements coincide).
In fact, if computing departments want to produce graduates who are
more able to contribute rapidly to industrial work, they should
consider teaching the following practical skills (I am 100% serious):
Willingness and ability to effectively re-use other people's analyses,
designs, source code and executable code;
Ability to adopt and communicate ideas to audiences not reached by the
ideas' originators;
Ability to follow common styles and standards (both internally and
externally) in collaborative work, so that the authorship of elements
of the whole is indistinguishable;
Ability to gain a clear understanding of other people's work (even
when the information is hidden or poorly communicated) in order to
understand the big picture.
In reality, on some projects some members are valued for their lack of
original thought - there is nothing more dangerous to a large software
project than too many prima donnas who insist on doing their own thing.
Conversely much of my benefit to my clients comes from my ability to
research ideas from elsewhere, and then re-cast, communicate and apply
these ideas to meet my clients' problems.
Maybe this is an area in which Lancaster could lead the world. How
about a free ninth entitled "Best Practices in Plagiarism"? If you want
an external lecturer or examiner, who will properly reward the
photocopying marks and consistent mis-spellings, you know where to
come.
Andrew Johnston
Independent Service Company in the IT Sector and proud of it!
* See Inland Revenue White Paper IR35 for details of currently
available tax avoidance schemes.
[NOTE: The author was a County Physics student and effortless First
some 20 years ago. Thanks, Andrew, ahead of your time as usual. The sad
thing is that we don't even HAVE a ninth unit now let alone a free
one.... :-( This year's Part IIs only enroll for 8 units so departments
are suppose to be beefing up all the others by 11.111 percent....
(Joke). (Ed.)]
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RE: Reports that a request for planning permission for a health centre
have been turned down on grounds of access and traffic generation. One
might ask if the same criteria will apply to the business and
industrial park planned for the Bailrigg Village area (which involves
the destruction of the green belt separating the University from
Scotforth) and given much publicity by our MP Hilton Dawson.
Richard Roberts.
----------------
You can find the draft of our proposals on General Education at
http://cstl.semo.edu/GESC/
It's a lot of trouble to go to, but I think it will be worth it. In
part, we (in Missouri) acted to forestall legislative interference with
and definition of educational requirements (e.g. on the models
unfortunately already explored and implemented in Georgia, Florida,
Colorado, etc.).
In part, we acted because the current Missouri policy states absurdly
minimal goals for General Education (this used to be called 'liberal
education', but we did not bite that particular bullet). And in part,
we acted because the current system has no review mechanism (or
'quality control') for transferable General Education credits/programs.
(By state law, full transfer of graduation credit for satisfactorily
completed GenEd programs is a student's right).
In respect of the last, the review mechanisms we propose, towards the
end of the extract you have, issued originally from a paper I wrote for
the committee on English (British) systems of peer review: especially
external examining but also the research and teaching reviews. (The
preferred quality control model for many was at first random testing of
student capabilities, etc., which I opposed as (a) inevitably tending
towards standardized curricula and (b) impossible to devise.)
My scheme had some opposition until, this summer, when we met in
Aspen, Colorado (!!!), at the American Academy of Higher Education
Summer Academy, we had the services of two gurus of American higher
education who had both worked in and researched the British system.
They spoke very highly of these review mechanisms, as essentially
collegial and essentially faculty driven. I did not dissent, for
although I was a little surprised at all they said, I was happy to
start out with the aim or ideal that our curricular reviews should be
faculty controlled, faculty driven, and collegial. And so it was
accepted.
General Education should be the core curriculum of the American
academy, and if this proposal is approved and implemented, we might
actuallly achieve that in Missouri. That would be very nice, and very
satisfying, for us all.
Bob Bliss
University of Missouri at St Louis
--------------------------
Twice this year I have been frustrated by articles I have submitted to
editors by email as attached documents being delivered in a mangled
form. ISS warns us that the university's systems handle attachments in
what they call a "less than perfect" manner, and this does indeed seem
to be the case. One of the helpdesk staff made enquiries for me and
discovered that there is reliable software in the university's hands,
but no space on the university's machines to make it available.
In an age when electronic copy is readily available, and makes
editors' jobs so much easier, those editors aren't going to want to
receive anything else; and when an editor can now describe even the
practice of sending disks through the post, as one recently has to me,
as old-fashioned, it seems that Lancaster is putting its academics, and
hence by definition the university itself, at a competitive
disadvantage by failing to make electronic submission a straightforward
matter.
