A Prelude to Privatisation?

There's no mention of it in his blog this week... well not that we can divine and we have made extensive use of the liturgy and the forked willow.

In its salt'n'vinegar strokes a mention is made of a 'rich resource' for the 'University' but we don't think he's talking about the staff who work in the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) department formerly of the School of Languages.

Are they taking the lead or taking something else?

Over the past year or so we've tried to ginger up the Salford UCU leadership so that they might take the initiative in something other than applied fustian grandiloquence. Our attempts have not fallen on deaf ears as the major protests and rolling strikes at Salchester over the last couple of months in defending the 200 or so jobs threatened with exposure at the foot of Mount Taygetos have clearly demonstrated.(1) Thus in keeping with our grand old tradition we invite Salford UCU Presidente Christine Sheehy to consider the plight of the twenty or so teaching staff who work in EFL.

Playing the long game

Now it's the opinion of the vagrants that Salford EFL staff work bloody hard. They are possibly one of the best adverts for students from abroad to come to the North West and study at Salchester. However, we learned last week that so cherished are these staff, that many of these long-service EFL-ers have been providing their teaching services over the course of the academic year without the simple nicety of having a signed contract with their employer. This despite the almost urgent attention devoted to their cause by the UCU branch leadership. At the time of 'going to press' nothing has nearly been secured by the union and nobody's quite sure what this nothing isn't. We've cleverly formed an opinion that this might be an adroit double strategy consisting of on one hand not rocking boats and being extra nice to HR managers, and on the other something to do with two aged snails, a trap and an arboreal primate.(2)

Bitter-sweet laments from Ivorical Towers

Yet there are rumblings. Could it be that others sections of University staff of a more gradualist hue are straining at the leash to follow this route? We haven't heard yet if the Salchester Professoriat, so enamoured with this idea and the obvious long-term security that it potentially offers, are contemplating adopting it wholesale. Possibly, if a clause is inserted for wider palatability back-dating its introduction to the academic period 1878-79.

As it's been related to this tired tilter, morale among EFL staff is said to be at an all-time high. It's been disclosed that those who are not already members of Salchester UCU are photocopying a registration form desperate to join up and secure any potential benefits on equal terms. Nor is anyone said to be threatening in the slightest to tear up their union membership cards.

Re-designation

Yet it's the more recent policy of re-designation that has added to their intermutual joy. Some are said to have over-urinated in contemplation of the future. Others are said to have developed a form of predysphasic-pedagogery. One or two have likened it to the penultimate stage of Rapture played we're told to within the final inch of its life on an old 'Dansette' in the now defunct staff room on the eight floor by an irked former part-timer, smoking joint-bundles and dropping amphetamines."What's re-designation" you ask? Well it would appear that in this case its a highly attenuated shift from the use of the rather old-fashioned and unrefined bourgeois classification Teaching Staff  for the current crop of EFL staff, to the more exalted and thoroughly modern appellation of S.T.U.D.E.N.T.S.U.P.P.O.R.T.S.T.A.F.F.(in a Daleky voice). It's thought that there may be great kudos in other academic and teaching staff accepting this nouveau appellation and if successful it might well be rolled out across the entire HE sector by a division of  early 19th century Plug-Plotters on piecework rates.

A new approach to teaching?

It's not been confirmed if the re-designation is in response to a manager's claim that there has been a paradigmatic shift among EFL staff from a thoroughly dialectical approach to knowledge impartation to a more empirically based form of educative conveyance known as the R.O.T.E. method named after its Swedish founder Svart Tavla Undervisning Lärarjobb Rote.* Coincidentally the current fiscal climate has led to this intensely modernistic method garnering a recent welcome boost from the doyen of contemporaneity David Willetts. Staff are said to be actively polishing down their hard-earned skills in preparation for next years 'teaching out of a book'. An already visible shrinkage in EFL staff admin hours, historically seen by staff as a vital adjunct to intelligence promulgation among students, might indicate this policy may already be well under way.

