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INKYTEXT 316
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Issue No 316 Thursday 13th October 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
1. Editorial: Restricted Information
2. News: Death, Chair, Admissions, Nurse-led unit, Health Centre, Senate, etc.
3. Council Report: "Hectoring, bullying, sneering, patronising"
4. Readers Letters: Replication, Cars, Speed humps, Chile, Belgrade, etc.
5. Small ads: No Houses- amazing! Dynamo AGM, Rattigan, History seminars,
Religious Seminars, Maths Tutor wanted, Concert, Blackwells's Lecture,
Christmas Flat wanted, flat wanted till Christmas, etc.
1. EDITORIAL: RESTRICTED INFORMATION
------------------------------------
The Standing Orders of the University Council provide simply that
"business which is declared restricted shall not be reported". This
leaves deciding what shall be restricted to the 'honorary officers'
and is clearly arbitrary and open to abuse.
Restriction is not intended to provide management with a tool for
stifling debate or covering up their own errors. Its too ready use
will always give the impression that that is what is happening.
The University Rules are more helpful, though these are erroneously
described as applying only to students. They state inter alia (2.13)
that the following is an offence:
"The communication or disclosure to another person, whether inside or
outside the University, of information about business of the University
which the person making the communication or disclosure knows or ought
to know has been defined as restricted, without the permission of the
person responsible for the business or (in the case of a committee) of
the chairman of the committee. The following business, in particular,
is restricted: [...]
*a business of a committee, provided that a specific resolution that
it is restricted for an indefinite or a definite time has, with good
reason, been passed in relation to that business, or a reasonable
decision to that effect has been made and declared by a chairman of the
committee."
It is clear that the sensible provisions of the last paragraph are not
wholly workable, since papers need to be declared restricted before a
matter is debated. But specific debate and resolution there should
be... and it's not at all clear that that happens.
Item 7 on last week's Council agenda is entirely restricted. The
commercially sensitive argument, brought out too frequently, doesn't
really apply here either. This is wholly counter-productive. Oral
reports inevitably circulate: rumour, almost invariably detrimental,
spreads insidiously. Even though management may indeed emerge
unblemished, it is hard to set the facts straight when you can't
mention the subject.
2. NEWS
-------
DEATH: The body of Palestinian graduate student Nasser Yousef, who
started an MA in Peace Studies only a week ago, was found by a porter
on Tuesday in Graduate Hall. He is believed to have been dead for some
time. A note has been removed from the premises and is in the hands of
the Coroner. Deepest sympathy to his family, whom we are having
difficulty locating and informing. (Further details will not be
released till after the inquest.)
CONGRATULATIONS TO KEITH JOHNSON of Linguistics who has just been
awarded a personal chair, and likewise to PN Harman (History).
ADMISSIONS: Interim figure show UG admissions of home and EU students
at 2088 (20 over target). There are also 106 'overseas' undergraduates
and sundry others (readmissions, Manx,direct entry, summer college
etc.) post-graduate acceptances are also up at 894 for taught courses,
including 363 from overseas, and 152 for research degrees (48
overseas).
COLLEGE RESIDENCE OFFICERS are of course responsible to Dr Simmons and
thence to what is now the Resources Division. There was much concern
about this at the time of their creation and College Principals perhaps
rightly felt that, given their location and duties, CROs should somehow
be jointly responsible to the colleges. This concession was explicitly
NOT granted by the then Director of Finance. Hard to see how there can
possibly be claimed to be any confusion about this.
PROFESSOR MACDONALD, Dean of IENS, was slightly surprised, but
agreeably so, to find that he received no Senate papers and was omitted
from the membership list. No escape alas.
NIP ROUND THE BACK OF THE SECURITY BUILDING and you can see the
painters just finishing the new nurse-led unit. Furniture should arrive
shortly. It comprises a waiting room, treatment room, 2-bedded ward,
nurse-manager's office, toilet, and something else. It occupies the old
computer technician's workshop and the former HENSA offices. Access is
from the outside during daylight hours and via Security at night. Cost
unknown (before Dr Lazarus asks) but probably in the region of ... hmmm
20K-30K (just a guess). What the students who will use it are doing
instead in the meantime is not clear. A nurse-manager was appointed a
couple of weeks ago (a job-share) but since then there are rumours
that half the job-share may have changed her mind.
[QUERY: won't this unit be redundant when/if a new health centre with
area-funded nurses opens in 2 years time? Could we not have maintained
the status quo till then by being a bit more amicable with the
doctors?]
