Mario Creatura

Decisions, values and choices

2011-11-27T22:01:00.000Z

A recent post for Platform Ten wondering whether politicians are on a hiding to nothing:

http://www.platform10.org/2011/11/decisions-values-and-choices/

Back to basics - finding the narrative

2011-11-14T19:48:00.001Z

A new blog post for PlatformTen:

http://www.platform10.org/2011/11/back-to-basics-finding-the-party-narrative/

When is a sector not a sector?

2011-09-24T09:52:00.003+01:00

‘When is a door not a door?’ begins the old joke. ‘When it’s ajar!’ concludes the groan-inducing line. As Christmas cracker japes go it is pretty poor, and that is truly saying something. However the basic play on words is something that should be looked within the realm of the HE ‘sector’.

What is a sector? It may seem, like the joke, a rather simplistic question to ask. But for its future strategic direction the definition of what constitutes the HE sector must be looked into.

A sector is defined as a group of organisations that ultimately have the same mission and that, importantly, contribute a significant slice of the economic capital of a country. Isn’t it nice, even in semantic terms, for the sectors awesome economic contribution to British GDP to be acknowledged? But look under the hood and the plethora of different agendas is pulling various institutions across the HE spectrum of service delivery so little cohesion can be discerned.

Teaching or research-intensive? Politically aligned or independent? Private or public? Arts or STEM based? Specialist or general courses? Academic or vocational? The list goes on. What benefit do the 165 HEIs get from being labelled in sector-specific terms? It’s like a family. The parents may definitely be yours, but the children have been separated and raised independent from one another. Their personalities and philosophies are different. Their value systems and internal practices are unlikely to be similar. Academic and professional support structures are hardly carbon copies and standardisation for ultimate national quality control is unheard of.

And that’s just what is so powerful and simultaneously so weak about the HE ‘sector’ – it’s ability to manage its affairs relatively devoid from external influences, but it’s clunky difficulty in evolving quickly and efficiently to meet the challenges of the new world order.

Through the intended increase in competition, our sector is transforming into a conglomerate of loosely related institutions that conceptualise, develop and effectively manufacture different ‘things’. This ‘thing’ is of course a course and creates the parameters for an individual to theoretically improve their skill set ready for entry into the world of work.

So does this make higher education an industry rather than a sector? As the marketisation of higher education begins to take hold, demand will be led by the students to whatever course they perceive will most likely enhance their employability prospects. There will be, of course, a handful who will still continue to pursue non-compulsory education purely for the sake of learning, but with the dearth of negative media coverage of the funding changes I can’t see them being the majority. As courses and degrees ever-increasingly become commodities to be traded and sold to the highest bidder, higher education institutions will proceed towards a future defined by the quality and quantity of output and the return on investment for the students and the taxpayer.

Sounds awfully like an industry doesn’t it?

The perception of the value of HE and the perception of the value of an institutional individual profile (internationally, research, teaching etc.) and the individualisation of each will determine the popularity of the 'sector'. But unless a common mission and agreed lobbying angle can be ascertained then a difficulty of government in deciding HE policy will come from the disunity of our industry.

We should try to fix this.

Universities' crisis of image - how journalism impacts on the value of higher education

2011-09-02T16:45:00.003+01:00

Here is a small piece of research that I carried out for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations on the relationship between HE organisations and the print media.

Comments and thoughts, as ever, are welcome:

NB: This paper is intended to stir debate around this topic rather than be scrutinised for academic rigour - so be gentle!

Live chat: beyond the press release - innovative PR in higher education

2011-08-12T10:41:00.002+01:00

Starting at 1pm I'm participating with a bunch of other incredible people in a Guardian debate discussing innovation in HE PR.

Questions can come from anyone but we are starting with: Is the press release dead? What role can new tech play in communications? Should PRs be sidestepping journalists altogether?

Come join in!

A no brainer: the pointlessness of no-confidencing Willetts.

2011-07-26T09:39:00.000+01:00

News broke yesterday, shattering and defying all expectation – the University of Cambridge did not succeed in its attempt in carrying forward a motion of no confidence against universities minister David Willets.

Actually that’s not technically true – it wasn’t the entire University. In fact it was only the governing body, the Regent House, which backed the motion after receiving a petition with 150 signatories. Those in the academic community were the only ones able to participate in this public censuring. In Regent House there are 4,500 academic and academic-related staff.

The vote was close. 681 voted in favour of the motion and exactly 681 voted against leading to a tie. Unlike in most contact sports, there is no second draw and the motion was abandoned – either you win the motion outright or you don’t win it at all.

Removing my instinctive conspiracy theory/PR stunt detecting hat for a second, just the numbers astound. 681/4500. That’s just over 15% of those eligible to vote voted against Mr Willetts. That’s hardly a great confidence knock is it?

This isn’t the first time that numbers fail to add up to a damning critique of the Government’s HE policies. At the University of Oxford’s legislative body last month the motion which successfully passed to censure Willetts won by only 283 votes. This group is made up of a large number of compulsory members as well as ‘all persons working in any university department or institution who hold posts on grades 8 and above’. Grade 8, for information, is approximately £36862 - £44016. That is a very large number indeed. Much larger than 283.

Leeds again has its data skewed: "There were many abstentions and even those who voted against the motion said they were unhappy about what was happening. They were just concerned if it was the right time and place to pass a motion," said a concerned academic. They are right to be concerned - I've taken issue with the number that didn't vote but how many voted against? How many abstained?

Only eight departments out of 95 at King’s College, London, have successfully passed a vote of no confidence. That’s less than 8%.

At Warwick University 1,062 lecturers and students have signed a petition on this subject – as of 2010 Warwick had 4,448 staff and 18,434 students. That’s a combined population of 22,882. That makes the percentage of Warwickians that have no confidence in David Willetts: just over 4%.

I accept that just proposing a vote of no confidence is bound to have sent shockwaves around BIS, but on closer examination it really is nothing more than not-very-impressive PR stunt. The percentages speak for themselves. Like RMT calling a tube strike with less than 10% of its base, if it is below a defined percentage of the eligible participants then it should surely not pass and should have very little impact on the business of governing. This smacks of a centrally orchestrated smear campaign strategy to me.

The autumn is when I predict it will all kick off. Students and staff will return full time and the real ramifications of a mis-communicated and vague HE White Paper will start to emerge. Once everyone is settled back, around about mid-October, the rhetoric will fly and emotions will run riot over an issue that deserves careful deliberation and academic debate, and not a spin-induced placard wielding frenzy.

Comment on 'Degrees of Value' by Professor Hall, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Salford.

2011-07-25T19:49:00.005+01:00

Link to blog here.

Professor Hall is absolutely right – the value that is inherently expressed through a superficial glance at the KPIs is nothing short of painting over the cracks of a problem that is entrenched not just within the sector, but within the consciousness of the populace at large.

The financial reforms to the sector put funding in the hands of the student. But relatively little thought has been given to how the decisions are made that result in a student choosing where it is that they go to study – and therefore where the funding is allocated.

The KPIs follow concerns from many parts of the sector that there is not enough information to satiate the inevitable demand from prospective students and their parents. They seem to be made up of a variety of different surveys and statistical data that are already in existence without consideration about whether those sources need to be adapted at all.

Professor Hall makes a good example from the KPI about ‘student satisfaction’ being similar to the National Student Survey in only being based on the opinions of final years. Why not others? When you are a college student applying do you care about the opinion of third years? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It’s for the ‘not’ that data should be collated.

The discussion of SROIs is interesting – though I feel slightly uncomfortable with the unconscious assumption that the quality or value of higher education can be accurately summarised in monetary terms. Social mobility? Money. Employability? Money. It suggests an expectation that this is one of the most crucial factors to market when attempting to attract students. Can we not encourage a system or a tool of evaluation that expresses the value of higher education not in purely financial terms but in a format not totally subservient to the presumption that money matters more than education?

SROIs are interesting as a measure, though as with KPIs I think we have a way to go before either of them accurately provides the sort of rigorous detail that new students may require.

Is this reflex symptomatic of a guilty sector and a cautious government?

Humble pie: witty satire or farcical buffoonery?

2011-07-20T13:17:00.001+01:00

A new blog post discussing anarchism for PlatformTen following yesterday's antics with Murdoch and the now infamous pie splatting attempt:

http://www.platform10.org/2011/07/humble-pie-witty-satire-or-farcical-buffoonery-2/

What is the value of Higher Education?

2011-07-18T14:08:00.000+01:00

I am currently in the process of conducting a piece of research for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations examining media perceptions of the value of higher education.

In order to help me with this, I wondered if you would mind taking a few minutes to complete a short survey which asks for your views on the way that universities have been portrayed in the media in the past year or so.

You can take the survey here.

Any and all responses would be appreciated. Please also feel free to send this to others who may be interested.

Please do feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Many thanks,

Mario Creatura

What are universities doing to communicate course fee changes?

2011-07-17T15:18:00.000+01:00

Quote from me in an article by Guardian Online journalist, Matthew Caine.

Monday 11 July 2011

Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo

2011-07-08T09:06:00.000+01:00

Slowly but surely, David Willetts’s hotly anticipated White Paper for Higher Education is dragging students out of the baby-seat and placing them firmly behind the wheel of one of the most important sectors to the British economy. Not only research funding direction, but ‘British’ brand ambassadors on graduation all add to the complex and varied impact of choosing to study a particular course at a particular institution.
That’s a lot of responsibility for a prospective student. The choices that a student makes, based on whatever reason, will determine the shape of the sector and will have national and potentially international ramifications that no-one can definitively predict.

Would a student choose a subject that has a low employability record? Would they pursue academia for the love of learning or will fees/media/family pressure force them down a path not of their natural preference?

The Classics Department at my alma mater, Royal Holloway College, has just announced that it will be dissolved and merged into a variety of other departments. Courses will be cut, redundancies will be made and research projects phased out. There are only 21 other ‘Classics/Ancient History’ universities left in Britain. As much as I understand the logic of shutting down departments that have little demand, the devil on my shoulder is shouting that students should be made to study certain subjects just because it’s darn well good for them to.

Is there any harm in that view? We are forced to study core subjects at Primary and Secondary level, why not once we reach the higher level? In Ann Mroz’s leader in this week’s Times Higher Education she decries the lack of consideration put into the White Paper into the nature of the choices facing prospective students. And rightly so. The motivation for going to university is many and varied but it is in the patterns that will inevitably emerge from these choices that will shut down avenues of academic pursuit simply due to a lack of perceived ‘popularity’.

If we gauge the necessity of publicly funding the future study of maths or PE at primary level based on a survey of its popularity with kids aged 5-11 then would those subjects still exist? If we asked reception level infants whether they prefer finger-painting or rote-learning phonics I wonder which they’d pick. Regardless of their preference society has decided that there are some items that all children must learn for their (and our) own good.

This used to be the way for a ‘classical’ education. Students at all levels and from all classes were required to study Latin, Greek. Most memorised the tragedies of Euripides and the ethics of Aristotle. Politics was taught through the lens of Plato’s Socratic Dialogues and ancient history was expressed through the tomes of Tacitus and Suetonius.

When did we decide what we must study now? How were those choices made? Was it an economic decision? Was it a humanitarian or democratic decision? Was it a lack of interest? What makes a student choice on the matter more considered than the state education curriculum?

The student experience and the labels that higher education will have to apply to itself to make it appealing will never satiate the plethora of differing student perceptions and requirements. The differences in motive are too many and too varied. Ann Mroz argues that HE is about discovering yourself and working out your options. To that end she quotes Professor Simon Blackburn (NB a philosopher) who says: “Expanding the understanding and imagination of students is a great task… It can be done only by people whose understandings and imagination are in good order, which is why good teaching and the desire to contribute to the subject go together”.

Ann and Simon are both spot on. Higher Education is for expanding your horizons. It is for tutors to pastorally support their tutees through an increasingly distracting, academically economic world. They are not only fulfilling the roles of academic mentors, but personal and careers guidance counsellors as well.

A love of the subject is essential for the honourable survival of higher education. Some subjects must be protected from the axe – if not for the preservation of swathes of knowledge then for rarity of their existence.

An extinct subject area is something we should avoid at all costs.

#HEWPOTT: the results!

2011-06-30T09:30:00.001+01:00

The results are in from voting for the top ten Higher Education White Paper Over the Top Tweet...

The winners in full:

1. @Nigidivitch: An anagram of #hewhitepaper: "Hi! Rape HE. Wept"

=2. @JonNarcross: Clegg, he's screwed no more than 30 women but over 7 million students.

=2. @gary_hughes: training @LiverpoolSU Officers on HE sector tomorrow. Might as well write 'it's all fucked' on a post-it...

4. @CitizenNate: Let's scrap HE. I'm sure McDonalds and Starbucks can run classes. Buy a mocha get a free seminar.

5. @thesmokeybacon I've heard that it's makes it compulsory to kill puppies with hammers while a lecture takes place.

=6. @Saggydaddy: Don't worry about disrupting schools for a day. It's not as if state educated kids will be able go to Uni at this rate.

=6. @HallyMk1 pedagogy of debt; discipline; consumption; outsourcing; fear; shame; student-as-consumer #hewhitepaper

8. @Art_22: ok thats enough #hewhitepaper all I can say is #condenscum #toryscum #libdemscum are C***S*

=9. @martingeorge: I presume the #HEWhitePaper delay is down to the possible plagiarism found in it by Turnitin

=9. @bvulliamy The WP sets a new direction for UK HE where we can all be trained to be bankers if our mummys and daddy's have 27k

The winner was revealed in an article written by myself and Richard Brabner for The Guardian online.

#HEWPOTT: Rules of engagement

2011-06-28T12:30:00.002+01:00

In the next few hours David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science, will launch his much anticipated ‘Higher Education White Paper’.

After over eight months of waiting, the online higher education community are chomping at the bit. The raucous rhetoric and hyperbolic displays of vitriol about the content of the White Paper is coming to a head. Finally, after a speech by the Minister at 3.30pm today (28 June 2001), the Paper will be live for all to digest.

Higher education policy tends to stir the emotions of the HE community. Some will laugh. Some will cry. Some will tweet with rage. With this in mind Richard Brabner and Mario Creatura, two higher education policy wonks, have devised a game to try to alleviate the stresses and strains during this harrowing time.

Your mission? To identify the most over-the-top tweet about the HE White Paper.

The rules are as follows:

Twitter users can submit the most outlandish comment using the hashtag #HEWPOTT. To clarify, twitter users can not submit a comment they have made themselves. The purpose is to find the most OTT comment.
Each tweet will be treated on its own merits – chains of several tweets in ‘rant-style’ will not be permitted.
Users can enter as many times as they like and can nominate others.
Comments will only be included if they are about the Higher Education White Paper and its contents.
A ‘Top Ten’ will be collated by Mario and Richard and will be released on this blog from 12.30pm on Wednesday 29 June 2011.
Twitter users will then be able to vote for their favourite over-the-top tweet which will be announced until 4.15pm when the winner will be announced!

Good hunting!

Richard & Mario

Working hard or hardly working? How open primaries could reinvigorate constituency politics

2011-06-25T09:44:00.000+01:00

A post written for Platform Ten discussing the potential for open primaries to inspire engagement in local and national politics.

Little choices could pave way for sector reform

2011-06-20T13:21:00.000+01:00

New post for WonkHE discussing the power that prospective students have in shaping the sector in the decisions they make.

Comment on ‘Not by skills alone’ by Prof Schwartz, Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University.

2011-06-17T11:54:00.001+01:00

Link to article here.

An excellent and inspiring piece.

If we look back at the origins of national education, formed in the industrial revolution to train people out of poor-houses and into state defined tax-brackets, then we can note that nothing really has changed.

The structures, ideology, and policies that govern not just higher but all education are still formed on the suck-em-in and spit-em-out model of labour market requirements.

Widsom was never really a part of it - but it was attempted. Compulsory classical education may have been elitist, but it gave a greater appreciation of the vastness of humanity. This must be regained.

Creativity and a flexibility in learning that allows for genuine exploration of random and kooky philosophical ideas. A seminar which is lead by discussion and goes off on tangents and academics who don't have to supply annotated slides and detailed bibliographies for their words to impart knowledge and inspiration.

Until we answer the question 'what is a modern university for?' and start to look at the ingrained processes that infect our so called logic, then I fear that Prof Schwartz incredible view will never become realised.

Why widen? Presentation to the Institute of Career Guidance.

2011-06-16T14:29:00.002+01:00

Why widen?

View more presentations from mariocreatura.

How many of us have questioned the purpose of widening participation? How many of us have looked at the specific ideological and logistical issues that crop up when we embark on ‘widening participation’? And as a result of this naval-gazing, do any of us actually know what it truly means to widen participation in higher education?

On the face of it this is quite a simple question. At university I was told to start by defining the question, so here is the incredibly useful definition of widening participation as offered by the Higher Education Funding Council for England:

[SLIDE]

So HEFCE at the very least are unsure exactly what end goal the sector is strategising for. Impudent of me perhaps, but my point is that we all seem to have agreed that ‘widening participation’ is a good thing without asking the fundamental questions: what is it? Why should we do it? What does it mean for the future? How should we do it properly?

I’m not going to use my time here to argue that widening participation is a totally futile exercise and we should scrap all WP schemes. I do however want to illustrate that the fundamental flaw in the positions that those who work in career guidance hold and that the areas that we are navigating through in today’s conference have far-reaching consequences that can negatively impact on the advice and ultimate success of other disadvantaged young adults.

I think it comes down to a central question

[SLIDE]

What is university for?

Is it to study something that you are academically interested in? Is it to develop skills to get a job afterwards? Is it to whittle away a few years if you don’t know what to do for a career in the big, bad world? Is it all of the above? Or none? The truth, and I think that this is an issue that is right at the heart of most of the debates in higher education policy at the moment, is that no-one really agrees. Just like with the definition of ‘widening participation’. And depending on each individual that goes or considers going to university, their motives can alter how they would answer the question. The NUS do a great deal of work trying to understand the motivation behind students going to university and using this to lobby HEIs to improve student satisfaction levels.

[SLIDE]

A recent survey by them says that when students were asked for the main reasons they wanted to go to university, the most popular responses were: “to gain qualifications” (68 per cent), “to improve my chances of getting a job” (53 per cent), and “to improve my earning potential” (44 per cent).

[SLIDE]

Ironically, the survey also revealed that 84% didn’t feel that university completely prepared them for entering the labour market. Bearing this in mind it is quite strange that the National Student Survey last year reported an 82% satisfaction rating. It seems the students were being satisfied but not for the reasons they originally anticipated! How many of these could have benefited more from not going to university?

[SLIDE]

Two days ago a survey carried out by independent educational charity ‘Edge’ supported this when it revealed that degrees were perceived to no longer offer a competitive advantage in the workplace. Over half of middle income parents believe they can no longer afford to send their child to university. 31 per cent claim it simply isn't worth the investment. 57 per cent believe a university education is less valuable than it was 10 years ago with 47 per cent claiming degrees no longer give you a head start in working life. More than a third of parents admit they used to want their offspring to go to university but now don't think it's the best option. 38 per cent claim they believe their son or daughter may have a better chance of success with a vocational qualification.

[SLIDE]

YouGov, at the launch this week of the annual ‘Universities Week’, revealed that more than half of parents feel that they have not received enough information about the new fees system. This is a startling figure because it falls in line with a lot of the vox populis that we’ve all heard suggests that the increase in fees will deter disadvantaged kids.

[SLIDE]

But at the moment the media and the ‘voice of the people’ has little evidence on which to base their claims. HEFCE last year reported on the ‘Trends in young participation in higher education’ and encouragingly said that:

‘Young people from disadvantaged areas were now substantially more likely to enter higher education since the mid-2000s…’

The proportion of young people from the most disadvantaged areas who enter higher education has increased by around +30% over the past 5 years and +50% in the past 15 years. And bear in mind that this period covers the last time the fees were increased.

It begs the questions: has fear of debt affected the ‘participation’ aspect of higher education? We won’t really know for sure until the new fee level comes into force. Will the number that apply decrease? I think it’s all a matter of individual degrees. Of individual students. Of individual circumstances and individual barriers that need to be overcome.

All people have different reasons for making the choices that they make as they progress through life. And these are influenced heavily by senior figures including careers advisors.