Old skool... rather bourgeois

New Skool... rather less bourgeois

If you saw Sid and told him, would he shit himself too?

Yet even these substantive re-adjustments to the fabric of academic space-time in all things English as a Foreign Language related are small fry when considered within the context of an email received last week.

'Subject: Review of EFL Provision

Message sent on behalf of Professor Cynthia Pine

Dear colleagues

I am writing to thank you for engaging in the review; your contributions were very valuable and were incorporated into the report to the Executive. The discussion at Executive confirmed that that [sic] this is an important area for the University; that provision will remain internal to the University in the short to medium term; and will be subject to review as external changes (e.g. UKBA) become clearer. The Executive has decided that EFL provision will be separately managed; that this will be outside of the new School but within the University. The Deputy Vice Chancellor, Dr Adrian Graves is now leading the next stages. His office will be in contact to provide further details.

With best wishes

Cynthia

Professor Cynthia Pine CBE, BDS, MBA, PhD, FDSRCS, FRSA, Pro Vice Chancellor International, Dean of the College of Health and Social Care'

Enter the re-situationists

Apart from the word executive being remarkably like the word execute, we nearly had to rent space in a disused panopticon adjacent to Strangeways to situate Cynthia's modest cognominations. We alighted at the bus stop opposite the sentence that said '...that provision will remain internal to the University in the short to medium term; and will be subject to review...'. The next bus to 'The Deputy Vice Chancellor, Dr Adrian Graves is now leading the next stages. His office will be in contact to provide further details...' was late. 

If EFL is to be relocated from its former position within the School of Languages into the arms of Student Life** without a whimper from the unions, maybe the UCU's Chris Sheehy might want to at least consider applying the full force of her considerable rhetorical powers to extract from one of The Executives - The Chief Executive a certain Martin Hall - a most solemn undertaking in blood or its equivalent. It could for example  secure the long-term future of EFL provision ie, that it will remain 'in-house', not privatised and thus out-housed. To obtain such a promise would almost certainly do her the power of good and will obviate the need for a short or indeed a medium term. It might also save a few bob in the process as it's quite well known in the 'Term' Trade that short terms like ill-founded libel claims can prove rather an unnecessary drain on vital financial resources.

DALEK: Out of my way you bald useless fuck-er?
DALEK LEADER: You will refer to me by my full title which is 
Deputy.Assistant.Vice.Regent.Operating.Senior...
(in a Daleky voice)

Notes and References


*R.O.T.E. Reading Out Teacher's Edicts (readers can do the translation themselves)
** Student Life provides advice and support to students according to the website http://www.advice.salford.ac.uk/
(1) This is an obvious attempt at irony
(2) The Vagrants have been informed that a 'slowly.. slowly... catchy... monkey... strategy' has been invoked by certain union officers concerning this matter. At the time of going to press we were still not quite sure which century they're anticipating getting something negotiated or indeed which genus they are hoping to trap.


USUAL DISCLAIMER


As usual, this is a work rooted in the fine old tradition of satire. The contents are the honestly held opinions of the author who is far from anonymous. Being a humorous work, it is not intended to hurt the feelings of senior types or their immediate subordinates who do after all get paid a lot from public funds and suchlike.

If you would like to add to the emergent picture in EFL, please feel free to post comments or email the Vagrants. We will treat any information provided in the utmost confidence. If there are any inaccuracies or if any individuals or institutions feel corrections are necessary, please send an email by pressing here. It is most definitely worth doing this before availing oneself  of the libel laws or sending expensive threatening Pre-Action Protocols demanding we close down the entire blog, as like a company of miniature clowns who perform exclusively on a Venetian blind, it would be silly on a variety of levels. 


We do of course also operate a right of reply and unlike some other blogs, will let you make more than one posting if you feel so inclined under your own name or anonymously as it's a free-ish country.