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE HEALTH CENTRE AND THE UNIVERSITY are at an
all-time low. For some time now it has been felt by a number of senior
officers (Professor Finch, Mr Halstead, Prof Davies) that our financial
arrangements with the practice were more generous than elsewhere and
that we did not necessarily get value for them. An internal audit
report and other studies tended to back that view up. Attempts to
negotiate got off on the wrong foot. Relations are now conducted
between both sides's solicitors only and the contracts changing the
nurses' status remain to be signed.
Our global contract with the practice provides that it may be
terminated on three years notice by either party, that notice to be
given on 1st August. We gave that notice last year, unannounced, and
have since then been planning to employ the nurses currently employed
at the health centre. Plans are also in hand, it is said, for the Area
Health Authority to provide a purpose built health centre somewhere
near the perimeter road, to open in 2 years time.
This whole thing has been conducted without reference to UMAG until
yesterday. The matter was raised at less publicised committees and
members were persuaded of the need for discretion in the conduct of
confidential negotiations. (It being said to be the doctors who sought
the confidentiality.)
This whole thing has quite a way to run.... Meanwhile even AFTER
Council students are still perplexed about what exactly the nurses can
do... except offer advice, tell you to see a doctor or apply first-aid.
No prescribing of course...
YESTERDAY' SENATE centred on the future of Chemistry. There was much
concern that the loss of the Polymer Group, now seen as inevitable by
almost all, should have no deleterious effect on students and should be
at worst cost-neutral where our overall finances are concerned.
Great concern however, and those most anxious to retain Chemistry as a
maojor admitting department are the physicists, who feel that its loss
will diminish the standing of the 'pure' sciences in the university
(and increase their costs). Prof McClintock had some highly pertinent
and cogent points to make.
By and large, however, members regretfully recognised that a revised
status and the loss of the single major will follow the departure of
the Polymer Group, and that it would be fruitless to try to retain them
without the willingness to put in the resources of which they feel
deprived.
Armed with this knowledge the VC is off to negotiate with HEFCE chair
Brian Fender. However no formal decision to pull out of admissions was taken
at this meeting - and by the next most applications will be in.... Probably
a mistake.
Members were keen to ensure that existing students will be well catered for
here, though it is probable that some of them will be offered the chance
of a transfer to Sheffield, especially perhaps the M. Chem. candidates.
3. COUNCIL REPORT
-----------------
There will be a price to pay for last week's Council, where the
chairmanship descended to levels of partisan *dirigisme* ill-suited to
a university. Worse: the chair, and the chair of Finance in particular,
patronised, hectored and derided students in a disgraceful manner that
may make it hard to win back their cooperation for some time to come.
There is frankly no need to introduce the manners and mores of the
boardroom into university afffairs. And being the 65th richest man in
the country is no excuse for impoliteness. Yorkshire Electricity and
Lancashire students are not compatible. If only because the mode of
governance of the one simply won't work with the others.
All the more curious since the business included a discussion of the
'effectiveness of Council' based on members' responses to a
questionnaire drafted by the Deputy VC and Academic Registrar. Out of
37 members, 20 responded to all or part of the document, and replies are
summarized. Some corkers:
'insist the chairman acts like a chairman'
'improved chairing; clarity; transparency; clear grasp of the order process'
'less direct intervention from the chair'
'more interactive style with less rigid control and cut off by the chair'
'the chairman should let discussions go on
'an unbiased chair would be fantastic'.
One presumes Mr Heron noted these points, though perhaps he felt they
were only what was to be expected from academics and students. In
practice it is known that many of them were made by lay members....
Anyway... members felt that for the first part of the meeting he had
taken some of them to heart, even if he still spoke to items himself
too readily and was always too keen to ask Mr Cann and Mr McGregor for
their contribution, whatever the subject.
This may have seemed to make sense at the height of our financial
crisis, but in these more normal times Mr McGregor's opinion on
admissions or student welfare is not necessarily more interesting or
authoritative than any other member's.
By Item 8, alas, Mr Heron had lost patience and sank into his old ways.
The item was a LUSU motion on the Health Centre (asking for a year's
moratorium on the nurse-led unit). Instead of asking the proposer of
the motion to speak to it he opened the discussion himself, explaining
why this was not only a bad idea but impossible. Messrs Cann and
McGregor pitched in, some felt rather bullyingly, the latter saying he
did not even think this should be a matter for discussion, Council
having earlier authorised negotiations to go ahead.
When students did speak they were frequently interrupted, sometimes
from the chair, and some students had their hand up for half an hour
without being called. The chair should surely have protected them, at
their first Council meeting, from the manifest rudeness of some other
officers instead of adding to it.