[SLIDE]

But for decades we have all been guilty of pushing, of over egging, the value of higher education and the benefits that you can reap through getting there. It’s an unconscious equation that used to be true but that isn’t any more: work hard, do well, go to university = get a good job.

The reason this no longer works? The equation is ultimately reliant on the workplace a) valuing degrees b) having the vacancies to meet the demand.

[SLIDE]

The Confederation of British Industry released a paper a couple of years ago called ‘Future Fit: Preparing Graduates for the World of Work’. In it they surveyed 581 organisations in total employing over 2.5 million people or 8% of the total UK workforce and they said that they firstly did not rate a degree higher than attitude, experience or employability skills. Secondly When asked what three things they thought universities should prioritise, 82% of employers thought that developing employability skills was far more important than increasing the number of students graduating from university each year. This is a significant view to bear in mind.

Degrees are seen as a nice addition to the important stuff. That being the extra curricular stuff. Basic production economics dictates that the rarer something is the more expensive or valuable it is perceived to be. More degrees in the labour market do not devalue the achievement of succeeding at higher education, but the interest just isn’t there from business.

[SLIDE]

Like with the yo-yo craze or tamagotchi’s – once everyone had them they all become similar and thus less impressive and desirable.

[SLIDE]

Now with the massive expansion in numbers alone, the focus of the value is changing not from just getting to university and being considered bright but the next step. Resource and policy should not be focusing on increasing participation – participation has been hugely increased thanks to the work of hundreds of organisations and thousands of passionate individuals. I believe the crucial step for us now is to devise methods and practices of individually reaching out to all children regardless of background to ensure that the best and the brightest get into our world-renowned institutions. And to do this right means honestly assessing each case on its own merits and not treating higher education as a default option for future progression.

Those that aren’t best suited for higher education should be actively discouraged from entering the system but encouraged to follow was suits them.

From the biased lens of the media to the concerns of the parents who want what’s best for their child. We as a nation, in a typically British way, know and express how important we think Higher Education is. But that doesn’t mean that university is for everyone. It doesn’t mean that university is a panacea for levelling the class playing field.

What does remove class divisions? ‘Oopmh’, ‘the spark’, ‘the element’, ‘the x-factor’. In other words, Aspiration. Each one of us has the potential to achieve greatness, in any way that we seek to invest our personal resources. But how do we find the spark that ignites our desire to better ourselves?

Let’s go back to that equation.

[SLIDE]

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If everyone tells you that you can only succeed in the world if you go to university then everyone will want to go to university – and that is where we have been going wrong all these years. And that was fine while not everyone had the opportunity to go. Now they do. In truth everyone should be able to go to university if they want to, and communicating the current policies effectively is the most crucial enforcer of this ideological shift in access to higher education.

Widening participation, as it currently is defined, has been a success and is thus (at present at least) a waste of time and resource. Think about one of the biggest obstacles of disadvantaged kids going to university: lack of support from parents, either through a lack of information or a lack of them experiencing it themselves. We’ve been successful in increasing it by 50% in the past 15 years.

[SLIDE]

When that generation have kids, they are statistically more likely to go on to higher education just by familial precedent. And the likelihood of their children going increases. And their children. And so on indefinitely! The sheer momentum would, in most cases, mean that as long HEIs kept increasing to meet the demand, disadvantaged young people would exponentially be more likely to want to go to higher education regardless of WP intervention.

Teachers, careers advisors, parents and academics should all be saying in their contact with young people “What is it that gets you going? What makes you get up in the morning?’ and helping them to decide for themselves whether they should pursue a vocational or academic future.

[SLIDE]

To match what they are with their potential university. If we as adults can encourage children and teenagers to see beyond the perceived barriers to not just higher education, but life hurdles more generally, then they won’t be scared of the perception of fees. They won’t apply for courses that are way beyond their reach or settle for opportunities way beneath their potentially immense abilities. Guiding them to think more critically about why they want to apply to university should be where more resource is allocated.

[SLIDE]

Ultimately information, advice and guidance should be tailored to the requirements of the individual, not the widening participation targets of the state.

Every secondary school should have a lead teacher responsible for higher education information, advice and guidance at every key stage, says the Sutton Trust. Great start but this role is so crucial that it shouldn’t just be restricted to one individual. It should be an attitude that infects every nook and cranny of compulsory education and society as a whole. Do what fits you best; don’t treat higher education as a panacea for curing the worlds social and class divisions. It won’t. And it will only continue in failing to reach our high expectations if we continue down that path.

[SLIDE]

The presentation was delivered at the Institute for Career Guidance 'Higher Education Reinvented' Conference on Thursday 16 June 2011.

Radical assessment: avoiding the production line mentality

2011-05-16T12:01:00.002+01:00

New post for WonkHE discussing the mentality surrounding production-line education.

Radicals of Goldsmiths: the illogical controversy

2011-05-11T16:34:00.005+01:00

There are times when we should be proud of our largely world class research and inspirational teaching. But yesterday I was shocked (but sadly not surprised) to learn that lecturers came together with students to attack Goldsmiths College. The reason? Goldsmiths had the tenacity to propose an increase of its tuition fee level to £9,000 – in line with 11 other University of London colleges.

Goldsmiths was “following the crowd” said Des Freedman, media academic and part of the angry mob. Hard to prove and even harder to deny, what can be viewed by some as sheep-like obedience can very easily also be taken to be prudent and cautious competition planning.

This is something that appears to be currently missing from the debate. HEIs have, for a long time now, been run as businesses. Whilst the professionalism and lacklustre sector ruthlessness may occasionally come into question, they are all organisations that are required to make profit for the ultimate benefit of its shareholders. They raise funds through research grants; spinout successes; tuition fees; donations and a host of other income streams. The reason for this is simple: to generate high quality academic research and teaching. This in turn leads to highly desirable graduates. We sometimes are guilty of forgetting that Higher Education is not run simply on a love of learning. Sad as that may be to admit.

Increasing fees to £9,000 is a logical step for most universities under the current capped system. Indeed, hundreds of sector observers predicted that this would happen even before Lord Browne finalised his report. In reputation speak, ultimately HEIs have little choice in the matter.

Universities are right to claim that eventually those cheaper institutions will be seen as the bargain basement option. We all know that if we could afford it then we’d all go for Heinz Baked Beans and shirk the less glamourous ‘Basic’ range. Although the principle of this crude metaphor is sound, with higher education we must reiterate that it isn’t only for the wealthy.

James Haywood, a spokesman for Goldsmiths Students’ Union said: "We were hoping Goldsmiths would listen to their students and staff more than to the Government. It is a shame because we market ourselves as radical, but despite that we took the easy option."

In once sentence he acknowledges a core contradiction in their argument: “we market ourselves as…”

Goldsmiths does have an excellent reputation for attracting out of the box, non-traditional students and academics. But this has to be crafted, maintained and supported by a strong team of expert staff. ‘To market ourselves’ takes a lot of work and relies on a whole host of factors.

Mr Haywood et al want to have their cake and eat it. Not only do they actively promote the pride in their radical roots but they don’t seem to grasp that it comes at a cost.

True strategic reputational management comes from aligning with competitors. To be defined as a truly ‘radical’ college, Goldsmiths has no choice but to raise fees in line with those advocated by its competitors as far as the current system allows.

As with most access packages, Goldsmiths has been praised by its rebellious staff. If they understand that the bursary and scholarship offerings are excellent then why are they sabre-rattling? Behaviour like this undermines the credibility of the sector, scares and spreads disinformation to prospective students and generates largely unfounded paranoia about the value of a higher education.

Goldsmiths has made tough choices, as have most HEIs. And they should all be praised for trying to do what is best for the long term wellbeing of their research and teaching.

Open the door, don't shove them through

2011-04-26T23:04:00.001+01:00

I am starting to get very confused, angry and shocked at some of the positions that are being spouted about the tuition fees increase. From the 15 year old at the NUT conference this week and journalists to opposition politicians and Union representatives – all are coming out with minor variations on an endlessly repeated theme: tuition fees will hinder social mobility.

Tuition fees do not and will not hinder social mobility. Perception that the obstacles are insurmountable will. It is an easy and rhetorically popular device blurring the lines between the two but the distinction is incredibly important. Increasing fees and social mobility are related but not mutually dependent variables. Making something more expensive does not mean that certain people can’t get it. It may take longer to save for the desired item but cost itself does not rule out eventual possession.

Going to university costs vast sums of money. But who should pay? This is arguably where opinion starts to divide:

Option 1 - Higher Education a human right and should be free for all.

If this is your stance then the state should pay. However should the cost of going to university increase due to various factors (numbers going, increased cost of equipment, technological innovation, resource etc.) then logically the state must increase its investment. Where does the money come from? Many options here but the most logical is an increase in tax. Not popular by some politically but again, only logical.

Option 2 - HE is not a human right, and central government shouldn’t pay.

Which begs the question: who does? To answer this we must map out who benefits the most out of a university education? Directly it cannot be argued that it is the students who become more prosperous as a result of their investment. But does that mean they should pay? The British Government makes a huge sum from exporting its graduate talent pool, let alone the research and development. So should the Government contribute? Once this is answered then we must try to gather how which group pays back. A graduate tax? An increase in fees?

Logistical arguments aside, if HEIs can guarantee a high quality education then the students benefit the most. The government and country by association for sure, but students are the ones whose net worth increases. This differs based on the choices that each individual makes: what they study, where they study, when they study it, how well they do, what else they do, why they do it etc.

The average increase in fees to almost £9,000 is not too much to pay. Universities are now on the verge of being in a market. Only the cap currently in place stops it going all the way and this is causing some concern. With a market comes student choice directing the resource. With a market comes consumer judgement about the ‘worth’ of a degree and education. Whose job is it to sell the worth of higher education as an investment?

It is argued that an increase in fees will reduce those from poorer backgrounds entering HE. It won’t. Or at least it shouldn’t. If the motive is pure, if students meet the designated entry criteria; and if you value the experience then nothing will stop you under the new system apart from perception of financial pain.

Unavoidably an increase in fees will make prospective students think twice about going to university. And rightly so. For too long university has been the default mode for some in an arguably disaffected generation to delay skills and knowledge development. Those from families who have few (if any) members that went to university will have a greater hill to climb. But if role models support them and have guided them in an apolitical manner, then there is absolutely no reason why anyone shouldn’t go to university. If it is what they truly want.

‘Choice’ is the buzzword of the Coalition agenda. Ideologically motivated it may be, but the job of the Government is to open doors; not forcefully shove young people through to meet some spurious and PR-driven quota.

As for the argument that this will hinder social mobility; since when did universities become the panacea required to break down the barriers between classes? Has the nation only just acknowledged their worth and have used their existence as a nifty tool for fighting to cause? There are many more barriers to mobility than access to a degree. Let’s face it, increasing or rallying against fees is a much easier target than addressing what I believe is one of the true influences on social aspiration: role models.

I use the term role models to define those that have a direct influence on a child’s perception of the world from a very early age. Parents; guardians; teachers; siblings; friends – all these and more impact strongly on the way we all develop, experience and place ourselves within the world.

The debate should not be about getting more ethic minorities or poorer students into university. The debate should be focused on how the role models themselves can change the startlingly British attitude that universities are ivory towers that only the rich can aspire to. They just aren’t. The sooner we realise that we all play a role in inspiring the next generation (regardless of race or wealth) to invest in their futures the better.

Rocking the boat: why Cameron should be wary of political posturing

2011-04-26T11:21:00.000+01:00

A post written for Platform Ten discussing the effects of political posturing on national engagement.

Digital Spin - battle 2015 starts here

2011-04-04T11:37:00.000+01:00

A post written for political blog Platform Ten discussing the point and purpose behind http://www.whatthehellhavethelibdemsdone.com/

Protest, pain anticipation and sustainability of public services

2011-03-31T21:41:00.000+01:00

A post written for Platform Ten discussing the possible benefits that could come out of the shock of the cuts package.

Is the use of a dildo in a lecture ever appropriate?

2011-03-05T12:10:00.020Z

Yes.

I suppose I should elaborate.

A US university psychology academic was giving a lecture on sexual arousal with specific emphasis on the psychology and behavioural links with physiology. He obtained permission slips and just under 100 students attended. Why the permission slips? The lecture involved a naked woman felating herself with a sex toy.

Odd way of teaching the subject, I thought. Do I have a problem with it? Not at all. University is for many things - expanding student horizons and imparting knowledge, we all agree. But there is no rulebook that specifies how this should take place.

Life art involves studying the nude human form. Medicine involves the dissection of human cadavers. Why not in a physiology lesson?

The mission of the university according to its "disturbed" President, Mr Morton Shapiro, is to 'teach and research controversial topics.' This isn't a controversial topic. It isn't even, I argue, a controversial method. What it is, is public misunderstanding.

The closed-minded American Christian right have deplored the act. One parent was appalled at the "orgy" in the university. Despite this gross overreaction, this attitude is worrying and embodies a fear of mine: the public just don't get higher education.

Similar to my last post on media hype surrounding the LSE donations, the public have one perception of 'university' and anything that vaguely detracts from that dictionary unit is an abomination. Similar to many of my academic peers, there was a sense that tutors should spoonfeed students the right magical formula to get a degree. They wanted extensive reading lists for each lecture, notes of themes for essays, and powerpoint sheets of course content. Anything to get out of doing some divergent thinking or creative academic spontenaity.

Any academic that refused to take a register or hand out notes - ones that demanded thoughts and opinion rather than rote-learned fact - was seen as a pariah. In the same way that Professor Michael Bailey is being treated in the states for creatively teaching physiology.

Higher education needs to get out it's metaphorical dildo and start to brazenly expose it to the world.
It is not the universities job to force it down your throat and it is not their job to make it pleasant for you. But it is the responsibility of the student to take as much of it as they can.

If the pursuit of innovative approaches to teaching and shirking the rulebook becomes prevalent in HE then we will be blessed with a strong pool of creative graudates entering the world.

Does the LSE really have blood on its hands?

2011-03-04T20:36:00.005Z

The LSE are currently being dragged through the mud, burned by the righteous fire and experiencing the 13th labour of Herakles: trial by media.

Yes they were silly not to think of the political repurcussions of accepting the money, but I’m convinced the situation is much more innocent than the press would have us believe.

Despite his heritage, Saif Gaddafi was a student and therefore is now an alumnus of the LSE. The man made a generous donation to his college of £300,000 to be used on unspecified research.

The donation was not conditioned to be directed towards enslaving or massacaring Libyans. The funds were being used to research and developing ways of supporting and improving quality of life and infrastructure in northern African countries.

At the time when the donation was made, the Gaddafi’s were flavour of the month. Blair and Brown made several unashamed visits to Gaddafi Snr. and following his refute of weapons of mass destruction surely it is easy to justify politically the acceptance of a measly £300k?

Alumni relations are an important stream of funding in any university. They collectively generate millions of pounds worth of donations to support the student experience, matinenance of facilities and in this case potentially pioneering research.

If Saif had been anyone else’s son then the money would be (and was) welcomed as it would enhance HE in the United Kingdom and research impact abroad. The question I ask is this: does it matter that the money came from a Gaddafi?

I’m not sure it does.

Gaddafi is a bloodthirsty tyrant responsible for the deaths of countless people. But I know I would be happier knowing that at least some of his funds were out of his hands and, irrespective of the politics, was helping people in Africa to achieve a better quality of life.

LSE’s director resigning is an unfortunate consequence of media hype needing its pound of flesh. Handing the money back is, in my view, tantamount to funding the Gaddafi regime. This is unacceptable.

When good comes from the investment of funds into HE at a time where investment in HE is sorely needed, it should not matter where it comes from.

As a result of emotional bandwagon jumping, LSE’s reputation is in tatters; the media will swarm onto any relatively large donation to HE for a dodgy angle; the image of HE in politicians eyes will harm future budgets; and the perception drastically harmed in the eyes of the public.

And worst of all? Some research that could lead to a safer, healthier and happier world won’t get done.

That is the real tragedy of this.

Higher Education: human right or modern privilege?

2011-02-24T14:46:00.004Z

It was announced today that two teenagers are seeking a judicial review into the Government’s decision to allow university fees to rise.

You read that right. A 16 and 17 year old to be exact. Initially I was impressed at their intelligence; ingenuity and maturity. Rather than urinating on a statue of Churchill, the pair are using the legal process for its true purpose: the pursuit and enforcement of justice.

But then I realised – they are 16 and 17. I don’t mean to sound incredulous, but really? I wonder whether a pushy parent/teacher/politician/lawyer/journalist has initiated this process of inevitably ruining their young lives. Being attacked from the right-wing press and exposed by the rest by damaging scrutiny will hardly help their future prospects if this is the case. Especially if they lose.

And they will lose.

Despite their representatives, Public Interest Lawyers, claiming the Government has breached Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, higher education itself is not a human right.

Education, however, is a human right. Access to clean water, food and shelter are human rights (NB: many of which are sadly not universally available). Access to a university education with top research and teaching facilities just isn’t. It is worth clarifying at this stage that I am not against social mobility in HE. Far from it; increasing access and opportunities for poorer kids to get into university is crucial for our social and economic development as a nation. This is not the same as filling some spurious Whitehall quota for squeezing in lower income teens.

It is a difference that may be small but is crucial in this case. The crux of their case is that the new rules do not comply with current equality legislation. They are right that university access is not a ‘equal’ as it could or should be. But the huge amount of work that is being carried out by universities to widen participation is starting to address the imbalance. The Government’s National Scholarship Scheme; Alan Milburn’s work on social mobility and Simon Hughes’ appointment as ‘Access Tsar’ will all start to reap rewards if carried out correctly.

Running and crying to a lawyer will not address the inequalities in the system. The Government are beginning to realise the painful reality of their decision. Under the new rules the Treasury may be worse off financially with the graduates having a significantly reduced likelihood of paying back the entire ‘cost’ of their degrees.

If teenagers up and down the country truly want to go to university and they work hard to achieve the necessary entry requirements, access only becomes an issue when perception of barriers to HE begin to stop lower income families from even considering let alone encouraging their young into higher education.

Changing Times: a golden political oppportunity?

2011-02-22T12:30:00.004Z

Over the coming days and weeks the debate surrounding the altering of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) will come to a head. It is widely reported that Rebecca Harris’s Private Members Bill will be acknowledged formally by the updated Tourism Strategy from the DCMS by the end of the week.

For those unfamiliar with the knock-on benefits of changing to “double summertime” these purportedly include reducing the number of people killed or injured on roads; a reduction in energy bills and national carbon emissions; a reduction in crime; over £3.5 billion generated for the economy including the creation of 80,000 jobs and general improvements in health and wellbeing for the country.

The politicians dream! A slight change in our sleeping habits will reportedly leave the voters happier, healthier and richer. Think of all the public services that the Government wouldn’t have to cut if £3.5 billion was brought in simply by changing a clock!

Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? That’s because sadly it is.

Buried away in point 3.8 of the ‘Daylight Savings Bill 2010-11’ is the section discussing ‘General Wellbeing and Health’. In it the research says that ‘it is difficult to say whether a clock change would lead to health benefits, although some commentators have claimed that it may…’ These words frighten me. May? Could? Some? Where are the doctors, professors, and researchers with as near to concrete data as possible to support or refute the health ramifications?

This isn’t the only area open to damaging scrutiny. Dr Malcolm von Schantz, biochemical expert at the University of Surrey expresses grave misgivings about the nature of the evidence. He notes that the 80,000 new jobs that would bring an extra £3.5-4.5 billion into the domestic tourist economy each year is not supported by any evidence. Lowering electricity bills by maximising the available daylight and flattening the peak in evening demand is a claim that amounts to a modest and insignificant 0.6% saving. The claim that it will improve the quality of life of elderly people or help tackle obesity is similarly a claim not supported by any evidence.

As if this wasn't bad enough, Dr von Schantz goes further:

The human body clock is only sensitive to the effects of light at specific times of day. Light is only able to advance the body clock in the morning. This is crucial, because the set point for our internal body clock is greater than 24 hours. Thus, we are required to constantly advance our clock with the help of morning light. If this does not happen, the result is likely to be a delayed sleep phase. Because we still need to get up in the morning, this will result in less sleep, which may result in more accidents, lower productivity, and an increased risk of winter depression.