The Vagrants

Great Expectorations

I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Something was definitely missing. I'd like to say that when the realisation dawned, that it hit between the eyes like an inspirational thunderbolt. But that would be a lie. It reminded me more of the soporific torpor which accompanied that evening in Blackpool I spent trailing a fora of inspired hemlock-fuelled gasconades in togas clutching their ninety pence return tickets for a one-way rodomontade along the seafront. You know the feeling... it's a growing panic and it's nothing short of corporeal dissolution. And it's being played out merrily at some amplitude along the full length of your pyloric canal by a Gdansk shipyard full of militant Venusian gondoliers on reduced pay over the bank holiday. You make a mental note to avoid any further eventful evenings on the local park bench with several comrades of the road and several three litre bottles of White Lightning. The alcohol-fuelled paranoia inevitably accompanied the delirium tremens which together belied the voluminous evidence that suggested I'd taken positive measures to improve my skills in mathematics which at this juncture was of no real utility. With a profound sense of sorrow I decided to put integer-related logic and sum-based-certainties to one side and pour all my available energies into a study of the text. 

The strange death of postmodernism

Now I'm no postmodernist. Indeed I have a well known loathing of the basic tenets of postmodernism. Why? For a conceptual movement that made bold claims in its rejection of meta-narratives as a mechanism for the emancipation of the subject, it did a thoroughly good job in providing a theoretical underpinning for consumerism and liberal individualism. It also provided many an illustrious career for quite a few former lefties now solidly superannuated armchair academics of no fixed principles. Apart from a few diehard neo-conservatives sympathisers, since a little event in Seattle 1999 and the emergence of global movements in opposition to something called capitalism, postmodernism has been largely consigned to the ashheap of history, more recently aided to its final resting place by the efforts of vast numbers of ordinary people in a series of revolutions from below against Western backed dictatorships in the Middle East.

From dogma to dog bottoms

Besides it was proving entirely wanting in removing dog shit from an afflicted shoe. I sought the help of a postmodernist friend. All she could offer was a series of discourses about the nature of each atom of the turd instead of dealing with the totality. And I needed to get the rectal toffee off my shoe quickly. So I believed I had good reason to reject postmodernism and as if to cement this notional non-relationship, self-important philosophical types within informed circles outside my own had pre-posited the proposition in a pre-paid envelope not to be opened until after my death. It stated clearly that I was cut from a far Tweedier moth-ridden cloth. This undermined to a large extent those who suggested publicly that of late I've started to exhibit a strong tendency towards infantile histrionical pre-modernism. But like Wittgenstein, I felt that in concentrating my energies on the text, there could arise problems from interpretations or misunderstandings of the logic in specific published statements. Given recent events I felt that this could quite easily resolve itself into a second libel action. Unlike Wittgenstein, I had to factor into the equation a rogue element - a maverick insomniacal rear upper molar - which after a cup of piping hot fresh coffee, took on an almost supernatural ability to imbue within the individual a lurid taste for the liberal use of ancient etymonical Celto-Latin profanities. I was lucky no one was around to record them.

Is it safe...? Is it fuck

Not one for adhering to the notion that this could have been some form of base conspiracy drawing on a diabolical accommodation between an allegedly defamed rogue ex-manager with a penchant for grudge-bearing and a lacklustre local dental surgeon with a marked resemblance to Martin Bormann, I persevered. It was official. I was formally determined to eschew any attempt by outsiders to derail my dismal attempts at textual analysis and I had the certificate to prove it.

The benefits of textual analysis

Through a pair of all-in eyes I perused the statements. Apart from the difference in absolute terms, they appeared at a surface level to largely infer the same meaning. This was quite expected as Professor Hall is an academic of some reknown. As we've noted before, academics gravitate towards precision in the use of language and are therefore apt to choose their words carefully.