The VC and most other senior officers visibly cringed at this
embarrassing display. Surely one of them can take it upon themself to
have a frank word with the Pro_Chancellor. Numerous academic and lay
members expressed sympathy with student misgivings, but it was clear
their motion was not going to be carried (since to do so would make the
spending committed to the unit seem irresponsible...) and the students
were reluctant to compromise. They were also disappointed at not
getting more support from the Secretary and Pro-VC Whitaker.
The motion was eventually defeated by about 20 votes to 8. A committee
has been set up (at last!) to work out a modus vivendi, by agreement.
With students in their present mood it will be hard pressed to agree
the time of day. Membership: Secretary, Pro-VC Whitaker, Director of
Resources, Mrs Hensman, Gay Webb, 2 students. Don't miss the next SCAN:
should be a corker.
4. READERS' LETTERS
-------------------
> [Note: Hmmm. Perhaps copying is an old fashioned humanist art, and the
>mindless techno simulation of it should be called replication. (Ed)]
You have hit on a truth here - 'replicate' stems from the Latin and
means 'to fold back'. Almost exactly what most of our photocopiers do
these days (and my printer...).
Stella (Music)
-------------------------
Gerry Steele asks in respect of Sports Centre membership if 'they'
could consider an option of allowing late joiners ...to subscribe at a
lower rate for either the Lent and Summer terms or the Summer term
only? He may get an answer in due course, but when as University Dean I
made a similar suggestion in respect of parking charges, it was
rejected. The auguries are not good.
Stephen Breuer
-----------------------------
Michael Jackson's comments on Barton Road strike a familiar chord. One
of the popular places for the police to stand with their speed radar
"guns" was under my yew tree which hangs over from the garden of number
76, where I lived until recently, and my wife used to take them out
mugs of tea and chat them up - she just has this thing about uniforms.
I now live in Brook Street at the end of Dallas Road and have the
opportunity to view the antics of drivers up and down this fairly
broad, gently curving 550 yd (half a km) stretch of road. The point is
that it has about 10 speed humps along its length.
Driver behaviour falls into three types: boy racers, swoopers and
ecologists. Boy racers (who can be of either sex) brake before each
hump and accelerate away in a cloud of exhaust after each one. The many
grooves gouged out of the road after the humps testify to their
efforts. Swoopers may or may not behave like boy racers, but they try
their damnedest to get their wheels into the gutter as they go over
each hump to mitigate the jolt as they cross it. Eventually some child
from one of the two schools or the Lads Club will be too close to the
pavement edge as a swooper goes by. Swoopers are not above swooping to
the far side of the road if cars are parked on their own side and I
have even seen large vans do the same. The boring ecologists (like me)
get into 2nd/3rd gear and do 15 mph from end to end, gritting their
teeth at the bumps.
It occurs to me that there is a interesting student project here for
Environmental Sciences examining the amount of extra atmospheric
pollution produced by thie type of traffic calming measure, maybe
someone would like to take this up?
Andrew Jameson
Chair, Russian Committee, ALL
------------------------------
I always ask colleagues about 'local' political issues. Here are two
of today's comments which <might> find a place in your virtual private
eye......PS whatever the 'public opinion', I do sometimes escape from
the Alps and venture into my Lancaster office!
Bob Lewis
ISS
From Belgrade:
Most people here are fed up with politics. These demonstrations have
gathered not more than 50-60 thousands, which is less than 2% of the
Belgrade population. Will be a climate for the change created? It is
hard to say. As regards Kosovo, a general public opinion is that the UN
forces are not protecting Serbs and other non-Albanians as they should
do. As I have already underlined, I am not interested in politics.
However, it is easy to notice the following fact: while Yugoslav army
had to be displaced within a few days, Albanians have been disarmed
for several months.
From Santiago:
Here things are very confronted in terms of Pinochet, a very reduced group
is active, most people is passive. I personally think that here or there he
should be penalized.
There are so many important things for the present and future of Chile
that many people want to do and be involved, but politicians,
government and the media are permanently reminding us about this man.
Most new generations want to turn the last page and start writing and
reading a new book, full of democracy and respect for the people
whatever their thinking, religion and social position.
What you watch in the TV is not what is reality here. Not many people
are interested in having back Pinochet. Many want to have him explaing
what he did, why he did, and asking for pardon, wherever he is, to
start reconciliation.
Today nothing critical really happens here. Just two hundred people in
the Pinochet's organization and something similar in leftist
organizations. Some sad, some happy; some angry, some enjoying. Most
people are tired of seen everyday what is going on in Londres about
him, there are better and healthier things to be preocupied when we are
about to start the Y2K. This doesn't mean we dont think that sooner or
later the dictatorship should be punished.