The truth is that it’s just not good enough. If, as Dr von Schantz claims, there is cursory evidence to suggest that it may (at worst) harm the health of our citizens then politicians have a right/duty to base their decisions on a broad spectrum of well-funded scientific evidence and not whatever doddery professor you can find to suit your career driven purpose. The Haldane Principle of getting academic experts to advise on areas that require academic expertise is not only necessary, but crucial if we are to progress as a society.

I’m sure Rebecca Harris MP has the best of intentions; but the Daylight Savings Bill needs to be dropped until legitimate scientific evidence can be unearthed.

When our health is at stake we cannot allow the dream political bargain to cloud our rational vision. There lies the total opposite of progressive politics.

Are two heads better than one?

2011-02-07T13:34:00.003Z

A guest post written for WonkHE discussing the possible side affects of the "collaborative partnership" between the Universities of Birmingham and Nottingham.

How does class affect student behaviour?

2011-01-25T14:28:00.003Z

'How does class affect student behaviour' - an interesting study that on the face of it is fighting the cause of working class kids and seeks to gallantly shine a light on how different their experiences of university is compared to better off children.

Nice in theory, but how scientifically rigorous and politically useful can this study be? Taking aside large philosophical and sociological discussions on whether 'class' as a concept is a valid tool for defining societal groupings, 80 subjects over x-number of years will most likely produce one of three broad results:

1. Poor kids do better proportionally after HE than their well off counter-parts.
2. Poor kids are worse off proportionally after HE than their well off counter-parts.
3. Poor kids are neither worse nor better off proportionally after HE than their well off counter-parts.

Regardless of the outcome (which will certainly be pounced upon by HE, the media and politicans alike) this will be a context dependent study. One that can only be applied for the period that it assessed.

If the study takes place from 2011-2020 say, then due to the ever changing political and educational developments the results can only be applicable for that period. Meaning that retrospectively it is interesting, but when the study is concluded it will practically be quite useless.

If the results are favourable, then it will be a great PR coup for Bristol University and University of the West of England. Potentially this could be extrapolated to discuss wider issues in HE - which can only be a good thing.

If the results are not favourable then we could be in a whole heap of trouble as a sector.

Fingers crossed then that those 80 kids make the rest of the 2.5 million entrants in HE look good.

Quota for poor kids going to university? What next, set a maximum number of rich kids? Oh wait…

2011-01-12T11:16:00.002Z

Where has common sense gone in Higher Education? What lay behind the appointment of Simon Hughes as Access Advocate?

Aside from abstaining from the Commons vote on Fees he has little to no direct experience or knowledge of higher education. Not that this should deter Parliamentary appointments to positions – they can always bone up with a primer on their area of incredible responsibility overnight Alan Johnson style.

Coupled with this, and David Willett’s frantic assertions of his political philosophy being firmly grounded in the Haldane principle, I have to ask what in heavens name Simon Hughes was thinking by proposing that the number of private school students going to university should be capped.

This comes days after Hughes directed Ministers to include a minimum number of state educated students should be planted into HE.

Both are errors in ideology from the 'Access Tsar' over the purpose of universities and motives behind the choice to take on the debt to get a degree.

The error itself lies in the notion that preferential treatment should be given to state educated kids on application to university; and conversely that kids from a private background should be discriminated against. My issue is that this discrimination is not based on academic ability but on the income of the family and the educational establishment that the child has thus far experienced.

Given that their seems to be yet another rise in UCAS applications scheduled for later this year; now is the time for BIS to turn to universities to not enforce some spurious equal rights agenda but to enforce something more crucial than ever to the survival of the HE sector: discrimination based on academic ability.

Social class; educational background and parental income should never be taken into consideration when deciding whether a student is of the academic quality to enter into an institution. Interview bias aside, whether the applicant has an aptitude based on their academic performance to date and their communication of academic intelligence should be the strongest criteria.

What Simon Hughes is proposing is not a novel idea – some may have forgotten that Vince Cable had proposed an identical notion in July 2010 to reserve top spaces for state students – but he should be proposing it to Michael Gove and the primary/secondary education system and not the HE sector’s governors.

Attitudes towards going to university are forged (or should be) before a child decides what GCSE’s they are to take. GCSE choice largely restricts the subjects that can be chosen at A-level which in turn restricts, along with grade, what subjects you can apply for at university. This in turn impacts on your career choice and ultimately your entire life.

Hughes’ role as Access Tsar should not be about imposing quite frankly worrying restrictions on the human rights of privately educated students to apply in a free marketplace of higher education. It should be about advising on best ways to improve the perception of Higher Education (and education generally) amongst those that statistically have low attendance and participation in the system.

The decisions we make at that young an age have ramifications for the rest of our lives. Ensuring strong advice from secondary tutors and careers guidance services in all types of school, state or private, should be one of Hughes biggest missions.

What he is currently proposing, if it goes through, is nothing more than creating a whole new facet of bias in the already biased admissions system and only serves to provide some pretty statistics to show that the Government truly is improving access.

Gove has just appeared on BBC News saying "For far too long we have automatically assumed that poor children can’t succeed – that’s wrong." He is right. The helping hand to state educated kids should not be at the expense of the privately educated. The helping hand should not be by having a biased recruitment process in HE. The helping hand should be in improving the perception of higher education and its benefits to state educated students.

This is not a quick fix. Hughes should remember that.

Treated like children: why poor families should not be patronised in the fees discussion.

2011-01-05T16:30:00.004Z

The poorest students should not pay tuition fees, the next head of Britain’s university leaders has said, in order that vice-chancellors can charge the maximum amount to other students. – The Times, 5 January 2011.

Eric Thomas, soon to be head of UUK as well as being VC for Bristol, has announced that he will be scrapping the need for pupils from low income families to pay tuition fees at all – despite Governments recent policy change on fees holding a caveat of widening participation amongst this group.

Over Christmas, Simon Hughes MP was appointed “Advocate for Access to Education”. Hughes famously abstained from the Commons vote to implement the new fees scale and so has a lot to gain politically from this role should he succeed in supervising and enforcing access changes in the forthcoming Higher Education White Paper.

With Lib Dem support at an all time low, the semi-rebel must communicate effectively what the changes actually mean for lower-income prospective students to be able to rescue any semblance of honour at the ballot box. David Cameron has already admitted that the Government has lost the propaganda battle on this issue – but is Prof. Thomas’ decision anything short of mudding the issue further?

Before even Hughes’ appointment he was facing an uphill struggle. With the NUS failing to accurately and neutrally present the facts of the policy changes (indeed why should they!) and the riots being emblazoned across every paper and news report for weeks; access to Higher Education from lower income families is already doubtlessly damaged. Now we hear that the Bristol VC is subverting the efforts of Hughes before he has started by presupposing that lower income families cannot comprehend what the policy changes mean for them.

This is not an exaggeration in my mind. We know the facts: future students won’t pay anything up front and importantly they won’t pay it back until they earn above average per annum salary after graduating (£21k). Clarity and detail is desperately needed on many scores (including the roles of HEFCE, the SLC and the national scholarship scheme).

One of the conditions of universities being able to charge the higher rate of £9,000 is that they must widen participation. Taking fees away from the poorer students will fulfil these criteria in part; but will mean that those from middle income families will have to think harder than expected about whether they want to continue onto higher education. The debt is not the same a mortgage debt. It is not the same a credit card debt. But if you tell a teenager that they could be facing ‘debt’ of up to £80,000 then they will of course run for the hills.

Take this worry away from lower income students and increasing the worry in middle class families will not help access in those areas – even if it does mean that Bristol fulfil the £9k criteria.

Communicating the changes effectively and ensuring that everyone understands that they only pay back their fees if they are ‘successful’ after leaving will ensure fairness for all. Prof. Thomas does not need to patronise poorer families.

Thomas and Simon Hughes must for the sake of the sector focus more on communicating fair decisions and ramifications and less on bribery.

Platform Ten: Leaked Cable - a PR stunt?

2010-12-24T09:01:00.001Z

New blog post for Platform Ten:

Leaked Cable - a PR stunt?

Taking responsibility for reducing access to higher education

2010-12-09T15:22:00.003Z

“Watching policeman lying injured on the ground knocked to floor by protesters who're trying to make way past police line.”

“Police trying to control them but clear large numbers of people intent on fighting from word go & police shoving & man-handling protesters”

“Today we will bring down this govt," says an NUS speaker.

I had intended to write a warning to the NUS. A warning about how damaging their irresponsible rhetoric was to young people contemplating university. How damaging it is to encourage radicalism and a lack of objective reasoning in deciding ones political stance. But it now appears pointless.

As I write this I am following reporters and activist statements on the ground via Twitter. All are saying that violence is starting to break out at various points across the march. “We won’t get kettled this time,” one is saying. “If the march continues in present vain there’s an absolute certainty there will be considerable violence,” says Alex Thomson, Channel 4.

Do they realise what they have done? It is unfair to blame just the NUS. The media are also at fault. It is the flaw in a popularised medium that only ‘entertaining’ images area considered newsworthy – the NUS started the protests; splinter groups purportedly infiltrated and started the violence; the media covered it in forensic detail; all student protests since have included grass-roots violence.

The sleepy stereotype of the student is no more. The radicalised and hyperbolically stimulated youth of today is here.

The NUS started it. They did not advocate activism in a reasoned and mature way through lobbying in the correct channels. They advocated peaceful protest – a proud tradition that has been corrupted by violence. This has now been emblazoned on the minds of any and all future university applicants.

I was nervous about attending university. None in my family before me had attended, and even then the pre-top up fees funding was a concern to me. If I had seen these horrific acts of hyperbole, these deplorable instances of violence – I may have thought twice about going.

So here is the crux of my issue. The Government and Opposition. The NUS and UCU. The press and the political commentators. Social responsibility is not coming into their public and transparent discussions. The fear mongering amongst those that do not understand the fine print of the funding proposals will be having a detrimental impact on future social mobility and getting those from lower income families into Higher Education.

In future the NUS and UCU will claim that the Coalition proposals will be hampering bright academic achievers from low socio-economic groups. They cannot be allowed to hide from a huge slice of blame in the event that this occurs.

“The entire police line has just switched to riot gear,” says Polly Curtis, the Guardian.

Time to Change Tactics: the NUS' approach to changing perception

2010-11-25T14:23:00.005Z

I have been biding my time, biting my e-tongue and counting the days until a poll was announced detailing the effect that the initial NUS protests had on public perceptions about their messages. Were their intentions communicated effectively enough to 'Joe the Plumber' to garner public support for the movement or did the violence tarnish the entire debate and label the students as whiney spoilt brats?

In my last blog I expressed my concern by saying:

‘My worry is that the vast majority of those protesting (and those watching at home) do not understand enough of the complex detail to have an informed opinion. I’m concerned that the decision to protest has been built on a foundation of emotive language gleaned from activists and the headlines which were ultimately based on Browne’s recommendation rather than what the coalition has actually said.’

YouGov released a poll and found that since the NUS ‘riots’ (as they shall now forever be known), 65% of people said that they has some sympathy with the demonstrations, but the vast majority of those disapproved of the damage to 30 Milbank.

‘Only 13% of respondents said they had sympathy with the direct action against the Conservative party headquarters. Asked if the violent scenes had helped or hindered the protesters’ cause, 69% thought it had damaged their cause, 11% that it had helped it (16% think it did neither).'

More generally, YouGov asked if people thought violent protest was ever acceptable in a democracy. 19% thought it was, 75% thought it was not.

So here we see the crux of the issue: the NUS had previously struggled to get this issue out into the open media forum for the world to see the ‘injustice’ and to have a transparent debate about what these fees will mean for the future of Britain. Now they've got what they wanted, but at a price.

The demonstration spun out of control and was apparently taken hostage by aggressive factions largely from non-NUS pressure groups wanting to muscle in on the action. The NUS has since taken the brunt of the flack with NUS President Aaron Porter seemingly being hauled onto every media outlet imaginable to answer for these few rogue protesters. (As an aside where is the practically dormant UCU in all this?)

Today we have a been made privy to a letter from Ivor Gaber Associates to the NUS with stark warnings and recommendations about how they can take hold of this wild horse of a campaign and direct it to a conclusion that this particular groups of activists would like. Demonstrations are good for demonstrating unity of expression – but as the letter says:

‘The current message about tuition fees is coming over as rather one-dimensional. The message the public is hearing - although not necessarily the only one being sent - is: "The fees increase is not fair. Students feel betrayed, particularly by Liberal Democrat MPs who conned them into voting for them at the last election. Now they want revenge."

The message is not getting across to the public, the media or indeed the MPs who control the fate of the proposal in their lobby-treading feet. The NUS’ previous Blueprint campaign was relatively successful through the private lobbying MPs but was not high profile in the media. And MPs listened, even if they disagreed.

The NUS has always been good at privately lobbying for the benefit of their students – it is one of their biggest strengths. It shows that they are serious and deserve a space at the grown up table of political debate and policy discussion. Anyone can organise a rally (as demonstrated by yesterday) but for the NUS to be truly effective as a political organisation they must dispense with the rabble-rousing and focus on genuinely making a difference to the lives of their membership by applying their accumulated knowledge of the political process effectively.

When the riots broke out at Demo2010 I was at a policy discussion hosted by The Bridge Group in Victoria. The topic: improving social mobility in Higher Education (for an excellent summary see Monday 15 November). When the news slowly started filtering through there was a noticeable change in the mood in the room. Here was a disparate bunch of people - including those from the Helena Kennedy Foundation, Pure Potential, Sutton Trust, Brightside/Uniaid and national bodies including UCAS, HEFCE and SPA – the phrase on the face of the many and the tongues of the few was: “why are they being so counterproductive?”

They are right.

Platform Ten: Progressive Conservatism – Can It Exist In Prison Reform?

2010-11-03T10:31:00.001Z

New blog post for Platform Ten:

Progressive Conservatism – Can It Exist In Prison Reform?

Waterloo Worries: public perception of Browne

2010-10-26T20:49:00.004+01:00

I’m sitting on a train to Waterloo. In the seats beside me are three young guys. One from New Zealand, one Irish and one from the south of England. They are discussing the Browne Review and I guess that they are around 22 years old. Why? “I was in the first year that top up fees were introduced,” says the English one as he attempts to explain the British HE funding system to the New Zealander.

The conversation continues. Here are a few of the statements:

“The Government has removed the cap on top up fees.”

"Any university can charge anything, I reckon not more than £10,000 for a degree.”

“Cambridge will probably charge more like £12,000.”

“The maintenance grant will cover it if you’re parents earn less than £30,000.”

“At least we are turning it into a business like America!”

This dialogue, combined with large chunks of the media coverage of Browne’s review is worrying me.

What if these three disparate people represent the average semi-informed view of the debate? There was no mention of the Browne Review directly; no mention of the Liberal Democrat’s backtracking on their fees pledge and no mention of David Willetts’ statement that the cap will not be unlimited. They have confused shock coverage of the Browne Review recommendations with Government decree. What if they represent the majority?

The NUS and UCU Demo-lition march will be taking place on 10 November 2010 but the question that I keep coming back to is ‘why?’

The demo was arranged months before Browne and the CSR (for economic context). Posters were designed and petitions were sent out in a time of relative uncertainty over the future of the ‘valley of death’ facing the HE sector. But it was based on little concrete evidence.

A large number of students, sector workers and many ‘lay people’ will be descending on London. All for a variety of different motives ranging from philosophical ideology to job security and personal finance.

My worry is that the vast majority of those protesting (and those watching at home) do not understand enough of the complex detail to have an informed opinion. I’m concerned that the decision to protest has been built on a foundation of emotive language gleaned from activists and the headlines which were ultimately based on Browne’s recommendation rather than what the coalition has actually said.

Headlines and campaign activists skirt effortlessly over the recommendations of Browne and the context of the CSR to galvanise support – everyone political is guilty of it. The rhetoric of engagement may not be wrong, but it can paint a biased picture of a vastly complex issue.

Unintentionally the NUS/UCU are misleading people. The education of what Browne’s recommendations may mean for the sector has been literally shouted down by the emotive cries of the seasoned protester.

If these three guys sitting next to me are anything to go by, then this protest and the resulting coverage may be doing more damage for the cause, the student stereotype and the general wellbeing of the HE sector than good.

The march in 2006 didn’t stop fees.

The Liberal Democrat pledges didn’t stop them being broken.

Will this one be any different? I doubt it. So why are they bothering?

Danger, danger! A warning on underestimating the HE vote

2010-10-11T12:43:00.003+01:00

Guest blog for PlatformTen:

On Tuesday morning Lord Browne’s Independent Review of Higher Education Funding will be released. On Tuesday a storm unlike anything that we have seen will be unleashed upon the coalition.

The National Union of Students has already set a date for a protest mach to Downing Street on November 10th – but it won’t just be students at the rally. Politicians, academics, ‘lay’ people will all be joining tens of thousands of young people/future voters in expressing their outrage at whatever it is that Lord Browne will be advising.

Aside from the mild point that the review has yet to be released to the wider public, hay is already starting to be made from this debate on both sides of the house. Ed Milliband is rumoured to be biding his time to hear the coalition response on the potential raise in tuition fees. The reason for his silence? This is one of the most fractious areas of the Coalition Agreement, with the Liberal Democrats having signed pledges both before and following the election vehemently refusing to implement a hike in fees. For Labour it could simply be the case of waiting for the Coalition to tear itself apart.

I am confident that the dexterity the Conservatives have thus far displayed in navigating through the mire of negative press over the child benefit cuts can be easily deployed for this similarly disruptive issue. Though this, as ever, relies on clear communication which in turn is dependent on a firm political line from the Government.

An ICM survey for The Sunday Telegraph found that 61% of voters supported a graduate tax, compared with 29% who would rather see higher tuition fees. This is in contrast to David Willetts, universities minister, who is clearly opposed to a pure tax and Vince Cable who argues that something more ‘progressive’ than it must be proposed. It’s easy to see why the public want students to pay – so they don’t have to! But with past data showing that students won’t run for the hills following a fees hike, is there any political reason not to?

Yes. There are over 481,854 students in Britain. Most of whom can vote. Therein lies the danger for the Coalition. Not only are the Lib Dems already being lambasted for a colossal U-turn, but if the Conservatives miscommunicate their motives behind whatever Browne’s review contains then the rancour of students, and thus middle-class voters, will haunt the Conservatives for many general elections to come.

University funding is turning out to be the one of the key debates that will determine the shape of the next general election. The student and youth movements are powerful and should not be underestimated, if only because one day they will be the middle-class tax-paying voters. Grudges are hard things to shake.

One hymn sheet?

2010-10-06T20:59:00.004+01:00

The sector, as ever, is facing a threat to its very existence. Sounds like something out of a Batman script, but despite the melodrama I don’t think I’m too far off.

HEFCE funding is in the process of being reduced and restricted to only those universities that meet its stringent guidelines. Private investment in HE is practically non-existent, though success of spin-out companies has been growing in recent years. Industry research partners are similarly starting to walk away.

This is just a cursory look at some of the funding issues facing us in the months and years to come.

Universities are losing the public perception battle. We have been collectively damaged by a lack of unity in our funding arguments, being portrayed by media and civilians that the sector is full of egotistical academics and money-grabbing management consultants.

To survive the ‘valley of death’ scenario we need to collectively start to justify the value of investment in Higher Education. American’s invest above the global average in their HEI’s. The European average is still more than the UK injects into research. The more we fight over the same few inches of resource, the less likely we are to get any of it.

David Willetts has been hinting for a while now that universities must start to specialise in what they offer to prospective students and industry – this is only one way in which a coalition of leading universities can make a progressive impact on the HE cuts agenda.

Saying it is easy. Getting the mission groups together to negotiate a position is the hard bit. UUK; Russell Group; 1994 Group; University Alliance and Million+, together in one room to work out a unified plan of defence.

General consensus is that it can't happen. I wish we could prove the cynics wrong. A progressive sector that isn't afraid of working together for the benefit of the whole - idealistic but essential.
__________________________________

Following this posting a further thought has occured to me:

The individual mission groups are undeniably doing some sterling work promoting and stating the funding cases for their individual institutions. But the posturing and perceived petty battle between them are compromising their effectiveness in leading the way to a solution for the sectors future.

I therefore call upon respected bodies with a vested interest in HE - the CBI, CIHE etc. - to join forces to lobby the mission groups to work together for a solution. To come up with one resounding and unanimous approach for all UK HEI's to support. One loud voice for Willetts - one that he cannot ignore.

I suggest an independent and impartial representative such as Reform to chair and co-ordinate the meetings.