'The University aspires to be in the top quartile of UK Universities by 2017 measured by ranking in the standard league tables. This will require that we transform our performance in the core business of the University, by achieving standing in the first quartile of UK Universities in both teaching quality (currently the fourth quartile) and our research and innovation (currently the second quartile).'(1) 

I drew deeply from the hot woody infusion within the vilely stained enamel mug and winced. I compared this statement to:

'... our objective of being in the top quartile of universities for teaching by 2017.' (2)

Yes they were unambiguously similar in their tone. But they weren't the same. The first emphasised the aspiration to achieve top quartile status in 'teaching quality', 'research and innovation' and was highly elucidatory. The second referred to 'teaching' and wasn't. I rubbed my face trying to soothe the ache which had spread like a venomous wildfire up through my right temple. I spent much time mulling this one over. If 'teaching quality' could be construed as a largely qualitative issue did this mean that 'teaching' could be construed as a largely quantitative issue? I was enveloped in a duvet of wordy confusion akin to that imposed from above by the remaining five seconds of the tyrannical Countdown clock. I also wondered where the 'research and innovation' bit had gotten to.

Forsaking a reliance on the dark arts

It's often said by me that I'm a firm believer in research and innovation. Like all good beliefs, it's based on fear. Where would the dental industry be without research and innovation? Mahogany teeth? I laughed out loud. Clearly only the most undistinguished farceur on auto-pilot would make the suggestion to me that it would be in the interest of any Higher Education establishment to finger the 'eject' button and relegate to the consideration of our old friend the shitter, the research aspect or indeed that of innovation within any university. After all, both play an important role in ensuring industries remain dynamic. More generally, universities play a central role globally acting as the agar upon which industries and future industries grow, flourish and compete effectively against other national capitals. Well that was the theory anyways... I shivered as I imagined the future of British dentistry as a series of outtakes from Saw IV.* Without research and innovation we'd be back to the bad old days of bread and mustard facial poultices. Any university that adopted and enacted any strategic decision based upon a policy of abandoning research and innovation might run the very real risk of transforming an Higher Education establishment into a Further Education establishment. The consequences of such actions were clear. No Vice Chancellor of any university plate glass or otherwise would like to have the word 'magician' emblazoned upon their curriculum vitae would they? They'd be widely viewed among their peers as some sort of reverse alchemist hell-bent on turning the gold of deepening the knowledge of humanity into the base lead of sciolism. It's just plain silly. To those churls who've already contacted me about this matter, please, it's a fool's errand. Do not read anything into this. Just accept that it's easy to write things and to forget to include words. I do it all the time.

When I reach terra firma, I'll finish by doing that mimey thing where I pretend 
there's a plate glass wall with pretend engraved plate glass door in it...

Student retention -v- Staff retention

The Vice Chancellor's latest analysis on the lack of upward mobility in the Guardian League Tables is quite singular:

'Dear Colleague,

You may have seen the Guardian’s University Guide 2012 league table which was published last week. Whilst it is disappointing to see that we have dropped in the rankings, it is important to understand the context of this drop, which we had expected. The Guardian league table, unlike the other national league tables, does not use student retention as one of its key performance indicators. This is one of the areas in which we have made significant progress in the past 12 months. Rather, the Guardian relies more on the staff student ratio; something that has had an impact on us this year because the increase in student numbers through improved retention coincided with the period, through the 2009/10 academic year, when we were recruiting for some 60 new academic posts and therefore had an unusually low level of academic staffing in several Schools. In addition, because many newly-recruited academic staff were not in post at the time that the data used for the league tables was collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, this artificially decreased our average spending per student. This is a further, significant, component in the formula that lies behind the Guardian’s league table. We have already made progress in a number of areas which – whilst not reflecting well in the short term through this particular league table’s methodology – will contribute to our objective of being in the top quartile of universities for teaching by 2017.

Kind regards

Martin Hall Vice-Chancellor.'