----------------------
Did anyone else hear Ray Hill, of Furness, History and Debating
Society fame, discussing the impact of boxing on the English language
on Radio 4's Word of Mouth programme? It was lovely to hear Ray's
unmistakable tones coming through the wireless and cheering to hear
that he is regarded as an authority on the history of boxing.
My path crossed Ray's on a few occasions and while some regarded him
as a figure of fun, it was always clear to me that a shrewd mind and
generous character lay behind his public persona. He is also, for those
who don't know, a regular contributor to the anti-fascist magazine
Searchlight and a courageous man. Here's hoping he goes from strength
to strength.
Nick Bardsley
-----------------------------
Michael Jackson's note about car flow and the supposed disadvantages
of going slower misses a vital point. The braking distance (and
therefore the safe spacing between vehicles) is NOT fixed at 4 car
lengths - it increases with the square of the vehicle speed. So if it
is 4 car lengths at 20 mph (say) then it is 16 car lengths at 40 mph,
and 64 car lengths at 80 mph. Our psychological difficulty in
appreciating this as we drive explains some appalling accidents in
dense fast traffic.
When you build this sort of behaviour into a calculation of the number
of cars per minute past a fixed point, you find that this number
reaches a maximum at a very modest speed which I believe is about 15
mph. Above this speed, although individual cars are moving faster, the
number of cars per minute passing a point actually reduces - in fact it
halves at twice the speed for maximum flow and so on. You can see the
result of this sort of thing as you begin to emerge from a big motorway
bottleneck: cars speed up and then have to slow down again as the safe
distance effect (however imperfectly executed) feeds back along the
impatient queue, so that you may experience quite a number of cycles of
acceleration and deceleration before finally reaching unimpeded flow.
The flow benefits of travelling more slowly have been strikingly
proved by the M25 speed restrictions in recent years, and were obvious
on the southbound M6 this summer as numerous 50 mph signs reduced
average speeds significantly. The same benefits would apply to our
towns if we could reduce speed limits below the 30 mph limit, which is
a legacy of the days when car flow was not a problem. I am looking
forward to the days when 20 mph is the normal urban speed limit and 50
mph (or less) applies to all congested motorways; the results will be
safer, smoother motoring, and less jamming and the dangerous
frustration it generates.
Robin McIlveen Environmental Sciences
---------------------------------------
I thought your readers might enjoy this:-
One day while walking down the street a highly successful HR Manager
was tragically hit by a bus and she died. Her soul arrived up in heaven
where she was met at the Pearly Gates by St Peter himself.
"Welcome to Heaven", said St Peter. "Before you get settled in though,
it seems we have a problem. You see, strangely enough, we've never once
had a Human Resources Manager make it this far and we're not really
sure what to do with you."
"No problem, just let me in", said the woman.
"Well, I'd like to, but I have higher orders. What we're going to do
is let you have a day in Hell and a day in Heaven and then you can
choose whichever one you want to spend an eternity in."
"Actually, I think I've made up my mind, I prefer to stay in Heaven",
said the woman.
"Sorry, I have my orders.....".
And with that St Peter put the executive in an elevator and it went
down-down-down to hell. The doors opened and she found herself stepping
out onto the putting green of a beautiful golf course. In the distance
was a country club and standing in front of her were all her friends -
fellow executives that she had worked with and they were all dressed in
evening gowns and cheering for her. They ran up and kissed her on both
cheeks and they talked about old times.
They played an excellent round of golf and at night went to the
country club where she enjoyed an excellent steak and lobster dinner.
She met the Devil who was actually a really nice guy (kinda cute) and
she had a great time telling jokes and dancing. She was having such a
good time that before she knew it, it was time to leave. Everybody
shook her hand and waved good-bye as she got on the elevator. The
elevator went up-up- up and opened back up at the Pearly Gates and
found St Peter waiting for her.
"Now it's time to spend a day in heaven", he said. So she spent the
next 24 hours lounging around on clouds and playing the harp and
singing. She had a great time and before she knew it her 24 hours were
up and St Peter came and got her.
"So, you've spent a day in Hell and you've spent a day in Heaven. Now
you must choose your eternity", he said.
The woman paused for a second and then replied, "Well, I never thought
I'd say this, I mean, Heaven has been really great and all, but I think
I had a better time in Hell."
So St Peter escorted her to the elevator and again she went
down-down-down back to Hell. When the doors of the elevator opened she
found herself standing in a desolate wasteland covered in garbage and
filth. She saw her friends were dressed in rags and were picking up the
garbage and putting it in sacks. The Devil came up to her and put his
arm around her.