We will all lose out if this doesn't happen. HEI's will close unecessarily; industry will walk away from the sinking ship, and students will enter Higher Education without the proper tools and expectations of what can be gained from the experience.

Forget idealistic. This IS essential.

Butter scraped over too much bread: globalisation vs. resource

2010-10-01T09:35:00.004+01:00

Last week I attended an event hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education which centred its theme on global positioning in HE, using American and British case studies.

Whilst listening to the distinguished panel wax lyrical about the virtues and difficulties in the area of global relationship development and collaboration, my mind began to wander to a crucial question: why are we bothering with it at all?

As a sector, our resources are being stretched very thinly indeed. Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society on Friday warned that Britain’s meagre spending of £3.5 billion a year on science could be cut by up to 25% leading to a “game over” scenario for science funding. The FT followed this with a consequential warning of HEI’s having to double tuition fees simply to keep research innovation afloat. Today’s Guardian offers a simple visual guide to the cuts, but sadly offers no comfort and merely compounds the evidence.

All this is common knowledge. One thing that we cannot access is the inner thinking of the coalition and Lord Browne. That will be revealed in time. HEI’s must continue to plan for the dreaded Noah’s Ark scenario and prepare for the harshest austerity drive imaginable. Not only will tuition fees have to increase, but other desired arenas for HEI expansion must also be curtailed for the institutions (and indeed the sector itself) to survive in the long term.

Prof. Glynis Breakwell, vice chancellor of the University of Bath, attacked the cuts as ill-thought out for quick gain: "Short-termism is a fundamental, potentially fatal error," she said. But are we taking this far enough? Continuing her logic, is one such area the pursuit of internationalisation?

Research partnership and professional collaborations overseas are crucial to the development of academic innovation, goes the argument. But when internal engagement with the home institution is at an all time low, and national support for universities is at rock bottom, our limited resources should logically be diverted internally. Towards the student experience, teaching, staff engagement and domestic research resource.

Domestic support and unification of institutional purpose is essential and of paramount importance. Forget creating links with foreign universities – we have no money. The foundation of many of our institutions is very weak indeed, and according to Research Fortnightly it is only going to get weaker. UEA’s QR is being cut by 22%; Reading by 30%; St George's by 56% and London Met (not surprisingly!) by 100% to name a few.

We must return our gaze, resources and attention back to Britain; strengthen the base of our institutions and restore public confidence in universities. If we overstretch our reach internationally without having the major funds required to resource them we will, at best, tear a muscle, at worst be building upon severely shaky foundations.

My worry is that the latter situation is already on the way. Not now, but in 10 years time we will regret the way we are currently supporting the base for the future. Unintentionally we are letting academic ego’s and a desire for global recognition get in the way of future sustainable HE growth.

Guest blog: 'Can politics ever be cool?' for Platform Ten

2010-09-22T08:48:00.003+01:00

Please follow this link to read my first blog for Platform Ten:

http://www.platform10.org/2010/09/mario-creatura-can-politics-ever-be-cool/

We’re a group of Conservatives who want to see a modern, liberal Conservative government. Platform 10 is not part of the Conservative Party, we’re independent. When we post our opinions, they are just that – our own opinions. We don’t always agree on everything, even amongst ourselves, but we want to listen to and participate in the debate.

Response to The Guardian’s : The 1994 Group of universities advertises for graduate volunteers

2010-09-21T12:18:00.004+01:00

My internship at the 1994 Group was challenging. I was in the office for 2 days per week and, not living off the bank of Mum and Dad, I worked for the rest of the week in an administrative post.

My hope was that I could financially sustain myself in the non-career intended profession in order to flex my aspirational muscles in the world of higher education. I got just that.

I have always been passionate about education policy and so jumped at the chance to work with the 1994 Group, having studied and worked at one of their member institutions. When I got there I was immediately tasked with several projects that enabled me to practise my much touted ‘transferable skills’ from my undergraduate degree.

As a graduate, much maligned by the state and society as a whole, it was refreshing and downright encouraging to be finally working in an organisation that truly valued your work. We weren’t there to make tea and coffee; we were there to learn and work as if we were professionals within the sector. To learn from respected officers, attend prestigious conferences, assist research on influential policy and write speeches to mass audiences was to help with the essential day-to-day running of an organisation that prides itself on working for the student experience; high quality research and world-class teaching.

This was not slave labour. Far from it. The experiences and the skills, from the interview process onwards, were a lesson in ‘real life’. How we communicate with policy officials and with member institutions is a very small part of what I have taken from the 1994 Group intern scheme and applied in my work ever since which, incidentally, is still within the Higher Education sector.

I understand that internships can be off-putting for those that are from less well-off background such as myself. But if you are determined to succeed in life then you will find a way, any way, to sustain your skills in a very demanding market. It is foolish for anyone to entertain the notion that a degree is enough to guarantee employment. Co-curricular activities before, during and after university (including internships) are entirely necessary. Until we inject a serious amount of funding into HE to the same level as the US or even the European average, the industry will struggle and economise to the best of its ability. Well-qualified and energetic graduates are just one way of doing this.

The ultimate question though is whether the 1994 Group can afford to pay their interns. If the funds are not available for that purpose, then the choice is a simple one. Either offer unpaid internships, or no internships at all. In the latter case, everybody loses.

Yours Faithfully,

Mario

___________________________
NB: An unemployed graduate gets £0 from their lack of employment. An intern is reimbursed their travel and food expenses by the 1994 Group as per the advert. Being an intern therefore costs £0. The rewards to their student/life experience is well worth the £0 and the two days a week invested.

Original article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/21/internships-increasing-graduates-public-sector?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments

Beware the Slingshot: Grad Tax vs. Migration

2010-09-06T09:29:00.003+01:00

What defines the HE sector in the coming decade is less a battle of David and Goliath and perhaps more Vince and Richard.

And I’m torn. Which side to pick?

Vince Cable is set to re-open the public discussion on ‘Graduate Contributions’ – a system he (and the NUS) claims will make the fee’s paid to go to university vastly ‘fairer’:

“What we are trying to inject into the argument is that if you become a very highly paid investment banker you finish up paying more than if you’ve gone off and become a voluntary worker or become a physicist in the National Physical Laboratory, or whatever. I want to make it progressive in that sense.”

I support this idea wholeheartedly. Why wouldn’t any logical, do-what’s-best-for-the-people type person, think any differently? The only time we should question this type of motive is when it is at stake of what is best for the entire country. And here is my difficulty.

Today Richard Lambert, Director of the Confederate of British Industry (CBI), has openly criticised the notion of a graduate contribution/tax by using an argument that I hadn’t yet thought about:

"If we had [this tax], UK students would have an incentive to work overseas to escape paying, especially when the top rate of tax is 50%," he said. "And how would you get EU students to pay for their degrees?"

Well – graduates leaving the country to avoid paying tax? Get a free education then leave as soon as you can afford it to avoid hefty fees? It makes sense. We only need look 2 years ago to see that emigration has long been considered to be a more prosperous way to live your life post-HE.

Varying degrees of extremism have been proposed on the graduate tax/contribution but this ‘valley of death’ scenario that Lambert is predicting needs to be strongly considered by all proponents of Cable’s suggestion.

If we think realistically – not all economically useful graduates will leave Britain should they be faced with a tax on their degree. Some will have familial commitments, some will not be fiscally stable enough to stay in the UK and some may just love the country and not want to leave. Those that do leave have no such ties, or are able to sever those ties freely.

Immigration minister Damien Green has today announced that student immigration levels are ‘unsustainable’. Whereas Green is focusing on the issue of student visa’s, he has inadvertently introduced another facet of the tax argument.

1. We have lots of international students coming into the country, paying high fees to learn from Britain’s best minds.

2. We could (according to Lambert) face large numbers of British graduates leaving the country due to the grad tax.

3. These British graduates will act as overseas ambassadors. The more that leave the country, the more international students will want to come to the UK to study HE.

So in terms of international reputation – British graduates leaving the country could be the best thing politically for British economic and diplomatic affairs.

In terms of sustained UK economy however, if we presume that a large number of those that are international students leave Britain post-HE – then we will have a long term deficit of graduates contributing to Britain’s GDP.

Politically it is best for graduates to leave the country – this will provide us with good international repute and increased sector return in the wake of HE cuts. But economically it may be a risky strategy to play in the long term, forcing ‘useful’ graduates out of a country that needs all the brains it can get.

I don’t envy Cable. It’s a lose-lose situation.

Helping a stranger? It's not worth it.

2010-09-02T14:33:00.005+01:00

In the Metro over the last few days, the letters page has been bemoaning the lack of ‘good samaritans’ in the world. The case of Mary (Metro, Wed 1/9) whose cries for help when she and her partner were assaulted on a busy London street were ignored, has particularly riled commuters.

In April it was reported that more than 20 people ignored a dying man for nearly two hours as he lay on a New York street after saving a woman from being mugged. And the question that everyone is asking is: why?

'Oh back in the good old days', they drone. 'Oh I used to know all of my neighbours', they lament. 'Oh what is the matter with people these days', they wail. My reply? We are genetically programmed not to give a crap about anyone that can’t help us. That or we won’t risk our own genetic safety unless we get one hell of a payback.

Is it cruel to suggest that what Dawkins famously terms the ‘Selfish Gene’ is, in my opinion, the reason why we no longer help each other? Perhaps. Is it accurate? To the best of our scientific knowledge it must be. The theory of Reciprocal Altruism set out by Hamilton in 1964 states that altruism, or more broadly helping behavior, will be greater the closer genetically we are related to the person in need of assistance. According to him there are several other characteristics required to ‘help’ someone else:

1. the behaviour must reduce a donor's fitness relative to a selfish alternative;
2. the fitness of the recipient must be elevated relative to non-recipients;
3. the performance of the behaviour must not depend on the receipt of an immediate benefit;
4. conditions 1, 2, and 3 must apply to both individuals engaging in reciprocal helping.”

So how does this help the wounded person in the gutter? Matt Ridley, in his book The Origins of Virtue, argues that society operates best in groups of around 150 individuals, which he suggests is the level at which humans are capable of being sure about which members to cooperate with and which to exclude.

This is further developed in The Rational Optimist where Ridley extrapolated this argument to suggest that societal evolution occurred as a result of skill specialisation. Essentially one tribe of people specialises in catching fish (and develop the technologies associated with that industry); another specialises in hunting deer (and develops those tools) and both totally ignore that which isn’t their specialism. They then trade fish for deer meat without trading the technology and the skills. Both tribes therefore get both meats for half the knowledge required and half the effort put in to learn those skills. Evolutionary sense nay? The more society specialises, the more ‘expert’ we become, the less we know about everything but then again the more we ‘trade’ that knowledge to advance society. An interesting and incredibly seductive hypothesis.

If Ridley, Dawkins, Stephens, Hamilton, Latane and Darley et al are all correct, then the logical conclusion to why people have stopped caring about their neighbours/helping injured strangers is entirely selfish. Why should I put myself in the line of danger when I get literally nothing in return? The happiness/satisfaction gained from altruistically helping someone is not worth the potential injury to the body or mind that may occur as a result of ‘investing my resource'.

Although Ridley avoids drawing any specific political points, he ends Origins of Virtue by arguing for a smaller state operating on a more local level. An argument for small ‘c’ conservativism it may be, but it is definitely an argument for why ‘modern samaritans’ are a rarity.

Something for the ‘Big Society’ advocates to consider: is the wonderful philosophical idea possible if the theories of selfish genes and societal specialisms are correct?

Exams: no earthly purpose in assessing education

2010-08-24T11:39:00.007+01:00

Exams do not assess academic aptitude.

There I said it. Something that has been bubbling under my skin for years. I apologise now for what will inevitably become a series of sentences that one could label 'rant'.

But in all seriousness - what academic merit is assessed by a formalised test? Legitimate study provides many skills: debating logic, learning skills, constructing arguments and destroying others. This is a cursory list of assessing the true test of knowledge of an academic subject, granted.

The crux of my complaint with examinations as a whole lies within the origins of the entire system.

I seem to recall (but in my annoyance cannot find) a story that highlights the danger inherent in them. A Cambridge chemistry Professor in times of old, assessed his students degree classification based on a conversation. An interview-like session lasting several hours discussing various thoughts and theories in chemical scripture. At the end of the session, using his expertise as a guide, he would give a mark. That was it. As the years progressed and more people were admitted, the ageing Professor didn't have the time or the patience, despite the willingness, to sit with each of his growning number of students sipping brandy and discussing chemical philosophy. Too much brandy let alone time. So he wrote his questions down. Gave them a period of time to answer them. And the 'exam' was borne.

What started out as a resource:time efficient tool, now formalised, has since become a test of memory, and little assessment of understanding of the topic.

Psychologists have long debated the purpose and factors that affect memory (e.g. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1129522) as any A-level Psychology student will ironically tell you. Variants from stress on the day; home circumstances, the last time they went to the loo/ate food/drank drink; the temperature of the room; the time of year/day; the number of people in the are; the tone of the examiner; the clothes they are wearing; biological symptoms - the list is endless. All can reportedly affect a persons memory.

And all can therefore affect the outcome of the memory test that is an exam. What if you have memorised a factoid religiously and you forget it when the crucial 2-hour slot comes around? Tough. You can't analyse and demonstrate you're aptitude at the subject if you can't remember that which you were supposed to analyse.

As James Cleverley, London Assembly Member, succinctly points out:

When was the last time that you were asked to do a piece of work completely alone, with no input from your work colleagues, no reference material and with a claustrophobic tight deadline? I'm guessing never. Yet this is often the situation we create when we ask children to sit exams.

He is absolutely right. From UG dissertations and PhD theses; to journal or news items - none are expected to be written from memory alone. Could you imagine carrying out genuine academic research without using the internet or a variety of sources?

In truth: exams are a necessary evil. They are a way of society ranking, sorting and advancing some citizens over others due to a lack of resource. Not everyone can get into College/University so exams are utilised as a performance indicator. Like a management consultant using appraisal tools. Exams are here to stay, but their academic merit is certainly in question.

Research into the Challenges, Usage and Benefits of social media in Higher Education Institutions

2010-08-20T16:04:00.003+01:00

Brilliant analysis of Social Media practices in HEI's - read it back in January so apologies for the delay in posting!

http://issuu.com/jadu/docs/hei_report

The Root of the HE Problem: Primary Education?

2010-08-17T12:24:00.001+01:00

Highlighted perfectly on Newsnight last night was the plight of the modern day university applicant: aspiring; hardworking but according to most of the panel ironically ill-educated.

Ill-educated in the sense that their entire grounding in education is tailoring them for a Higher Education sector that, in essence, hasn’t the room for them. Not that they sector doesn’t want to. HEFCE’s cap on the number of students allowed at any one HEI is restricting national ambition on a scale that is seeing over 170,000 students fail at the first post. I could go on a rant that this is a good thing to preserve resources, but the pro-access lobby (which I am also a part of) would probably shoot me down…

The way we prepare young people for adult life revolves around a series of misinformed (yet I’m sure wholly well-intentioned) role models. Teachers, parents, friends, the media – all are pointing the way to the panacea that is Higher Education. Dale Bassett, from the Reform thinktank comments: “We need to get away from the assumption that university is the only way to go. It’s the right thing for a lot of people, but it is also not right for many others. We need to get out of the mindset that university is the way forward for everyone.”

http://www.notgoingtouni.co.uk/ welcomes visitors to its site by saying: ‘So you're thinking about not going to uni. Congratulations! You've just proved that you're not afraid to think differently. Contrary to what the masses may say, university isn't the only path to success.’ A representative of the site recently commented that “37% of young people are told that university is the only option by teachers, 28% by parents and 20% said HE was the only option for progression during careers guidance.” Where does this mindset originate? We don’t want to stop aspiration, but the reasons why people go to university need to be analysed and addressed.

Could the cause of Higher Education’s difficulty in maintaining its reputation nationally and internationally be in flawed aspirational constructs in Primary Education?

Ben Goldacre’s blog today comments on the reasoning and the content of compulsory education and crucially highlights the need to change the mindset that it is instilling in the adults of tomorrow. ‘A lot of these things are down to culture and institutional inertia, but a lot of science and tech education seems a bit fossilised to me.’ He postulates further that this inertia will eventually create a nation intent on educating itself to a high standard, frustrated with the ‘fossilised mindset’ of the educational system. He may have a point – those early years are when we discover a passion for academia, be it learning language/literature or experimenting with basic science, this is the time when we are taught the value of learning. Could this also be the time where we teach our children about choice and value-based judgments – skills crucial in making the right decisions in their future lives.

Choosing the next step post-compulsory education is one of the first major life decisions that anyone has to take – going to university should not be the default for the indecisive.

Getting the A* Grade - not just for the rich.

2010-08-04T17:51:00.000+01:00

Imagine that you are a state educated kid. You’re about to start your final year of secondary school, and thus your GCSE exam year. For almost your entire life you have heard around the place that going to university is the only way to improve your life. Stats from HESA indicate that 88.5% of entrants to universities in the UK are from state schools and colleges. Encouraging stuff.

You know that you don’t have to go to university, but you want to. So you choose a college and start you’re A-levels. You then read this:

‘Universities could turn away increased numbers of state school pupils from the poorest backgrounds as a number of elite institutions begin asking for the new A* grade at A-level, the government's watchdog on fair access to higher education has warned.

Sir Martin Harris, director of the government's Office for Fair Access, said the new grade could strengthen private schools' hold on elite universities.’ The Guardian, Monday 2 August 2010.

What does this mean for you now? You still want to go to uni so do you work any less? No. According to the HESA stats you are still likely to get into university only now you are trying to get 90% of your marks rather than 80%. More difficult? Certainly. Should you therefore give up? Certainly not.

It has long been argued that asking for AAA entry requirements may be too difficult for some state educated pupils to achieve. Before the election Lord Mandelson was reportedly looking at reducing the entry requirements for ‘poorer kids’. But HESA’s stats seem to indicate that state educated’s need no favoritism.

Kate Purcell, who led the research at the Warwick Institute for Employment Research, prepared a paper for HECSU which argues that there is "a public and professional need for a more precise taxonomy of universities". "The tariff points required... are generally indicative of the comparative status of the institutions and the competition to enter them," it adds. So entry requirements are constantly evolving, Kate argues, is the A* A-level requirement the next necessary step in the evolution of the system?

In the Tweet conversation that inspired this blog, Martin Hughes (@universityboy) and Newell Hampson-Jones (@NHJ_HE) both agree that beneath Sir Martin’s concern for widening participation is an even greater problem waiting to explode within the sector: what comes next? When students are getting three A*’s how will the system cater to the increased demand? All three of us agree, that a fundamental reform of the current A-level system is desperately needed, something I think is very nicely highlighted by Reform’s paper ‘A New Level.’

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), said in The Guardian in April: "Students from poorer backgrounds do often need more support in terms of mentoring as well as financial support at university. Research has shown students from state schools outperform their independent-schooled contemporaries when they reach university. It is absolutely vital that students are not priced out of university by any new measures from the forthcoming fees review."

Provided that the financial situation is communicated effectively as not being a barrier to HE, I believe that state educated students are more than capable of overcoming any hurdles between them and their goal provided that they are bright enough. They conquered the A grade. They can conquer the A*. We should really have more faith in them.

Updated version: What is social media NOW?

2010-08-02T10:57:00.001+01:00

And here is a newer version - scary the difference in numbers over 2 years.

What is social media NOW?

View more presentations from Espresso’s Infiltrators.

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

2010-08-02T10:52:00.001+01:00

Discovered this entertaining and poignant presentation on the power of social media whilst rooting around the blogosphere:

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

View more presentations from Marta Kagan.

The missing link in the Big Society

2010-07-23T15:11:00.000+01:00

Comment piece requested by www.TotalPolitics.com.

When it comes to realising the dream of the Big Society, nothing strikes fear more in the hearts and minds of young Britain than "National Citizen Service" or, to give it its street title, "doing something for nothing".

The arguments put forward in favour of the National Citizen Service are indeed noble. Civic responsibility; volunteering in the community; cost saving etc. However, Cameron’s weakness in this approach is its lack of militarism to galvanise the disaffected youth into taking part. Those that will heed the call are, likely as not, already volunteering or looking for internships to develop their earning potential – convincing the rest is the challenge.