Professor Hall is right. It is disappointing. Disappointing but not entirely without precedent. He's also correct when he states that the Guardian do not directly use student retention in compiling their tables. Yet in a roundabout sort of way, they do use staff retention. It's called the student/staff ratio. One might suppose that the powers that be within the Strategic Leadership Team (SLT) are breathing a metaphorical collective sigh of relief that staff retention plays little if any role in the compilation of the other national university league tables. It would be interesting to see where Salford would be placed on any such table in light of the further 337 'role transformations' announced recently.

What were those two friggin' words again..?

L'éléphant dans la salle d'eau

I thought about what he meant when he said we had to understand the 'context of this drop'. It was almost as an afterthought that I noticed that two very important words were missing from the VC's statement. I wondered if under the daily labour of steering the great liner SS Salford, he'd forgotten to include these two words as well. The words 'unusually low' with reference to academic staffing in 2009/2010 provided much inward mirth, a bout of mucous-related convulsions of the chestial region known colloquially as 'lung-ing' and sparked high levels of conjecture among amused former colleagues and ardent worriers. I felt the words were related and decided that a question needed asking as to why was it unusual that academic staffing levels were low at this specific moment in time? After some perusal I developed something much less than a theory... more of an opinion and it centred around two unmanifested words - PROJECT HEADROOM.

Rescanning the statement, I noted that there was no mention of the 148 odd teaching and academic posts lost through Project Headroom in 2009 which would likely have had an impact on the staff/student ratio in 2009/10. Now Vice Chancellor Hall didn't take up the reins until August 1st 2009 so he can't be held to account for this. But there's no mention of who was in post at the time and is ultimately responsible for implementing a policy whereby certain Schools had 'unusually low academic staffing' levels. No mention of why contingencies were not in place to ensure that the 'many newly recruited academic staff' who 'were not in post', were in post prior to any such job losses. Again no mention of which University Strategic Leadership Team member was corporately responsible for this state of affairs.

A second opinion

I've got another opinion and I might as well air it here. It concerns an issue that may have ramifications for the future.

Putting aside issues concerning civil matters being dealt with through the civil courts at the moment, I've been accused of some pretty serious stuff by figures of some authority within the University of Salford during my period of employment: bullying, harassment, victimisation and bringing the University into disrepute. I've also been accused of committing criminal acts by senior figures from within the SLT such as running a hate website, stalking (in a personal capacity) stalking (in an electronic capacity), harassment... it's quite a long list. If I still lived down South I'd probably be knocking around with Bill Sykes. Notwithstanding the making of these allegations to third parties, not one shred of evidence has been provided by the University to back such claims. Nor were any of these allegations of criminal behaviour put to me by the University or their representatives. Indeed, I only discovered such allegations had been made via a Subject Access Request or two courtesy of the Data Protection Act. Given the extensive levels of such low criminal behaviour I'm alleged to have been involved in, any reasonable person would have surmised that the police would have been informed. Apparently they haven't. I know this to be the case as Mr Matthew Stephenson who is an authority on issues related to information at UoS told me so by email.

An obvious attempt by the Israelis to damage a university

A less than clear example of damaging the reputation of a university

In light of some of the above allegations, the upshot was that through a process of applied textual lampooning I was deemed to have brought the 'University into disrepute'. It's a lovely little phrase. It's so manifestly general that it can mean almost anything. In the writing of one or two satirical and obviously comedic spoof newsletters, I was also accused by the old Vice Chancellor Michael Harloe to have been indulging in an 'obvious attempt to damage the reputation of the University...' (3) and suspended as a postgraduate student. Of course I disputed this and still do.

What has this to do with the above? Well it's quite obvious to even the most oaken-headed vulgarian that I no longer work at the University of Salford. Yet still the decline in the national league tables continues. So how then did I bring the University into disrepute? Well it appears I didn't. How do I know this to be the case? Well the chap who sacked me - the Chair of the Disciplinary Panel Phillip Hopwood - said so under recent cross examination. So did the Chair of the Appeal Panel Simon Attwell (who upheld the University's decision to dismiss me) when he gave evidence with Hopwood at the Employment Tribunal in March. Both were asked before the Tribunal by the persistent Mr Longley for such evidence of damage to the University. Neither could provide any. I shall leave it to the imagination of the reader to fathom how a person can be sacked for bringing the university into disrepute when no evidence of such can be provided by the University?