"I don't understand", stammered the woman, "yesterday I was here and
there was a golf course and a country club and we ate lobster and we
danced and had a great time. Now all there is a wasteland of garbage
and all my friends look miserable."
The Devil looked at her and smiled. "Yesterday we were recruiting you,
today you're staff....."
-----------------------------------
5. SMALL ADS
------------
DYNAMO AGM
(The Lancaster and District Cycle Campaign)
Tuesday 19th October
Gregson Centre, Moor Lane, Lancaster
7:30pm
Phil Leigh, local cyclist extraordinnaire, will be entertaining us
with tales from his rich and varied bicycle adventures.
All Welcome
------------------
The Department of History and The Centre for Social History
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY SEMINAR SERIES 1999/2000
Michaelmas, Tuesdays 4.15-6pm
19th October Maria Grever (Nijmegen)
Fu SCR 'White Rituals of Feminist Representation: the Dutch national
Exhibition of Women's Labour in 1898'
2nd November John Todd (Lancaster)
Fu SCR 'The Mind of the Doodler: Questions from the Drawings in the
Lanercost Cartulary'
16th November Kate Cooper (Manchester)
Fu B62 'Wives and Martyrs: Exchange of Brides and Exchange of Relics
in the Early Medieval West'
30th November Penny Summerfield and Corinna Peniston-Bird (Lancaster)
Fu SCR 'Uncertain Masculinities: the Home Guard in Britain in the
Second World War'
14th December Maureen McNeil (Lancaster)
Fu SCR 'Some Reflections of the Gulf War, history of technology and
cultural studies of technoscience'
----------------------
SLIDE PRESENTATION
TREKKING IN THE HIMALAYA
(Including health, environmental & education work in a Nepalese village)
With Tibetan Guide PASANG LAMA from Kathmandu, Nepal
at Lancaster Friend's Meeting House 7.30pm WEDNESDAY 13th October.
No charge: donations to the Lungthung village forum, Nepal, gratefully
received. Further information Telephone: 01524 736293
-------------
The Grand Theatre Lancaster
presents
Lancaster Footlight's production
of Terence Rattigan's
THE DEEP BLUE SEA
Tuesday 19th - Saturday 23rd October at 7.30pm.
Ticket prices: Circle & Front Stalls 5 pounds 50, Rear Stalls 4 pounds 50.
Tuesday all seats 4 pounds. Concessions available.
For more details call the box office on Lancaster 64695.
Probably your only chance this year to see Terence Rattigan's best work.
--------------
MATHS TUTOR WANTED for A'Level student. Please contact Matthew
Birchall on tel 01524 - 792102.'
------------
THE CHAPLAINCY CENTRE.
Start of Year University Service.
Thursday October 14th 5.30pm
A service of reflection and prayer.
Theme: "A New Spirituality for a new millennium"
Speaker: The Rev Dr Alan Billings.
Everyone welcome.
----------
BLACKWELL ANNUAL LECTURE IN PUBLIC CULTURE 1999
5.30 pm 28th October 1999
Lecture Theatre 2, The Conference Centre.
The Institute for Cultural Research is pleased to announce that this year's
speaker will be Laura Mulvey, speaking on Stillness and the Moving Image.
Laura Mulvey is Professor of Film and Media Studies at Birkbeck College,
University of London.
--------------
Thursday 21st October 7.30pm
The Rising Generation - I
CHETHAM'S SCHOOL OF MUSIC ORCHESTRA
Christopher Ellis (piano)
Vassily Sinaisky (conductor)
Weber Overture: Oberon
Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 4 in G minor Op 40
Dvorak Symphony No 9 in E minor From the New World
The first visit of this outstanding youth orchestra.
Sponsored by Mitchells Brewery/ABSA Pairing Scheme
Tickets #10.00, #7.50 (#9.50, #7.00 conc) Students #5.00
BOX OFFICE 5-93729
------------
FLAT (ON OR OFF CAMPUS) or house (preferably central on public
transport route) required for a couple of weeks during the Christmas
vacation, for two responsible adults, ideal for house sitting. Please
contact Michela Masci, M.Masci@lancaster.ac.uk
<mailto:M.Masci@lancaster.ac.uk> or tel. 68897.
----------------
ROOM WANTED UNTIL CHRISTMAS! Would you have a single bedroom available
to accomodate Ralf Dahlqvist, a PhD student from Sweden, who will be
here in Lancaster until Christmas. He will arrive on Monday, 25/10.
Please email h.ernstberger@lancaster.ac.uk
---------------
ENOUGH!