In a recent journal, social anthropologist Matt Ridley theorises that the major societal changes throughout human history come about as a result of one thing: specialisation. Development of societal behaviours, he theorises, largely only come about through experts demonstrating and teaching others. A recent campaign in the Evening Standard on Britain’s dispossessed population utilised big names to highlight the issue – and has received formal backing for the campaign from the PM himself thus demonstrating the power and necessity of role model endorsement.

The Citizen Service campaign was launched with Michael Caine – are others needed? Only by highlighting these experts can Cameron hope to achieve the desired impact of his Big Society and Citizenship campaign.

Cameron has often been criticised of social nudging from the dispatch box. According to Ridley’s theory, in order to achieve longevity in his quest he must nudge a little harder by planting the idea firmly within the minds of Britain’s young.

And that’s where Michael Gove comes in.

I’m surprised that as of yet the National Citizen Service has not been aligned or linked to in any way to the Department for Education. Why not make it a compulsory unit of study? Citizenship modules are becoming ever more popular in state education, being directly incorporated alongside traditional PSHE lessons. Could this partnership be the missing link between long term successes and media buy in?

Could the missing link be Michael Gove?

If this is the case; then could Gove’s current political radiation be the biggest issue currently facing in the Big Society?

Mario Creatura is a Conservative activist with experience in communications and public relations. He currently works in the higher education sector. Follow him on Twitter: @mariocreatura

Two year degrees: Opening Pandora’s box

2010-07-14T13:06:00.000+01:00

Vince Cable, Business Secretary, has re-opened the debate on the purpose and economic benefits of the two year degree course:

‘Two-year university degrees, more part-time courses and more students living with their parents while they study will be proposed by the coalition Government as it begins the task of cutting the £155bn deficit.’ The Independent

Students can be incredibly industrious. Creative, excited, genuinely enthused about academic rigour and the desire to delve into previously unthought-of scholarly principles. A three year degree allocates a relatively small amount of time during the working week to formally defined lecture/seminar sessions with the onus being on the mature and intelligent student to take up the rest of their free time to fit in adequate outside reading as well as co-curricular activities.

Then there is the time that extra-curricular activities take up – something that I hope we all agree is an essential part of the student experience and thus the formation of a well rounded and employable graduate.

But what about the rest of the time? The hours spent procrastinating; of staring into space and failing to adequately make use of project deadlines? Careers services are reportedly more underused than ever – which suggests that although many immensely useful free courses such as ‘how to manage your project time effectively’ are being ignored. Could this be an indication that pressure to perform is too lax at our leading HEI’s?

This could be the unannounced benefit of the two year degree. Students arguably perform better under pressure - the logic following the ‘there’s less time to procrastinate so I won’t’ theme. And why shouldn’t they? Will two year degrees see an increase in the power and utilisation of the careers centre? I think it might.

‘Teaching qualifications’ for academics have helped to create a behavioural expectation in students that once fees are paid then a degree is almost certain: the mentality of the spoon-fed GCSE seems to be have permeated expectation and become abundant in many universities that I have had the fortune to observe.

Squeezing a three year course into two years we may increase project management efficiency in students (perfect differentiation criteria for the hotly contested graduate placements) but at the cost to the student experience. University is about enjoying yourself: joining crazy student societies; going on protest marches and getting drunk on ridiculously cheap vodka. Of course I’m using stereotypes but the point still stands – co-curricular activities shape us for the rest of our lives. This is a core part of the two year degree that Mr Cable doesn’t seem to have considered.

But they will be better for student debt, better for the economy, better for the HEI’s and better for the job market. May not be better for the ‘enjoyment’ of university but is that something that we can all live without? The question returns again: what is a university for?

‘I work better under pressure’ the mantra that we all hear regularly from the student who leaves work to the last minute. I’d be careful to open that box if I were you. You may just get what you wish for.

“He sends text messages, how hard can getting him on Twitter be?”

2010-07-08T11:20:00.001+01:00

A few months back I took a vague interest in how many University heads were on Twitter. I’ve been active on the social networking site for a few years now and have kept tabs on most of the main speakers in HE, but failed to come across more than a couple of UK Vice-Chancellors.

I asked Times Higher Education if they knew of any: ‘@vcsalford is the only one we know of UK-wise, there's also http://universitydiary.wordpress.com/ (blog from DCU president).’

I took a look, Professor Martin Hall sends out messages once every few days. Implies a busy schedule; but a connection with a popular emerging communication tool. Decent number of followers (315 currently) who he tends to interact with.

After a bit more digging I found that the office of the VC for Southampton is on Twitter (@Soton_VC_Office). Official messages in a corporate voice, little personal interaction but hasn’t been updated since mid January. Could it be that they found it too difficult to maintain as a staff and had to resource elsewhere?

Up until the recent emergence of the newly appointed De Montfort University Vice-Chancellor Dominic Shellard, in June this year, that was it. @DMUVC is doing very well at engaging with his audience as demonstrated by the near 300 followers that he had gained in a few weeks. Interacting with staff questions and claiming to be tweeting himself without the aide of an assistant with constant meeting updates is a time consuming task.

No other UK VC’s have ventured into the territory. So it begs the question: why?

“He send text messages, how hard can Twitter be?” These fairly logical words came from a friend of mine as we were discussing how to get senior academics into social media.

For some, commenting on current affairs and announcing the contents of their lives is an easy process – one akin to a good gossip in a pub. But winning executives round to incorporating a new piece of technology into their daily lives can be an incredibly tricky process.

Now let me be clear on this point, it is not that they find it difficult, my view is that the least cited yet most important excuse for not tweeting is ‘danger of exposure’. The examples above show three distinct styles for academics using social media:

1) Personal approach, vocal and frequent (@DMUVC)
2) Office approach, depersonalised and corporate messages (@Soton_VC_office)
3) A mixture of the above (@vcsalford)

Is one approached better than the other? I genuinely believe that Professor Hall has nailed it. A VC shouldn’t have the time to send dozens of tweets a day; a recent article in the Daily Telegraph suggested that constant use of social media reshapes our brains ‘and makes our thinking shallower’. Even if this isn’t the case, the amount of time spent online tweeting is akin to someone texting during a presentation – highlights a priority on PR of the self or the institution, rather than governance and executive management.

And for the hundreds of VC’s that aren’t on Twitter? It can’t hurt to give it a go. Provided that you aren’t spewing tripe about what you had for breakfast and use your podium to promote official messages and interact with your audience, it shouldn’t be incredibly daunting.

Yes it can open you up to attack, but it also creates a level of interaction and transparency that I feel is strongly needed in the sector. In the era of staff reductions and budget cuts, the sector must unify to a greater or lesser extent to promote its successes and apologise for its failures on a public platform, together. Only then can the public at large truly understand the incalculable benefits of investing in a higher education sector.

Communication is key. Having university executives on Twitter is just one way of attacking the issue.
______________

Interesting to note that since my blog went out that @Soton_VC_Office has been disabled. Still exists in Google though.

Fertilising the roots: "Service Excellence" in HE

2010-05-28T12:11:00.000+01:00

‘A business scholar has called for the implementation of "service excellence" in higher education and urged universities to treat staff as "internal customers", not employees.’

Oh yes.

Anyone who has worked in a University has come across them. Academics that are of the opinion that the institution is there to solely facilitate their research. In a utopia, this would be the case. In realistic terms, Universities stopped being places of sole theorising long ago.

Logically a huge question comes next: what is a University for?

An incredibly difficult question quickly spins out of this one: what is the role of an Academic within a University?

The answers are the academic management’s Holy Grail – for only by discovering the quantifiable answer can we hope to survive the modernising cuts.

In a business you sign contractual agreements of employment, in an industrial environment you must fulfill certain criterion to be deemed worthy of employment. No doubt you are hired based on your talent, experience and reputation. So why are ego’s being massaged? Why are academics turned into celebrities, in their own workplace if not within the media?

We feel the need to flatter and pander to the requirements of the stereotypically narrow-minded view of the bumbling academic. That the reason they are in such demand is because they are solely focused on their one specific research area. This is what makes them great. And like the secret to growing good tomatoes, fertiliser and not terms and conditions are required.

In a sector intent on maintaining it’s noble and honour bound pursuit of ‘furthering the sum of human knowledge’, we don’t like to think of the fiscal element. Applying for research grants is a mere technicality! So we reward internally with personality, pandering, and egotistical flattery.

But what about the reward based structure? Dr Khan’s notion of greater ‘internal customer satisfaction’ is spot on. Rewards for the economically productive of academics will lead to greater unity as an institution, enhance performance and demonstrate to the wider community that HE is worth the national investment.

Student satisfaction is a crucial part of the student experience - but what about the staff experience? The two are closely linked, the more satisfied the staff are, the more likely they will work to develope engagement and satisfaction with the students.

For this to happen, we must acknowledge that the definition of a University has changed. Inexorably.

Bring it on I say.

Is jam making the future for HE?

2010-05-21T09:52:00.000+01:00

“What’s in the jar should be what’s on the label,” says Paul Wellings, VC of Lancaster University and chair of the 1994 Group. As ever, context is key. Professor Wellings recently suggested to the Browne review that if institutions were to remove the cap on fees then they should be prepared to face fines should they fail to deliver on the student experience.

He makes a valid point. If the sector is to move to a consumer based economy, with HEI’s raising fees and focusing ever closely on publicising knowledge transfer systems, world-renowned learning environments and high quality student experience then they should be willing to expect students demanding their money back should they not be ‘satisfied’.

Similar to a warrantee on an electrical item (‘If you aren’t fully satisfied with this product…’), how can we regulate a system where degrees are merely products for progression in life? Where STEM subjects are prioritised and REF frameworks are adhered to. Creating a series of guarantees from an institution to the student body at large is the only way to achieve parity.

But the confidence in the unlimited cap system could still be lacking. The only way that this can rectified, in my opinion, is to have a system for concerns to be facilitated independently. Some form of national regulatory framework for scrutiny must be in place to ensure quality control.

Academic purists will abhor this move, arguing that external scrutiny is a destructive force within HEI's. That researchers should be allowed to run free with creativity leading the way in the field of innovation. In a sensitive marketplace economy we cannot have different rules for different groups of people. If undergraduate students are expected to pay the earth for higher education with no guarantees; then researchers must also expect to have to justify their spending within the Research Excellence Framework.

We need independent quality control to restore faith in the system. Or prepare for the consequences. I for one quite like jam...

Report on Prof Wellings submission

Coffee: the key to HE funding?

2010-03-26T10:43:00.000Z

The University of Surrey has started doing something rather innovative.

With the commonly held assertion that large higher education institutions are so large that most of the inhabitants have no idea what is going on, the Marketing department has come up with an idea entitled ‘Brief Encounters.’

The premise is that a series of short speakers from various walks of life in the University community will come every few weeks to a lecture theatre and talk for no more than 10 minutes about what they are doing at the University. It could be anything from a fascinating piece of academic research to a charitable endeavour, from a challenging initiative to student activities.

The first of these events was held on Wednesday 24th March with various speakers including a student talking about Fair-trade policy and a nutritionist explaining her intriguing cook book aimed at Prostate cancer sufferers.

A few interesting factoids came out during the event that I wasn’t expecting. Of them one struck me as being rather odd: we know little about the affects of caffeine on the human body.

Hold on. Pardon?

Can this really be true? One of the oldest known stimulants in the world has very little known about it at all? Coffee is rumoured to have been discovered in Ethiopia by a goatherd called ‘Kaldi’ around the 9th Century BC. That’s almost 3,000 years ago. In all that time pretty much the only thing that experts sort of accept about the worlds favourite ‘morning drink’ is that it may wake you up. That’s all.

Kummer (2003) says: ‘Findings have been contradictory as to whether coffee has any specific health benefits, and results are similarly conflicting regarding the potentially harmful effects of coffee consumption.’

If something as common as coffee can be unknown – an everyday object that is purported to be the second most traded commodity in the world - then what hope do we have of understanding the vastly more complex subjects that surround us on a minute by minute basis?

We can launch satellites into space; come up with fascinating philosophical treatises and discover untold wonders about our environment. But something as simple as caffeine remains unknown. Why? Is it a lack of interest? Apathy? (e.g. it’s been around for 3,000 years and it’s done us no harm so do we need to bother?) Or is it too difficult for our elite academics to fathom?

Whatever the reason; surely more funding is needed in the sciences to ensure that everyday issues such as this are assessed for their impact on human life? If the goal of science is to help society develop and improve itself, then these things cannot be ignored.

If faith is to be reinstated in the public that Universities are worth public and private investment, then the sector must demonstrate that it is thinking about the public and the services that it consumes. If we ignore the little things then how can we hope to progress on the international stage?

This is not political – it is practical. Without public backing and support, academia will struggle to breathe.

What makes a world class Higher Education Institution?

2010-01-28T15:54:00.000Z

Speech delivered by Paul Marshall, Executive Director of the 1994 Group, at the QS-Asia conference of world leaders in HE, Kuala Lumpur 22.11.2009.

Written by Mario Creatura

"Distinguished guests, it is a true honour to speak to you today.

Using case studies drawn from 1994 Group, this session will consider how within the UK's market based funding environment, a combination of visionary leadership, clear strategic planning and close performance management led them to be recognised by the QS-World Rankings as among the world’s leading Higher Education institutions. It also considers the implications of the current economic crisis on the sustainability of the UK HE system.

The 1994 Group represents 19 of the UK’s leading research intensive, student focused universities. We are a group united by our desire to promote excellence in university research and teaching. Around half of the top 20 universities in UK national league tables are members of the group.

Our strength is remarkable given our size and age. Our institutions are small to medium size – on average 10,000 students. The sector average being closer to 20,000. The majority of our institutions are around 50 years old. Although some have been around for over 400 years!

We spend the highest proportion of our funding on Social Studies, Humanities and Biosciences; while the highest proportion of our research income comes from biosciences, physics and chemistry.

The government department for Business, Innovation and Skills is charged with building a dynamic and competitive UK economy by promoting innovation, enterprise and science. They wish to achieve this by fostering world-class universities and promoting an open global economy. Earlier this month, Lord Mandelson the First Secretary of State for the United Kingdom and head of BIS, said: “It seems to me that in equipping the UK for a post-recession global economy, higher education and adult skills will be not just important but decisive.” Politics and Education are inextricably linked.

Government support and funding is crucial, and we believe that funding should be offered as a reward for quantifiable success. The Higher Education Funding Council for England is a non-governmental public body that is responsible for allocating funding to higher education institutions. In 1997 when the current government came to power, HEFCE distributed roughly £3.4 billion worth of funding.

Including £2.4 billion for teaching and £704 million for research.

This year, following a decade of substantial government investment HEFCE allocated £8 billion to universities and colleges.

Including £5 billion for teaching and nearly £2 billion for research.

In addition to sound funding, the autonomy of the sector is fundamental to its success - no matter the age of the institution. Each is private and is governed according to its own strategy by academics and through its lay governors in its council.

Working together, the 1994 Group is committed to providing an extremely high standard of education, demonstrating excellence in teaching and academic support, and providing learning in a research-rich community. This mentality unites all of our institutions – and it is through this unification that we are made stronger and more effective by our efforts.

But it is one thing to describe our mission statement; it is another to prove quantifiably that we are achieving our aims.

Statistically we have improved dramatically. 10 years ago there were 18 of the 1994 Group institutions in the top 50 of the Times Good University Guide. This year’s results paint a vastly improved picture.

In The Times Good University Guide 2010 we were put top in six regions of the UK.

9 of the top 200 universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2009.

This is a huge achievement. To ensure that our research intensive institutions improve their global standing, the first and most crucial step is one of visionary leadership.

The design and implementation of strategic plans need to be right from the start. The most effective way to ensure this is to have highly qualified managers. By having leadership in the upper echelons of HE institutions that truly acknowledge the awesome impact that they can have on the sector and the international community, universities will play a major role in shaping the post-recession economy.

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills recently released a report called ‘From Recession to Recovery’ where they illustrated how strong leadership and decisive decision-making from universities were reaching out to struggling businesses to offer their advice and expertise thus enabling them to become more productive, innovative and competitive. For example, one of the 1994 Group, the University of Surrey, is working with the Tavistock Institute to launch the Leadership Academy for Innovation, Leadership and Recovery. Through this we are spreading our leadership into the community. This can only be possible if we create efficient strategic plans to ensure success for our efforts.

In order to truly achieve quantifiable improvements in the sector in the era of global economic turbulence, institutions have had to tailor their developmental strategies to these new circumstances.

So to maintain growth in the market, all of our institutions realise that they must be responsive to the changing landscape and must capitalise on the opportunities for expansion.

Lancaster University is based in the Northwest of England and is ranked 7^th in the UK for the level of its research. Within their new strategic plan, issued a matter of weeks ago, they acknowledged that they must be ‘sensitive to the needs of home students and the business community in the region, the changing environment for research support, and the important role placed by regional F.E. colleges in helping widen access to higher education.’ They also pledged to focus their resources on to the 1,500 overseas students that study at their UK campus. Lancaster signed an agreement with the Sunway University College in Malaysia in 2006. The first students graduated from this exciting collaborative arrangement in October 2009. There are currently 1,000 students enrolled at Sunway on joint degrees ranging from Psychology to Business and Management to Information Technology.

Loughborough University, another 1994 Group institution, is based in the East Midlands of the England and this year was given the coveted title of University of the Year by the Times Newspaper. In setting out their strategic plan they have highlighted a set of elements they believe are crucial to the successful implementation of the strategic planning process.

- Planning helps crystallise distinctive qualities

Understanding what your University is known for, and knowing how to capitalise on the expertise that your institution has, is essential in accurately placing where you want to develop in the future.

Supporting strategies and operational plans should be used effectively to reinforce any ideas to make them realistic, contextualised goals rather than ambitious dreams.

- Consultation, Collaboration and Communication

Consultation is the key to guaranteeing that your proposals are obtainable and palatable.

Collaborate with all stakeholders, staff and students.

Seek the consul of external advisers and figures in your local community and communicate effectively to as many people that will be affected by the plan as possible.

The more information you acquire the greater the chance of efficient implementation.

But how do you measure success?

What better tools do we have at our disposal than league tables? League tables have their faults, but they act as an encouraging benchmark with which to measure ourselves against.

Are our students satisfied? How are our institutions perceived on a national and international scale? Is the amount that we are providing to groundbreaking research demonstrating return for our investment? All of these questions are leading to one crucial quandary: is our leadership truly visionary in its approach and is our strategic plan accounting for every facet of our higher education establishments? A report by the US Institute for Higher Education Policy called the ‘Impact of College Rankings on Institutional Decision-Making’ has found that rankings can foster collaboration; lead institutions to share best practice and prompt improvements in teaching and learning. This is the case within the 1994 Group.

There are two things that need to be measured to ensure success: the first is research aptitude.

The Research Assessment Exercise occurs roughly every 5 years on behalf of the UK higher education funding councils to evaluate the quality of research undertaken by researchers. RAE submissions from each subject area are given a rank by peer review panels. The rankings are used to inform how much research funding is given to each higher education institution. Within institutions the RAE process encourages and enables the close performance management of faculty expectations not only of publications, but also interaction with business, success in research grant applications and completion of PhD students are carefully measure by faculty managers. Success in all these areas is necessary to achieve the highest grades.

The most recent assessment took place in 2008 where it said that 57% of the 1994 Group's research is rated 'world-leading' or 'internationally excellent'. Rewards for this success is clear. Funding for research in the UK is highly concentrated. In England, 116 institutions receive research funding. Of these:

- 50% goes to the top 10 institutions

- 75% goes to the top 25 institutions

- 92% goes to the top 50 institutions

1994 Group institutions receive between them 19.5% of all research funding. 1994 Group institutions lead in 16 subjects areas, for them, research funding is crucial to maintaining the necessarily high expectations of quality from the public and the international community.

The National Student Survey in Britain is a tool custom designed to assess teaching quality, but crucially from a student experience perspective. The annual NSS is conducted by an independent polling company which asks leavers to assess from their own individual perspective the institution that they have just spent 3 or more years studying in. This years results show that 88% of students at the Group’s 19 member universities say they are satisfied with the overall student experience. The national average is 81%. Responding to what students expect from university can only make us stronger. Institutions use the results of the NSS alongside their internal assessment procedures to measure the performance of faculties. Where the performance of faculties is found to be out of line with that of other subject areas within the institutions or against peers actions are taken to address problems. There is heavy pressure to ensure high NSS scores. The demand in our sector is growing, and with finite resources, more creative methods of delivering a key societal service must be discovered.