Do other readers have any comments, observations, experiences?
Tom Barney
------------------
It is very interesting reading the various opinions on cyclists and
their rights/non-rights. It has occurred to me over the summer months
how little the University really does to attract people to leave their
cars at home and cycle/bus/car-share in.
I know of more people like me, who cycle in on a regular basis whilst
still having a car for those days when cycling just isn't an option.
Every year I pay my (hefty) fee for the car parking permit. I have
always found it unfair that part-time staff and full-time staff paid
the same fees. Now it seems even more overpriced when my car hasn't
been on campus for months. Surely there must be a system whereby one
could get a reduced fee for finding ways of not needing to park on
campus. This even more so as prices are likely to rise again with the
government taxes to be added. Any comments?
Brigitte Theunissen-Hughes
--------------------------
Thanks for the small ad in IT 309 about Thursday's Buteyko evening at
the Friends Meeting House. I went to the session and found the
presentation quite persuasive. I'd now have little hesitation in
recommending Buteyko method treatment to friends with asthma.
Simon Slavin
------------------------------
Tut tut, "inadequate fume cupboards" at Lancaster, and this has only
just been noticed by your reporters? For decades I have been wondering
about the value of "fume cupboard" as a metaphor in other realms but
never quite sniffed it out. Editorial comment? You must have wisdom on
this as a literary person.
Anonymous (not written by the editor himself)
[NOTE: Elucidation please. (Ed)]
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3. SMALL ADS
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SUNNY, SUBSTANTIAL AND QUIET FAMILY HOUSE TO LET. Victorian
end-terrace house, close to the centre and shops, flanked by a
cobbled lane with parking space. It has four bedrooms and an upstairs
sitting-room. Study and spacious kitchen-dining-room on the ground
floor with a 2nd bathroom and utility/television room in the
basement. The large rear porch leads to a gravelled back yard with a
beautiful birch tree. Tel. 67839.
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GRAND VARIETY SHOW.
In aid of the Macmillan Unit, Royal Lancaster Infirmary.
The Dome, Morecambe, Sunday September 26th at 7.30pm.
Tickets available from Terry Boyle, ex 94197 or
t.boyle@lancaster.ac.uk or from the box office.
All seats 5 pouunds.
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QUIET ROOM TO LET with magnificent views over Morecambe Bay in a
centrally heated house in Bolton-le-Sands. Regular bus service to
Lancaster. Post-Grad/Mature Student/Staff ONLY. Must be non smoker and
cat tolerant. The rent of 135 pounds PCM includes gas, electricity and
use of garage if needed. Contact Avril Moncaster (01524) 734615
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FOR SALE: G REG (1990) CITROEN BX. Unleaded. Taxed/Tested. ?1100 ono.
Tel 32879 or e-mail e.johnston@lancs.ac.uk
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COTTAGE TO LET bright semi-detached one bedroom cottage available
between Wray and Low Bentham from September to June or for shorter
period; quiet farmyard setting with stunning views; available furnished
or unfurnished; well appointed and easy to maintain; parking space and
patio 25 mins to university 330 pounds p.c.m. + utilities suit staff /
visiting academic / mature student contact: simon_cresswell@hotmail.com
tel: 015242 63262
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POSTGRADS WANTED Single male, non smoker, seeks other postgrads for
house sharing over next 12 months somewhere in Lancaster. I have a
couple of nice places in mind. email Dave on d0057463@infotrade.co.uk
or ring 01803 864571
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HOUSE FOR RENT IN GALGATE 3 bedroom semi detached house to let, fully
furnished, central heating, gardens to front and rear, off road parking
for two vehicles. 380.00 p.c.m. bond and references required. Please
contact 01524 751643
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Mexican wife of visiting American Consultant at Heysham PS, would
like to make contact with other Mexican/Hispanic visitors to the UK, to
exchange news and views in Spanish. Please contact Maria Ritter by
e-mail at: mariaritter@hotmail.com or phone 01524 37672.
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SEPTEMBER SPECIAL OFFER: a co.uk domain name with mail forwarding and
web redirection for 25 + VAT lasting 2 years... You may wish to have a
look at what else we do - www.cyberstrider.net (Denesh Bhabuta left to
work for Demon and now in addition to working at Level 3
Communications, has his own company.
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