How can we ensure a good all encompassing university experience? And why is it important to constantly strive to provide the best possible environment for an educational institution? All our members have a firm belief that every student and tutor should have the resources that they need, no matter what their background, to be nurtured and to grow into their full potential.

At the Conservative Party conference in October 2009, Prof. Shirley Pearce Vice Chancellor of the University of Loughborough told us that “when [she] was a student it was not apparent that all [her] teachers cared about [her] learning experience – their research progress seemed to be more important than her wellbeing as a student. This is certainly not the way it is in the 1994 Group of universities.” Her impassioned plea to leaders in education; politics and business to acknowledge the potential that is within students and staff was only superseded by her desire to ensure that this potential is coaxed out with both financial and emotional investment at all times.

Students that are secure in their learning environment, provided with every possible resource and supported at by dedicated members of staff can achieve greatness. By working together, across different institutions and sectors, to share best practice we can improve the level of attainment in higher education. We believe that careful, innovative planning and meticulous assessment is the foundation of achievement.

The Centre for Higher Education Research and Information on behalf of HEFCE published in 2008 a paper assessing the impact of league tables on English HEI’s entitled ‘Counting what is measured or measuring what counts?’ In it they asked UK HE leaders what they thought about the statement: “Rankings Provide a valuable means of public accountability for higher education institutions and help to distinguish the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’”. In line with their overall clear strategic focus, 1994 Group institutions placed a far greater degree of value than the rest of the sector on league table rankings as a means of public accountability with a quarter agreeing with the statement.

In terms of the influence that university rankings have on institutional actions, overall, institutions were found to have made most changes to promotion and marketing activities; decisions on how best to submit data including adaptation of key performance indicators or targets. 75% of the 1994 Group institutions strongly agreed or agreed that their strategic development had been influenced strongly by the use of league tables, and with 88% of our students being satisfied as a result of our plans and with the Group leading in 16 major research areas; surely this is an encouraging correlation?

It is results such as these and the planning that occurs as a result of their crucial analysis that enables out institutions to inform policy changes on a governmental as was as institutional level.

In terms of the percentage of GDP spent on higher education, the UK is close to the European average but the UK had the highest number of research publications in the top 1 per cent of citations over the period 2000–2006. The UK ranks second only to the US globally on this ranking.

Universities have been acknowledged as being vital for future economic and social prosperity. In fact a recent report by UUK costs the benefit of the HE sector on the British economy as close to £59 billion! Government recognition of the key role for research with potential long-term benefit, as well as giving short-term advancement, is critical. There is an enormous potential for our research base in our leading Universities to play a constructive role in social and economic development in a period when public resources will be stretched and contested. It is vital that the outstanding record of the HE sector is recognised, but also that pressure on public support is not translated into policies which will inhibit the future contribution of the international research base. Impact must be grounded in excellence. What then is necessary to continue this success? What are the threads of our system?

The 1994 Group universities have an international reputation for the quality of their policy research, employing academics at the very top of their fields.

Their expertise informs government officials and policy makers, and impacts directly on the economic, social, cultural, technological, medical and environmental development of the nation and the wider world. Often working across a variety of academic disciplines, they call upon knowledge, innovation and expertise from different sections of the university's staff. They forge close links with industry, government and the public on regional, national and international levels, to deliver the most informed and meaningful research.

Research and Enterprise; Student Experience; and Strategic Planning and Resources. These are the 1994 Groups three policy groups and are designed to provide an essential avenue through which the group can strengthen inter-institutional activity and provide a forum for the development of longer-term policy.

A recent example of the influential policy consultation that we have carried out can be found in our report on the research landscape of the United Kingdom. This report argues that universities are vital to the UK’s capacity to meet current and future national and global challenges and to drive economic growth. Combating climate change and ensuring life-long health and well-being are just some of the critical challenges that our universities are meeting. This report sets out examples of world leading research, identifies key common features and makes policy recommendations to strengthen our research base. With the right support the cutting-edge research at our universities can help address our most pressing challenges.

I believe that Higher Education needs a strong and influential voice in government, and that only with commitment and the right visionary leadership to accurately direct our vast pool of world-renowned academics can improvements across the sector, on a policy level, be successfully achieved.

So has any of this helped the 1994 Group members? Lets have a look. In the last 15 years...

- The University of Exeter has improved 30 places.

- The University of Leicester has risen 17 places.

- The University of St. Andrews has gone up 12.

- The University of East Anglia has increasing by 11.

- Loughborough University has increased by 8.

- Lancaster University has climbed by 5.

To name a few! Increased funding is unarguably a huge factor in their growth and development. But this is not the sole reason.

The system that I have presented today enables institutions to be rewarded for success – but that success is not taken for granted. We live in a dynamite sector which changes according to new circumstances. Taking advantage of every change from that position of strength is the key stone to our successful institutions.

We are entering such a moment of change.

Lord Mandelson has recently published a higher education framework, vital for the future of higher education. Whichever party wins our general election next year, I foresee five years which will be both the most exciting, dramatic and completely terrifying that HE has known for at least thirty years.

The ability for out institutions to respond to these challenges will determine their future national and international competitiveness.

In teaching, to meet ever increasing expectation from government and the nation, we shall see a new dawn in transparency, quality and recognition of the essential role of the student experience. Institutions will provide transparent information, to inform students’ choices and advice on graduate employment prospects to reveal the stark diversity and differentiation of task and mission which underpins the excellence of UK HE.

To ensure research excellence, scarce resources will be carefully allocated to deliver maximum impact. A new system of assessment and funding will build upon recognised excellence to usher in a new era where recognition for the impact of government investment plays a central role in determining reward alongside, and tied together with, that excellence. Co-creation of knowledge with businesses and charities rather than an ivory tower mentality will become the norm.

Alongside these key changes we will see the shape of the sector shift. The next government will push forward with a system of credit accumulation and transfer and break down barriers between full-time and part-time study, raise the status of Further Education and genuinely provide access to HE for all, literally at the end of every street. This will challenge the HE sector to respond and adapt, particularly as existing teaching resources will increasingly be redirected towards science subject areas which the government considers will provide the greatest returns for the UK.

Finally, a new government will question whether the investment in teaching and research is delivering a system which provides what taxpayers, students and businesses expect. It is simply wrong to invest without clear evidence of return. Lord Mandelson concludes: ‘In future, new priorities will be chiefly supported by redistribution of existing funds and leverage of private investment rather than provision of new money.’

Students will be delivered more. Researchers will contribute more. The sector will be opened up to increased competition and expand in ways never before experience. Yet, and this is the economic reality, all of these improvements and radical redesigns will be undertaken not on the basis of an increase in funding, but a likely reduction at least 15 per cent over the first three years of the government. In a speech to the University Chairs of Council last week, Sir Alan Langlan, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England lamented the fact that with the exception of Spain, of all the G20 countries, the UK was the only country that had failed to increase funding in Higher Education during the economic downturn.

Both political parties have warned the sector that it has been poor at making its case for investment and that it is possible, indeed likely, that it will suffer as a consequence. But we must all recognise that the financial scenario I have painted does not deliver a sustainable future for HE. It is right then, that at this most difficult of economic times, questions regarding, for example, the appropriate level of individual graduate contributions and the focus of research funding must be confronted, debated and answered. This must be not simply to resolve out immediate crisis but to deliver a genuine vision for HE that can be shared by institutions, students, taxpayers and government not for the next five years but for the next fifty.

In summary:

I believe that to ensure that our Universities are truly great it is imperative that our HE leaders create realistic user-centric development strategies that are constantly monitored with performance management guidelines. Our universities must strive to work together for a system that rewards success with funding in order to demonstrate to all policy makers that the higher education sector will prove decisive in the knowledge based economy that will emerge from the global recession. None of this is possible without essential visionary leadership that takes into account the requirements and the feelings of the students and staff, to guarantee that we are creating a global community of high attaining research intensive universities.

It is the combination of those key factors which has led to the success of the 1994 Group member institutions and which I believe will lead them forward in the face of serious challenges over the next five years.

Thank you for listening."

Speech given at the Royal Society about Dangoor Scholarships - 8th December 2009

2009-12-08T23:48:00.000Z

I am a Dangoor scholar. Just being able to say those words adds a certain level of gravitas doesnt it? When I first heard those words my mind was overflowing with images of robed lecturers, flying mortar boards and dusty tomes. Stereotypes are wonderful things aren’t they?

But it didn’t mean that at all. What it did mean was something far more deep and meaningful.

I come from working class Italian parents, parents who came to England, parents who had no experience of further let alone higher education. They encouraged me in my studies and enshrined within me an appreciation of all learning regardless of subject. For them, if their son was interested in it then it was worth studying.

Interest. Curiosity. These are the things that spurred me on. My parents didn’t understand why I wanted to go to university. My father took me aside one day and said to me “Son, I see students work all the time for nothing! Wasting time before getting their hands dirty in the real world. By the time you get a degree you could be a manager in a ‘real’ job!” They didn’t understand. But they supported my stubborn will regardless. I wanted to go to university.

Then I came across a problem. My first major hurdle. How was I going to pay for it? I started doing the maths. Money for accommodation; money for bills; money for books; money for transport; money for food; and money for drink (very important!). It all started adding up.

My parents tried but were unable to support me. What was I to do? What I had spent my life studying for? My goal seemed dead in the water.

But then I heard about the Dangoor Scholarships. I heard that an incredible man had decided out of the kindness of his heart, with no personal gain whatsoever, to financially support students. Young people who had the same curiosity and interest that he had when he came to London to study engineering all those years ago. His name is Naim Dangoor.

Dr Dangoor realised that money should not be an obstacle to education. Dr Dangoor realised that hard work and a meticulous attention to your studies gets you a world class education – something that money can help, but not buy.

I was lucky enough to receive a Dangoor Scholarship. It would be naive to think that it alleviated all of my financial woes, but it helped just that little bit. It meant that I could work at my part time job 2 days a week instead of 5. It meant that I could read my journals and write my essays and temporarily ignore my monetary worries.

The scholarship did not solve my financial difficulties whilst at university. Hard work and good planning did. But it alleviated them just enough so that I could focus on my degree; focus on co-curricular activities like volunteering in my local community, focus on working with my students’ union - supporting students like me who had come under similar hardship.

There is no doubt in my mind that the scholarship helped me. The generosity of Dr Dangoor ensured that I could grab higher education by the horns and live my university life to the full. Something that, in hindsight, I might not have been able to do without his crucial help.

I went to Royal Holloway and it’s motto is ‘Esse Quam Videri’ which means ‘To be rather than to seem’. Rather fitting don’t you think? The desire to pursue higher education was in me. But it seemed that my financial situation would stop me. Dr Dangoor enabled me to be, to be a student fully rather than just to struggle along. And for that I wish to join the rest of the room this evening and say – from a Dangoor Scholar to a Dangoor – thank you.

Sound the alarm: the Comms Revolution is here!

2009-12-01T09:05:00.000Z

It was with trepidation that I read a recent blog by Danny Rogers warning that PR must 'get ready for a Comms Revolution'. According to Harris Diamond of Weber Shandwick there will be, amongst other developments, an influx of senior professionals into the industry from disciplines outside the traditional media sphere.

Diamond seems utterly enthused by the idea that successful business men and women will flood the sector, breaking down the barriers and stereotypes of the profession and generating much heavier investment in training and staff retention. But what about those that aren’t ‘successful’ or part of ‘a desirable profession’? What are the chances of their own career progression? The graduate scheme that a student may be applying for right now may not logically exist post-revolution. There would simply be no need to recruit raw and natural communications talent when you can easily select from a pre-filtered pool of Ivy League consultants and seasoned politicos.

Revolutions can be cleansing, can foster new relationships and evolve the industry into a stronger force to be reckoned with. The danger therefore lies in going too far. To go all the way is to ignore the benefits of successful knowledge transfer to the new batch of recruits. To ensure the next generation of public relations executives learn from the best that the industry has to offer and are not left merely observing the whistle-stop careerists is vital to sector stability and success. All must be trained to an incredibly high standard. A standard worthy of an industry called ‘public relations’.

See the original comment piece by Danny Rogers here: http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/search/945726/Danny-Rogers-PR-ready-comms-revolution/

Saving Gordon Brown: Stick or gamble?

2009-08-18T01:24:00.000+01:00

Brilliant blog written on the New Statesman website by Mehdi Hasan:

"PR is a necessary but not sufficient part of a robust and risk-taking Labour fightback. Like Polly Toynbee, I think Gordon Brown has nothing left to lose over the next nine months, so it's time for him to throw out his copy of the Daily Mail, stop worrying about "Middle England" and go for broke. As a wise man once said: "This Labour Party [is] best when we are boldest, best when we are united, best when we are Labour."

So here are ten things Brown could do in the coming months that I should have pointed out on LBC last night:

1) Scrap Trident, saving the taxpayer around £20bn.
2) Crack down on tax havens and tighten tax loopholes, saving the taxpayer around £25bn a year.
3) Impose a retrospective 90 per cent tax on all 2008/2009 UK bank bonuses.
4) Scrap ID cards and the national identity register, saving the taxpayer at least £5bn.
5) Increase Jobseeker's Allowance from the miserly £64.30 a week to at least £75 a week.
6) Scrap charitable status for private schools, saving the taxpayer around £88m a year.
7) Impose a windfall tax on the multibillion-pound profits of energy and utility firms.
8) Abolish prescription charges in England to ensure equality across the UK and to bolster the NHS.
9) Lower the threshold for the new 50p top rate of tax from £150,000 to £100,000.
10) Raise the threshold at which tax is paid on redundancy money - currently £30,000 - to £50,000."

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2009/08/tax-lbc-labour-brown-saving

"What percentage of young people..?"

2009-08-17T12:33:00.000+01:00

This incredibly interesting and very interactive survey was brought to my attention. The youth of today analysed- the statistics make for interesting reading...

http://voicebox.vinspired.com/results/

Government Approved Subjects...

2009-08-15T21:07:00.000+01:00

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) says that they are allowing the extra 10,000 undergraduates to be recruited in subjects important to the economy. They have listed those subjects that they believe 'to be important to the economy':

_______________________________________

Anatomy, physiology & pathology

Pharmacology, toxicology & pharmacy

Medical technology

Biology

Botany

Zoology

Genetics

Microbiology

Molecular biology, biophysics & biochemistry

Others in biological sciences

Agricultural technology

Forestry technology

Food science

Food & beverage production

Chemistry

Materials science

Physics

Forensic & archaeological sciences

Astronomy

Geology

Science of aquatic & terrestrial environments

Others in physical sciences

Mathematical and computer sciences

Mathematics

Operational research

Statistics

Computer science

Information systems

Software engineering

Artificial intelligence

Others in mathematical and computer sciences

General engineering

Civil engineering

Mechanical engineering

Aerospace engineering

Naval architecture

Electronic & electrical engineering

Production & manufacturing engineering

Chemical, process & energy engineering

Others in engineering

Minerals technology

Metallurgy

Ceramics & glass

Polymers & textiles

Materials technology not otherwise specified

Maritime technology

Biotechnology

Others in technology

Architectural technology

Building technology

Economics

Business studies

Management studies

Finance

Accounting

Marketing

Human resource management

________________________________

Found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8174997.stm

A New Level - by 'Reform'

2009-08-02T22:05:00.000+01:00

A recent article written by the thinktank Reform analysing the merits of the modern A-level exams. Well worth a read with a very compelling argument.

___________________________________________

A new level
Dale Bassett, Thomas Cawston, Laurie Thraves, Elizabeth Truss, June 2009

The rise of the ersatz A-level has stymied independent study and original thought. After successfully becoming a mass market qualification in the 1980s and 1990s, A-levels underwent radical surgery in 2000 that damaged their intellectual integrity. Modularisation and mechanised marking were introduced despite the objections of universities. These changes have not widened participation – instead they have created a generation of “high maintenance students” who struggle to think for themselves. The A-level should be renewed and expanded by putting universities back in charge, and must be offered at all schools – otherwise the most deprived students will be denied an academic route out of poverty.

Intellectual integrity is not the privilege of an exclusive elite. It is the foundation of a good education. Universities, employers and students all crave the independence of mind developed through in-depth study of a coherent academic discipline, demonstrated by the fact that 46 per cent of 16 year olds now study A-levels compared to 33 per cent doing other qualifications.. The A-level is primarily a university entrance exam – 76 per cent of students who do it go on to university. Yet universities are almost entirely marginalised in the process of setting and validating A-levels.

Reform’s study by academics into English, Mathematics, History and Chemistry shows a hollowing of A-levels, particularly since 2000. “Like sat-nav rather than a map” (Mathematics) or “using somebody else’s mind” (English), A-levels do not encourage students to think or show flair. Students are heavily directed in answering questions with rigid marking schemes and “assessment objectives” making it clear exactly what is expected of students.

Interviews with admissions tutors reveal a generation of students who struggle to study independently and think for themselves. The idea that only “elite” universities are suffering is a myth. Reform’s research into some lower-ranking institutions indicates that their students too are capable of more, but are arriving at university less and less well-prepared.

The key change was the wholesale introduction of modular exams in 2000 which saw the quantity and cost of exams doubling. Modularisation has particularly affected linear subjects like Mathematics that need to build on previous experience. Resits have created a group of students who always seek a “second chance”. Mechanised marking has prevented examiners from rewarding clear flows of argument, originality and flair.

Intellectual integrity was traded off against a central drive for wider participation. This has failed. Increases in participation have flagged since the major changes to A-level in 2000, following acceleration in the 1980s and 1990s. If anything the gap between schools in the state and private sectors is widening as the bestschools increasingly turn to respected, rigorous qualifications such as the International Baccalaureate and Cambridge Pre-U. Meanwhile the majority of state schools are stuck with a hollower A-level.

Action must be taken to re-link A-levels with their strong academic heritage. Universities should take responsibility for the quality assurance of A-levels. New ersatz qualifications such as “Use of Maths” and “Critical Thinking” A-levels should be halted. The renewed A-level should be available in all schools, giving students from all backgrounds the opportunity to study genuinely thought-provoking material that equips students properly for further study and provides Britain’s economy with the sound academic foundation it needs.

http://www.reform.co.uk/Research/ResearchArticles/tabid/82/smid/378/ArticleID/772/reftab/82/t/A%20new%20level/Default.aspx

Academia: Losing Its Bite

2009-07-29T11:16:00.000+01:00

Political philosophy – only the bravest souls venture into the territory. With ancient works ranging from ‘The Art of War’ by Sun Tzu to ‘Society Must Be Defended’ by Foucault it was perhaps only a matter of time before academics jumped on the Obama bandwagon and started writing articles and commissioning research on how philosophical our great hope for change actually is. In a recent article for THE, Martin Cohen compared Obama’s political technique to that of Machiavelli’s Prince. Why bother? What does it achieve?

The way I understand it, academics when carrying out research generally aim to increase the sum of human knowledge with their contributions. Whether it enriches their celebrity or secures grant money, research must also be entertaining with the ever added element of ‘media’ now throwing the academic world into disarray. I say that it is now because the public seem to finally be interested in academia generally. With the rise and fall of Big Brother and the American elections being prime examples, people are interested in what academics have to say in analysing societal developments. Why someone scratches their arse on live television or the psychology behind choosing a certain colour for a political poster fascinates ‘lay people’ and earns those intellectuals behind it considerable sums of money. A large section of the academic community is being corrupted with the incredibly human urge to be liked, and the financial benefits do not exactly put them off!

Historically academia was rebellious, research and innovation designed to confound our expectations and educate the species. Now the growth in demand for academics to turn their life’s work into manageable media sized chunks means that only what is palatable can be publicised easily. Can any truly shocking, but necessary, research truly be entertained by the masses in pub-like discussions?

‘Reception studies’ is a relatively new branch of academia, where rather than study the original source, the focus is directed at how the source is perceived by a modern audience. The study is therefore removed from the original enquiry. It is not so much a question of what we can understand but a pseudo-psychological question of why we understand it. Analysing what we believe the masses will interpret is surely an admission of academic failure. Is there really nothing left to discover but to discover new ways of looking at what we have already discovered? This approach makes all new research appetising to the populace and answers the fundamental formula for celebrity: how does it relate to me, me, me?

Why should it matter to you? What do we gain from journalists like Charlotte Higgins interpreting Obama’s rhetoric as being reminiscent of Cicero? Why are there degree courses on ‘Public History’ and ‘Science Communication’? Should academic advancement be tailored for the masses or simply left as the confusing work that it is in order to preserve the innate beauty of knowledge in its inherent chaos?

With talks of the UK and US HE institutions combating global ignorance together this issue is important. What exactly are we to teach the world? What are we teaching ourselves? The academic community is pandering to the demands of a world that needs things to be explained simply to them. Rather than expecting citizens to learn off their own back, we are dumbing down our rhetoric to appeal to the lowest common denominator. We are heading down a slippery slope and one that I fear we will not be able to return.

The pure, glory days of academia seem to be over. Has academia lost its teeth already?

Rudeness

2009-07-20T14:17:00.000+01:00

Rudeness. A plague on society. And one that doesn’t seem to be abating any time soon. Everyone hates it and yet, seemingly, no one can honestly claim that they have not succumbed to the back handed compliment or the under-the-breath curse. Bad manners, ill temper and a lack of consideration for our fellow man are necessary by products of a society that has been growing rapidly since we first climbed out of the primordial soup. Human groups have been developing and expanding in accordance with every Darwinian and evolutionary theory for thousands of years, but it is with recently announced shocking statistics that I am most concerned.

Type in ‘personal space’ into any reputable search engine and you will find page after page of websites espousing various psychological reports claiming that the average person requires a certain area of space to live comfortably and without fear of invasion. With anger and bile closely linked to invasion of privacy and an increasing number of crimes being committed as a result of random acts of aggression on neighbors over land boundary disputes, is it really hard to believe that the rocketing increase in the world’s population isn’t fracturing ‘civilised’ society?

Since the 1960’s the total worlds population has doubled from just over 4 billion to approximately 8 billion. With quality of life assured to most Westerners due to a surplus of food and a relatively unlimited access to health care, this number is set to carry on increasing so that in 2050 the predicted number of people inhabiting the earth will be 10 billion. Evolution explains all of this development. As creatures fighting to survive on a harsh planet human beings are expected to adapt to their surroundings in a way not seen in most animal life. It is widely accepted that we mould our environments to suit our own purposes. We design tools to make life as easy and as comfortable as possible for us.

A psychology lecturer once told me an interesting story. He had spent his doctoral thesis researching the ratio of infant cranial diameters to a woman’s pelvic size. He discovered that approximately every 15 years the average babies head size will increase, in line with evolutionary trends, by a fraction of a millimeter whereas a woman’s average pelvic size would not. Logically, he concluded, women will eventually cease to be able to give birth naturally to their offspring leading to an increase in caesarian sections. Something that is arguably directly opposed to natural selection. The same psychologists wife became pregnant and due to complications with the birth his son had to be born by c-section. The very same psychologist, who spent a large proportion of his career researching this very moral quandary, was faced with the very human decision: save my family or save the human race? To this day he does not regret his decision, but he also wonders about the ramifications of his, and others’ decisions.

We cannot tell people that they cannot have children. We cannot tell people that there are not enough resources or enough space on the planet to procreate as we wish to. But something must be done. In a satirical novel entitled ‘A Planet for the President’ a character calculates that for every US citizen to ‘live comfortably’ they would need 3 ½ planet earths worth of space. Just for America. If violence is increased due to a lack of space, then surely a booming population is detrimental to survival?

How can we support scientific advancements? How can we seek medical interventions that prolong life? How can we as a people continue to procreate without thinking of the consequences? The answer: selfishness. The problem is for the next generation to solve, the generation that is in the abstract and the generation that is yet to be.

The world is too small, the resources too few and the self centeredness too great. In the short term our world leaders wish to be known for freedom of speech everywhere, for freedom to worship everywhere and for freedom to learn for everybody. If everybody speaks then can anything truly be achieved? If everybody worships everywhere can tolerance of different ideals truly be attained? If everybody is free to learn everything then why do societal divisions based on knowledge still exist? All are big questions and all are ones that cannot possibly be answered. Because they cannot be, the debates will rage until eventually we can debate no more. Historians have been writing for thousands of years about the decline of morality and honour in society and it seems that every writer praises the ‘golden era’ before him. I wonder what people will say about the 21st century in another thousand years?

Rudeness is just the tip of the iceberg.

“Is class a legitimate concept in the study of classical antiquity?"

2009-04-14T02:34:00.000+01:00

Objectivity is a topic that has plagued the study of classics from its inception as a field of academic enquiry. Can a scholar be truly objective in the analysis of the past? Or are too many contemporary factors involved in the formulation of opinion? We must attempt to strip away the years of misinterpretation and base discussion purely on the classical receptions and the material evidence that we have in front of us. Anything else is merely inference and so turns any academic enquiry into a philosophical discussion of ‘how abouts’ and ‘what ifs’. I am of the belief that by discussing this core predicament we will be able to answer the question: is class a legitimate concept of study in classical antiquity?

When starting an enquiry it is important to identify the definitions between the words used and the realistic perceptions of those words. The Oxford English Dictionary categorises ‘class’ as ‘1. Rank or order of society (lower, middle, upper, working, professional etc., class or classes); existence of such classes as a social factor; any sets of persons or things differentiated, esp. by quality, from others.’[1] It is with this definition that the first problem arises – is this what class actually is in the classical world? It can surely be demonstrated that there were immense social divisions on classical Greek and Roman culture but does this mean that those who were experiencing the divisions first hand also shared the contemporary connotations that we have associated with term ‘class’? Contemporary sociologists use the word ‘class’ as a tool to describe the differences in economic status and especially those that are ingrained within the ownership of property, which can be more readily labeled as ‘social divisions’.[2] If there is such a problem within modern sociological analysis of class then how can we possibly use the term in reference to classical antiquity?

There are several characters within classical literature that can and have been commonly manipulated through a variety of different contemporary restraints to add weight to specific sides of an argument. Class can be used consciously and unconsciously to support a particular political vantage point. It has been said that in modern societies traditional views of class divisions have shown that there is an increased likelihood that this is being decoupled from collective action.[3] The theory works on the assumption that class and the actions of the class are facilitated by each class’s culture. From this assumption it follows that the more defined the different group behaviours are within a society, the more weight there is behind the argument that class divisions actually exist.[4] Now although this may not be the case in modern class structures[5] in the classical texts that we do have left this theory doesn’t hold water.

In Homer’s Odyssey, the character of Eumaeus is shown to be a loyal and hardworking servant of his master Odysseus. Stock epithets are used in abundance for all of the characters within the epic and say a lot about the authors’ intentions and visions for the audience’s perception of the characters. E. V. Rieu footnotes an opinion that Homer ‘really loved Eumaeus, this character he had created, and here, instead of writing about him, he felt impelled to speak to him directly as if reminding him of the story.’[6] All of these positive characteristics are directly contravening Eumaeus’ status as a low ranking individual in Ithaca. A high ranking slave in charge of other subordinate slaves he may be[7], but nevertheless still a slave. In The Odyssey it is expected that the aristocratic heroes will be championed and the slaves abused, as is in line with the logic of a contemporary readership. This however is not the case. The characters presented are real and although their attributes are caricatured in order to emphasise the particular narrative goals of the author, there are positive and negative characteristic traits displayed for all levels of possible class structure. We have already established that Eumaeus the slave is ultimately good, but his counterpart Melanthius the goatherd is the total opposite - rude, vicious, bitter and disloyal to Odysseus. In these two characters alone we can see the spectrum of characteristics within the slave populace of Homer’s Ithaca. The same wide-ranging personality traits can be found in other class divisions within The Odyssey. Within the court of Alcinous, King of the Phaecians, all members welcome Odysseus warmly and treat him with the customary dignity and respect that comes with xenia. The Suitors in Ithaca are also aristocratic and conversely have nothing but disdain and contempt for all that dare to present themselves before them. An argument has been presented to say that societies do not perform their functions based on some twisted sense of loyalty to ones class (as the term class implies) but instead group behaviours are enacted based on cultural norms that develop independently of class structure.[8] This is perfectly demonstrated in Homer’s spectrum of behaviours offered by the variety of ‘classes’ in The Odyssey.

But there is more to say that the contemporary audience may be misled in their reception of ‘class’ in Homer. As well as the perceptions of class behaviours being significantly different, there is also evidence to suggest that a modern audience infers class status based on the behaviour of characters in a given text. I am of course referring to the character of Thersites in Homer’s Iliad.

Throughout the entire episode concerning Thersites in Iliad 2, there are several highlights that work against the social perceptions of his character that potentially manipulate the audience’s judgment of the situation. As Athena persuades Odysseus that he must stop the Greek army from fleeing Troy, Odysseus first makes a beeline for Agamemnon to ‘borrow from him his indestructible ancestral scepter.’[9] After proclaiming to several high ranking soldiers that he will not threaten them[10] and then proceeding to woo them into submission to Agamemnon, Odysseus then takes an entirely different tact with any other ‘ordinary soldier’ who is encouraging the dissent and strikes them with the sceptre of power. Odysseus’ tone in the segment that follows in addressing these soldiers[11] shows a hierarchy within the Greek military that is still in existence in modern military structures today. It can be said that the differences in rankings in the British military (for example) can largely reflect the socio-economic status of the individuals, but it is possible for talented recruits to rise in the ranks regardless of personal background. The military structure is ingrained for no other reason than to preserve the chain of command in order to facilitate an efficient force of order. Odysseus demonstrates this in his address to the two ranks; to the higher he is respectful and diplomatic, to the lower he is dictatorial and controlling but his reasons for being so are cited as being simply to prevent mob rule in a situation that demands intellectual coercion.

When Thersites starts talking (2.212-346) Rieu chooses to translate several of the phrases used to describe him negatively. Thersites has a ‘large store of insulting language at his disposal’ which he used ‘gratuitously and offensively to needle his masters… to raise a laugh amongst the troops.’ In the text this reads as Thersites insulting his military leaders to improve his status in the ‘group dynamic’. However, I would argue that he is providing a vital satirical service – similar to a modern satirist. Are we to seriously believe that the derisive comedy of Aristophanes was not popular in Classical Greece? It is quite probable that the rank and file soldier would entertain many a night around the fire by impersonating and mocking their leaders. Thersites can therefore be seen as attempting to boost the morale of a de-energised army. Translator bias is an area of literature that is laden with the authors own reactions to the text and the assumptions that they are forced to make based on their perceived context of the scene. Perceived context changes everything, even Thersites’ name which when translated can have positive connotations can also have negative[12], and it is this perception that I believe contributes to potentially damaging the study of classical antiquity.

The English historian E. P. Thompson writes that ‘class happens when some men, as a result of common experiences… feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from…theirs.’[13] With this in mind, the perception of the incident changes. If Thersites is seen to be articulating the ordinary soldiers’ interests and are portraying them to the military leadership then he is automatically characterised as an ordinary soldier[14] in the audiences mind. But there is no evidence to suggest this in the text. If we forgo translator bias for now, the text shows Thersites orating to an incredibly large audience that would never have been attempted by an ordinary soldier. Odysseus, who obviously outranks him in terms of military power, may have savagely beaten him but Thersites must have known that this was a likely outcome of his speaking. From Iliad 2.198-9 we know that there was a precedent already set for outspokenness (especially of the anti-Agamemnon variety) being punished by Odysseus. Did Thersites feel that it was his duty to vocalise the discontentment? He is criticised in the text for having limited oratorical skill, but this implies that he does have some, which potentially infers some form of formal education. Nowhere does it say that Thersites is an ordinary soldier, but from his actions and the way that he is treated it can be deduced that although he is not a high ranking military leader he is equally likely to not be a ‘coward and a weakling that counts for nothing.’[15]

Class analysis has been argued to be a reductionist way of viewing the limited evidence that we have. It is impossible to study any field of academic enquiry without restricting what it is that you are examining. If you become open to any and all possibilities then no theory would ever be resolved – but by reducing the texts to their constituent parts we could be damaging the results. When baking a cake you mix a variety of ingredients in order to get the end result, once the cake is baked it is impossible to return back to the cakes constituent parts. The same can be said for analysing any form of classical text, Konstan is of the opinion that class in not a legitimate form of analysis as even in class-conscious art forms that it can be reductive and prejudiced to one viewpoint.[16] Extreme class critics will go so far as to announce that class structures do not exist at all and instead claim that it is a historical phenomenon that humanity has, for some reason, decided to label in order to gain a better understanding of itself. Labeling is cited as being a human flaw that ultimately restricts the development of a civilised society by connecting a series of seemingly unconnected events. Thompson believes that class is not even a ‘structure’ or a ‘category’ but that it is merely a labeled product of human relationships.[17]

My views are not this extreme. From my analysis of the evidence I believe that the main flaw in using class as a base of study in classical antiquity is the inevitable assumptions that come with the reception of a contemporary audience. We have observed history and been influenced by it. The end of the Apartheid in South Africa; the Civil Rights Movement with Martin Luther King Jr. and only in the past week Barrack Obama has been elected to the post of ‘leader of the free world’. Class related historic events alongside our upbringing and personal political beliefs are strongly influenced by the media that control how we receive our information. It is impossible for our prejudices on class structures not to be laden with subliminal messages. Whenever Homer refers to slaves in The Odyssey we cannot help but makes mental associations between this and the perceptions of slavery that we have experienced; whether they are in line with bronze age Greek assumptions of slavery or not. These inevitably bias our interpretations of the evidence. It is not easy to disassociate our academic selves from our contemporary self – who we are is a combination of many different factors. In order to truly understand the views and the nature of classical sources we must try our hardest to be objective in our analysis.

Class is therefore probably not the best term for the purpose of analysis. Everyone’s definition of class is different, so it is not hard to concede that our collective definition is nowhere near the same as the classical worlds.[18] Slave societies based on a tradition and a culture of slavery would not have thought the abstract concept of class even existed! Social divisions occur naturally within all kinds of animalistic groups; the negative connotations associated with class forged through years of so called ‘class wars’ should be stripped away for the word to be acceptable in academia. I do not think they can, and so believe that class, in its current guise, cannot be a legitimate concept in the study of classical antiquity.

Bibiliography

Eder, K (1993) The New Politics of Class: Social Movements and Cultural Dynamics

in Advanced Societies, Sage Publications, London.

Hall, E. (2008) Thersites and His Reception Part 1 – Homer to Lucian, Royal

Holloway University of London Lecture [9/10/2008]

Konstan, D. (1986) Slavery and class Analysis in the Ancient World. A review article.

Comparative studies in Society and History, 28, 754-766.

Lockwood, D (1981) The weakest link in the chain? Some comments on the Marxist

theory of action. Research in the Sociology of work, 1, 435-81. JAI Press, Greenwich.

Pakulski, J. & Waters, M (1996) The Death of Class, SAGE publications, London.

Rieu, E. V. (1950) Homer – The Illiad, Penguin Classics, London.

Rieu, E. V. (1991) Homer – The Odyssey, Penguin Classics, London.

Scott, J. (2006) Class and Stratification in Social Divisions (ed. Payne, G.), Palgrave

Macmillan, Hampshire.

Sykes, J. B. (1983) The Pocket Oxford Dictionary of Current English, 6^th Ed., Oxford,

Clarendon Press.

Thompson, E. (1980), The Making of an English Working Class (2^nd Ed.) Penguin,

Harmondsworth.

[1] Sykes, J. B. (1983)

[2] Scott, J. (2006) p. 26

[3] Eder, K (1993) p. 1

[4] Eder, Klaus (1993) p. 1 ‘The traditional idea has been that culture is the result of the social interaction of individuals. Thus it could be assumed that the more such interactions take place in a society marked by well-defined class markers, the more action becomes class-specific.’

[5] Modern sociologists (e.g. Lockwood, 1981) are under the impression that modern class structures do not exist in the same way as was classically viewed. Modern interpretations and individual experiences in ones culture influence their perceptions of class structures unilaterally. If this is the case then we must establish the classical definition of class. I will return to this later.

[6] Rieu, E. V. (1991) p. 182

[7] Rieu, E. V. (1991) 15.301-309 ‘In the hut Odysseus and the honest swineherd, with the farmhands for company…I intend to leave you in the morning and go to the town to beg, so as not to be a burden to you and your men’

[8] Eder, K (1993) p. 2 ‘Modern society is characterized by a paradoxical developmental logic. Whereas its class structure develops more and more along complex but clear-cut line, closing society for its members, culture has developed independently of class toward a system of symbolic orders with another logic (poststructuralism)… The usage of culture is dependant upon a social logic, which is less and less a mere transmitter of social differences into conflictual collective action.’

[9] Rieu, E. V. (1950) lines 185-187

[10] Rieu, E. V. (1950) line 190 ‘You there, it is not right to threaten you: you are no coward.’

[11] Rieu, E. V. (1950) lines ‘You there, get back to your seat and wait for orders from your superiors! Coward and weakling, you count for nothing in battle or council. We cannot all be leaders here; and mob rule is a bad thing. Let there be one commander only, one ruler, who is given the scepter of power and the right to rule by Zeus, son of sickle-wielding Cronus.’

[12] Hall, E. (2008) ‘The name Thersites shares its root with the word thersos or tharsos used of a warrior’s ‘boldness’ but also the (more negative) ‘boldness’ of the blame poet (e.g. Hipponax, Simonides).’

[13] Thompson, E. (1980) page 8-9

[14] See footnote 11.

[15] Or ‘ordinary soldier’. See footnote 11.

[16] Konstan, D. (1986)

[17] Thompson, E. (1980) pg 8-9 ‘By class I understand a historical phenomenon, unifying a number of disparate and seemingly unconnected events, both in the raw material of experience and in consciousness. I emphasise that it is a historical phenomenon. I do not see class as a ‘structure’, nor even as a ‘category’, but as something which in fact happens (and can be shown to have happened) in human relationships.’

[18] Pakulski & Waters (1996) pages 3-4 ‘Historically there have been numerous examples of non-class societies. We embrace the convention that societies based on slave labour, such as ancient Rome and Greece, the estate societies of feudal Europe and modern state-socialist societies are non-class societies. In none of these societies are property and market relations the skeleton of the social structure or the predominant grid of social power. They are all unequal, stratified and conflictual but not made so predominantly by class. Class and class society are, in our vocabulary, distinctly modern phenomena inseparably linked to the market and its institutionalisation within the early and mature forms of industrial capitalism’

Why Michelangelo is a prat

2008-09-22T16:43:00.000+01:00

It has just been announced on BBCOnline that Michelangelo’s famous statue of the boy-warrior David is in danger of collapse. The Beeb reports that so called ‘Italian experts’ blame this on its exposure to ‘mass tourism’. However, due to other evidence cited in the article is becomes clear that size, shape and the weakness of the original block of marble are to blame. Weakness of the marble?! How the hell is Michelangelo’s inability to pick a decent lump of rock directly correlated to the amount of punters that travel to Italy daily to visit this immense piece of art?

If anyone has been to an art museum anywhere in the world then they will probably have noticed that you can’t usually touch the laser-alarm covered statues for fear of damage. Most museums keep them in special temperature controlled environments and aside from the occasional rogue photographers flashing away are kept in amazingly good condition. If this is the case then how by Da Vinci’s beard can the culture seeking public be blamed? Surely the fault lies with the museum curators and with Michelangelo himself for choosing faulty marble!

But bearing in mind that the old Italian did pick a shoddy rock, it really isn't much of an insult seeing as it has lasted over 500 years against the relative elements and only now is about to collapse.

So stop scaremongering. Culture is a gift to the world and should be experienced by all, the public can’t be chastised for being ignorant of the human race’s past achievements one minute and then blamed for its destruction at the same time. Blame the curators, not the people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7626093.stm

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor review

2008-08-18T09:32:00.000+01:00

Mummies have always fascinated members of the movie going public. Since Howard Carter first opened Tutankhamen's tomb way back in 1922, the world has been utterly enraptured by the mythology, the curses and the horrifying techniques that the Ancient Egyptians used to mummify their dead - so naturally Hollywood decided to make a franchise out of it.

Sadly however the first Stephen Sommers films weren't enough for the bigwigs at Universal and they released The Scorpion King. A travesty of a film that was barely in the cinemas before it was whisked mystically to the bottom of the bargain bin at Woollies. But they were still not content. With 2 nigh on perfect mummy-tastic blockbusters complete with a smartalec American, a pretty English Egyptologist and an ensemble of random characters ranging from the rancid evil sidekicks to the suicidal and aged RAF pilots, the films had it all! Then came The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

Right from the very start you can tell it is a different film. Set in China just after the second world war, Alex (Luke Ford) has now mysteriously transformed from the accident prone English boy to a reasonably hunky Australian actor complete with a faux American accent. He has of course followed in his dangerously curious mothers footsteps and become an archaeologist who discovers the Dragon Emperors tomb. Rachel Weisz is sorely missed as Evie O'Connell and is replaced in the new film by a totally substandard American (Maria Bello). Although thankfully we still have sarcastic humour of Brendan Fraser to keep the nostalgia going, he does seem tired under his contractual obligation to complete the 3 Mummy films. A strong emphasis lays on the capabilities of his son who seems to logically be in line to take over the hero's post of the franchise in a similar vain to Mutt Williams in the Indiana Jones Quadrilogy.

The composer seemed to be on some sort of performance enhancing drug, using ridiculously over the top crescendos to illustrate blatantly obvious victories for the various heroes and the ensemble cast. Now, you would normally expect this level of cheese from the action genre, but the Tomb of the Dragon Emperor takes it to a whole new level. The score does however have some plus points, it links relatively well with the fragmented and confused editing which leaves most audience members being forced to laugh at the excruciatingly poor industry-standard dialogue and the witless humour that although was endearing in the original Mummy flick, has since become a bane on the genre.

The franchises best quality has always relied on its cheeky one liners, great special effects and epic battle sequences. Sadly however, these have been neglected by a director that seems to put more stock in the kung fu abilities of Jet Li than staying true to a formula that has served well in the box office for the previous 2 films (i purposefully do not include The Scorpion King ).

It may seem closed minded. but no-one truly cares about any mummified corpses coming back to life unless they are Egyptian. It just isn't the same having a dead Chinese guy instead of the high priest of some long lost Pharaoh hunting for our unfortunately placed heroes internal organs. All in all, a huge disappointment to fans of the whole mythology behind the mummy movie genre.

2/5

Thankfully the NHS specialises in healthcare...

2008-05-26T10:01:00.000+01:00

A recent NHS campaign attempting to highlight the dangers of excessive alcohol binges tells its devoted televisual audience in its closing message that “If a man/woman drinks more than 10 units of alcohol a week it could add up to a serious health problem.” The advert is pointless and useless in achieving its aim: to spread the word that binge drinking is a bad thing. The message is simply not specific enough! Everyone knows that too much booze is bad for your health, so what does this advert tell us that is new exactly?

Nothing in all honesty. A sane person knows about their individual limits when it comes to alcohol consumption, but most of us choose to ignore it! Drivers in my experience tend to be the most responsible drinkers, but this is unsurprising as the battle between being too lazy to walk usually triumphs of the conscious decision to get inebriated with your mates at the Monkeys.

The NHS Choices website (http://www.units.nhs.uk/media-press.html) has a multitude of facts that it flings out of the press release. Some of the facts are quite disturbing. For example, the average glass of wine contains more units of alcohol per serving than when the unit guidelines were first decreed. They claim that the campaign is all about “helping people understand how many units are in their favourite drinks, and helping them to keep an eye on their intake for the good of their long-term health.” But does the advert actually achieve this?

A series of close-ups of numerous people pouring glasses of wine casually forcing alcohol down their traps due to various peer pressure situations, also involves computer generated numbers being formed from the foam and condensation of the beverages thus indicating the number of units per glass. For some strange reason the unnecessarily ambiguous statement is then tagged onto the end. All this is achieves is for the viewer to ask “What health problems?!” After the market has been saturated with many adverts attempting to pull at our heartstrings on various guilt laden topics ranging from speeding to smoking, why is the NHS spewing this tripe into the mix? Do they really think that the audience is so idiotically naïve that they will simply accept that too much alcohol is bad without the generic scare factor? The advert effectively tells us that alcohol is bad and may cause some kind of illness. Pointless!

But perhaps I am being a bit harsh, YouGov tells us that 77 per cent of those questioned were not able to correctly identify the number of alcoholic units in various drink combinations. If the NHS campaign can do some good then perhaps it is worth it in the long run. If it does lead to people taking more notice of what they consume and the effects that it has on their bodies then perhaps the way the message is released is not the most important thing.

Ultimately I feel though that a message as important as this cannot be mucked up without devastating effect – presuming that it has an effect at all! People need specific things to fear when it comes to their health. With smoking it is lung cancer. With fatty foods its heart disease. With alcohol you would expect it to be liver disease. But liver disease is not glamorous enough for the masses! Could this be the reason why they aren’t being specific? I’ll end this article by leaving up the NHS Direct quote for what it actually causes. For a better resulting campaign they should have listed a few of these rather than leave it up to our imagination. Adverts such as this are supposed to inform us about the world, not confuse or hide the facts.

"Excessive alcohol consumption is proven to play a significant role in the development of numerous diseases, including several cancers, heart disease and stroke. That's why this campaign is so important to the public's health." – Public Health Minister, Dawn Primarolo.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Review

2008-05-23T01:21:00.000+01:00

When James Bond first hit our screens back in 1962, the world was awestruck. Here was a man who had it all - charisma, wit, charm, good looks and a string of women lying in his wake. Men wanted to be him and women wanted to (apparently) be with him. But there was one problem, he was English. Or more specifically, he wasn't American. After dominating the filmic stage from day one, they simply could not stand being left in the shadow of a successful foreigner on the action stage. So Indiana Jones was born. Infinitely more human than Bond, Jones brought a level of grittiness to the genre of action hero that has made him a blockbuster hit ever since.

So it is perhaps not a surprise that after millions of fans nagging them for the last 19 years, that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas gave in to make 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'. Every man will resort to a childlike state on entering the cinema, wishing that he too would be able to crack that whip and rescue buried treasure from the hands of the villainous Russians. Unlike in the previous films where the baddie was usually a Nazi, the film accurately moves on in the temporal world of Indy's life. Set in 1957, 20 years on from the last, the political situation of the Cold War is accurately highlighted and encompassed by the steely persona of Irina Spalko, played by Cate Blanchett. Spalko plays a role similar to that of the female villain in 'The Last Crusade', a doctor working for an evil dictator and trying to grab as much magical material as possible to help in his world takeover bid.

With Indiana enlisted to help stop the Russians by the young and virile Mutt Williams (Shia LaBoeuf), the adventure inevitably has the explosive action and mystical storyline that we as an audience have grown accustomed to over the years. But therein lies the problem, the story is weak and ultimately totally reliant on the previous branding of the franchise. As a standalone film it is a totally substandard despite the high level of sophistication from Lucas' effects. The only saving grace lies with the cheeky nods to the past films that will make many a die-hard fan grin with nostalgia. And that's it. John Hurt is sorely underused and Ray Winstone's recurrent cockney character fails to emit the right level of sympathy.

Harrison Ford picks up the whip again for what will hopefully be his last foray into the world of Indy. Carrying on his smart-alik retorts he now readily fulfills the mantle of bumbling old academic taking large influences from the idiosyncrasies offered by Sean Connery in 'The Last Crusade'. LaBoeuf is not as bad as he was in 'Transformers' and seems to have finally transformed into the young male actor that is worthy of a Spielberg flick even though the director seems to have made this film in his sleep with little creative challenge and originality.

Well worth the price of a cinema ticket but only for those who love with a passion the previous 3 films. If you are one of the very few sad people left on the planet not to have seen an Indiana Jones film then you really should not start with this one! Sit down with a large tub of something sweet and enjoy the original magic of a geeky university lecturer with an amazing part time habit that will almost make you want to become an archaeologist...

Editor's Letter 12 - Writer's Block

2008-03-13T14:36:00.000Z

Night has fallen. The radio is on. We are finishing off my last ever issue as Orbital Editor. And I have yet to write the ‘Editor’s Letter’. This should be a time of overbearing emotion! Sadness that my term in office has ended and yet happy that I might be able to regain some of the many hours of sleep lost, without regret, on this dear publication.

My head is literally bursting with things that I want to say to the students of Royal Holloway as I bid you all a fond farewell! But do any of them warrant time spent writing them? Probably not. “Write something controversial, something that you are passionate about!” one commentator said. What kind of a tall order is that?

The pressure is ridiculous! My pride and ego obviously need to be satiated and yet at the same time I do not want to go out without saying something incredibly profound about some social issue or other. And the worst thing about all of this? As the print deadline edges ever closer I am struck with the worst thing imaginable: writer’s block.

“Snap out of it”, I tell myself “you can spew out enough crap when you want to normally, do the same now!” But that just makes it worse! What causes writer’s block? Can it be cured? Does alcohol help? All these things are running through my mind as I write this. Furiously hoping that I succeed in meeting my own word limit in doing so. I could rant on forever about the positive aspects of abortion; the negative qualities of feminism; the destructive nature of modern schooling or the merits of euthanasia – but none of these stock arguments somehow seem appropriate for my final Editor’s Letter.

So I am stuck in limbo. Cheesy music playing in the background. With absolutely nothing productive to say. What cruel god gives someone the power to communicate to a large audience and then takes away aforementioned gift when they need it the most?

And on that philosophical note, enjoy my final issue as Editor of The Orbital! The next one will not be out until after the Easter break when Mr Jack Ratcliffe will be taking over with the aide of Ms. Beth Rowley. Oh the things we have planned for you! Keep your eyes peeled, keep writing in, and always remember that this is your student magazine and it cannot hope to exist without your involvement.

And Thank you.

Mario Creatura
Editor, The Orbital. 2007-2008

Red Ken does it Again...

2008-03-05T11:46:00.000Z

Government adverts always seem to miss something don’t they? It is all well and good attempting to display a series of images with the intention of emitting an emotional response or to provoke a discussion or debate about some public issue of morality. But are they effective?

Whilst sitting in our local cinema, happily chatting away, the most recent advert from good ole Ken Livingstone and the department for London transport dissolved onto the screen. You may have seen it – the screen split into four, and a series of overlapping events that take place on a commuter-filled bus. It focuses on barraging the audience with 4 distinct messages: ‘I won’t play my music out loud’, ‘I won’t drop litter’, ‘I will offer my seat’ & ‘I won’t talk loudly on my mobile’. However it is done with a distinct lack of realism, and therein lies the problem. When the top deck is packed with a group of aggressive black youths (complete with hoodies, David), all sandwiched around one little, trembling old white lady one has to ask if there are any stereotypes at play here. When one overly assertive chavtastic teenager attempts to pacify not only the loud and love sick businessman but also sternly reprimands the littering take-away consumer, I can’t help but wonder whether the people who made this advert have ever been on public transport?

Now, you may say that I am a cynic, that I demand too much from a 180 second advert from the guys that are supposedly running our city. “They can only do so much good!” I hear you cry! Bollocks. Why cram that many messages into one advert? With the average televisual attention span proven to last no more than 45 seconds, who do the government think that they are attempting to wrestle our attention from us for that length of time with an advert as monotonous as this?

But it is the same with all government led advertising campaigns – the one with the little girl that gets hit by a car; or the drunken superhero that falls off the scaffolding. These are all so shocking when we first see them, but after the thousandth trip to the movies or the millionth channel flick, we get bored. The desensitisation of the masses to meaningful and important public messages is the one thing that kills government led morality.

Go ahead and make these messages. But 3 minutes long? Running for nearly 6 months? If you want a message to stick in the consciousness then keep it short and keep it sweet. That will get people talking. And that will restore faith in government.

Check out the vid using this link: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/corporate/projectsandschemes/communityandeducation/asb/default.aspx

Editor's Letter 10 - February 11th 2008

2008-02-12T13:18:00.000Z

It can scarcely be denied that one of the most devastatingly effective pieces of commercial technology has had a ridiculous amount of impact on our lives. The mobile phone is less a tool and more a way of life for most people in the western world. How many of us can honestly say that they haven't felt a phantom vibration in the leg or started walking to a lecture only to realise that you have forgotten your mobile and had to return out of sheer necessity. Its quite scary when you think about it like that! Our dependance on this little brick has grown and grown so much so that we feel uncomfortable without it being constantly in our pocket.

This begs the question - why? What ever happened to talking to people face to face? Sadly this isn't the question that I would like to attempt to discuss. But is it possible that text messaging is the key to understanding the next step in human evolution? When then first text was sent in the December of 1992 it read "Merry Christmas". Since that first, pioneering piece of communication came about there has been a ridiculous increase in the amount of people texting. According to Wikipedia (yeah I know...) in the year 2000, 17 billion texts were sent. By 2004 that number had risen dramatically to 500 billion annually.

We read every year around the national exam season about idiotic GCSE students who write their answers in so called 'text speak' as opposed to 'correct English'. Are these the same students that have shown an annual increase in the number of passes for the last 25 years? Are these the same people that are potentially sitting around us in our lectures and seminars at RHUL?

We have been constantly told that evolution is the natural process of development over time. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed that organisms are transformed by their efforts to respond to a demand for their environment. If this is the case then humans are economical creatures, creatures that have evolved to find the easiest and less strenuous way to do everything. We invented the wheel to move with less effort and more speed, we developed big toes to increase our balance and expend less calories on movement. We are ultimately lazy bastards!

Therefore does it not follow that if we are increasingly reducing the language that we know and love to a more simplified version that it could be the fabled 'next step'? Helen Petrie, a professor of human-computer interaction at the University of York once said that “we have more information to deal with, and we pay less attention to particular bits of information, so it may appear attention spans are shorter.” She also notes that the brevity of text messaging is spreading to e-mails and other communication, rewriting English with simpler spelling in the process.

Now there will always be those traditionalists amongst us that view any change in the popular usage of the English language as heretical, but if it makes society more efficient with no detrimental effect to general levels of intelligence then who are we to stand in the way of evolution! Is the pride in our methods of written and spoken communication that important? If so, why? Now I'm not entirely convinced tbh, but when ppl start to lol in real life you just have 2 hold up ur arms and say "Meh!"

TTYL, & have a gr8 day!

Mario

p.s. for those sticklers that have trouble deciphering txt msgs y not check out http://www.transl8it.com.

Editor's Letter 09 - January 28th 2008

2008-01-30T00:37:00.000Z

Winter doesn't seem to end does it? Although saying that it seems like it took forever to arrive in the first place! The next logical step would be for me to break into a 300 word rant about the effect of industry on global warming and the erratic reaction to this by Mother Nature. But that would just be predictable now wouldn't it?

Instead, the first thing that jumped into my possibly clinically damaged brain was the plight of the average joe throughout the never-ending academic discussion on climate change. Endless lectures, broadsheet articles and television dissections have been devoted to the subject and how we can 'make a difference' but no-one seems to have thought about the effect that it is having on regular folk. Folk like the humble milkman for instance...

Every morning they wake up while its still dark in order to keep our bones growing big and strong. For as long as I could remember a smiling bloke with a huge ginger beard and a rosy smile (think full-time Father Christmas) would leave 2 glistening bottles of semi-skimmed milk on the doorstep of my house. Postmen are undeniably more visible, and it is taken for granted that Train Drivers are more useful in the commuter driven world but come on! Strikes that occurs every other week, causing havoc to our daily rituals and the capitalist workings of society? How dare they refuse to work! Do you ever see a Milkman strike? Correct that, do you ever see a Milkman?!

Milkmen are the cornerstone of British society, the silent worker and the loyal soldier, forever fighting for the strengthening of teeth and the lengthening of bones. Now I am as bad as the next lazy student when my alarm goes off at 8am, but how do you think one of these bastions of social tradition feels when they have already been up for 5 hours? Traveling from house to house, delivering milk to the masses? They sleep irregular hours, they wake up when it is dark, they go to sleep when it is dark. The poor bastards!

They are, in my humble opinion, some of the hardest working and least acknowledged members of the service industry. So the next time that you are complaining about an early morning lecture or some strike or other that is effecting your life stop for a minute. Think about the millions of individuals who work for no media glory, dedicating their life to holding up the ideals of British society: hard work and little reward or recognition.

Saying that enjoy this fortnights issue of The Orbital. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of the guys behind that scenes that made this issue and all issues possible - if you think that you can help in any way with this magazine then get in touch with me using orbital@su.rhul.ac.uk.

Editor's Letter 08 - January 14th 2008

2008-01-20T02:44:00.000Z

Having emerged from Christmas with a little less weight put on than expected it was with trepidation that I was forced to approach my 21st birthday. The mass media will have you believe that you will feel totally different the day after, granted this is usually to entice the unsuspecting public into purchasing yet more anti-ageing cream, but the question I ask the students of Royal Holloway is this: Does your age actually make a blind bit of difference to you?

Granted you may be able to shag/drink/drive/vote [delete as applicable] but can you honestly tell me that celebrating the day that you first broke free of your mothers uterus is worthy of note? Why? Of course your parents may wish to celebrate 9 months of swelling feet and random food cravings being ‘over’ but why should you, the birthee, dedicate a whole day to toasting your existence? But that is exactly it - a birthday is a day to celebrate your existence. A day to have your ego massaged by those around you who feel the need to shower you with gifts and alcohol to ensure that their birthday in turn is just as egomaniacal.

This may sound like a very cynical outlook on life but I assure you that it is merely an observation! I genuinely enjoy having my ego expanded on a yearly basis - it is an excellent excuse to have a good time with your mates and to feel great that people actually care that you are around. But how do you tell someone this? How do we attempt to express our feelings of pleasure at their presence? ‘Happy Birthday’ is the preferred method. Any other way? Not really… How many times do we receive birthday messages that say

the same thing over and over again?

Is there a limit to the number of times that a friend or relative can say ‘Happy Birthday’ before it becomes meaningless? Despite the obvious good intention that surrounds it can get a bit tiresome. Incidentally I am very grateful for all of my messages – the most imaginative of which was a poem sent via facebook:

It’s the day of your birth,

and for what it is worth:

Should you get accosted by an old lady tramp,

Don’t hit her in the face, or smack her with a lamp.

Say ‘it’s my birthday’ and simply reassure her

You’ll have a great day, ‘cos you’re Mario Creatura.

And on that note, enjoy this issue which is chock full of January goodies and don’t forget that you too can contribute to The Orbital simply by sending your content in to orbital@su.rhul.ac.uk!

I'm Not There - Review

2008-01-04T00:07:00.000Z

- Dir. Todd Hayes

After the multitude of biopics that have saturated the filmic calendar in recent years it was with trepidation that the critical community approached the news of a Bob Dylan inspired flick. However with controversial director Todd Haynes at the helm and the well that is Dylan’s life and work to delve into the actual movie happens to be a phenomenally wry and interesting look at the role of music in popular culture.

Writing the screenplay based on arguably one of the most influential musical artists in recent times would be a humongous task for most, but having taken the decision to split his character between 6 actors, Haynes tangentially forgoes all filmic conditioning and creates a work of art that truly astounds the viewer.

Although difficult to follow in parts, I’m not there nevertheless is an entertaining journey through the eclectic wealth of material that Dylan has produced. Unless you are a die hard Dylanite then it may be very difficult to totally comprehend the fragmented dialogue and abstract cinematography. Rapidly flicking between colourless drug fuelled escapades with Cate Blanchett and the glossy family man’s traumatic foray into promiscuity with Heath Ledger leaves a very clear image of what this film is trying to achieve: absolutely nothing.

Six actors play six characters, each with a different name, who represent different facets or incarnations of Dylan. The philosophical point of every scene is that ultimately nothing happens! The film comments on everything and nothing. It is remarkably pretentious and yet totally grounded. Dylan’s life is presented as lacking intention but with hidden desires and meaning behind everything that the various characters portray.

The movie is exquisitely subtle in every conceivable way. Although this may seem a dire reason to spend your hard earned pennies, the random scenes should at best encourage questions about societies dependence on ’the celebrity’ and at worst leave you tapping your feet to the multitude of songs chosen by Haynes. These qualities combined with sublime performances from the likes of Christian Bale, Marcus Carl Franklin and Bruce Greenwood have set the bar extremely high for films in 2008.

As vague as his film, Haynes commented that “this idea of Dylan is somebody as a kind of shape-shifter - somebody for whom change is the only constant.” A perfect summation of a movie that is incredibly hard to decipher and yet immensely enjoyable at the numerous attempts to do so with the ultimate answer being that no-one will ever be able to pin down Bob Dylan’s personality, so don’t even try.