It's got something to do with numbers...

I'm gladdened that Hall suggests that the decline in the Guardian tables is directly correlated to the decline in academic staff numbers in 2009-10. You see I distinctly recall being involved with other staff and students (with the support of the campus trade unions) in a very vocal campaign referred to by Dr Graves in an email to Harloe and Watkinson 31st May 2009,(4) which we sought to save 150 teaching, academic and academic related jobs at risk under Project Headroom. Therefore my involvement in this campaign opposing such job cuts could be construed as an obvious attempt to halt any rise in the staff/student ratio and clearly an action designed to stop the University being damaged. I might include my satiric writings which were a personal endeavor. The Vice Consul's Newsletters highlighted the job losses and other important issues such as bullying of staff by managers. They also raised the issue of the appointments process in the Salford Business School. That Hall decided to ask an outside organisation in 2010 to scrutinise issues such as the appointments process in the SBS is in my view something of a vindication.

To recap: it appears that I'm not in the least responsible for the decline in the league tables through either damaging the reputation of the University or bringing the University into disrepute. Given this, like many other staff, I'd like to know who is?

They seek him here... they seek him there...

In my view, if some person or persons unknown implement a set of policies which drive a university up the national league tables, this clearly enhances its reputation. If a person or persons as yet unknown implement a set of policies that lead to a decline in the tables almost year on year surely this must be damaging the reputation of the university and bringing such university into disrepute? If this be the case, maybe it's at least time to change policies?



Notes and References

*Not to be confused with a sore foreskin

(1) University of Salford Strategic Plan 2009/10 to 2017/18, pg11, sourced at http://staff.salford.ac.uk/transforming/documents/university_of_salford_strategic_plan.pdf

(2) M Hall, message to staff, May 23rd 2011
(3) Student suspension letter sent to GPD by Vice Chancellor Michael Harloe 12 June 2009.
(4) Email A Graves to M Harloe, K Watkinson, 31 may 2009. One is to presume that the 'sustained campaign.. over six months' Dr Graves refers to in this email refers to my activities involving the SUDE staff/student campaign from December 2008 which opposed the 150 job losses asked for by Dr Graves and other Strategic Leadership Team members under Project Headroom. SUDE (Salford University Defend Education) was a staff/student led campaign group which held regular weekly meetings where strategies and tactics were debated, decided and implemented democratically. SUDE organised lobbies of Brendan Barber at a Salford Business School annual lecture, organised a series of high profile protests and a campaigned against course closures.


All the above is of course the opinion of the author. For corrections please email vagrantsintheworkhouse@gmail.com

In pursuit of the trivial

'The Buck Stops Here'

Harry S Truman

"Sir! Unlike your wit, your breath is slightly caustic
 and your finger nails are a little too long"

I find odd snippets of trivia eminently interesting. There is nothing quite more delightful than drawing on a vintage churchwarden* stuffed to overflowing with Kentucky Old Nougat, a cup of piping hot fresh coffee in hand musing on some absurdity published in a newspaper or almanac. For example, I read somewhere that fingernails go on growing after death. Among my wife, I have a well-known antipathy to typing with long fingernails. There is a perfectly good reason for this. It leads to inaccuracy in typing and the very real possibility of accidentally pressing the 'PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED' button thereby providing the world with many examples of my own blatant crimes against syntax. 

Some, particularly those demonstrating some proficiency on the guitar or a preference for medieval stringed instruments (with the exception of course of the the Aeolian Harp), might also share the same aversion to keratinous extensions on the terminal phalanges with their concomitant imprecision and annoyance. I'm assured that they make for a lacklustre performance with again the possibility of accompanying general audiencial tittering and its corollary - widespread derision. I'm also not fond of cutting my fingernails. Please don't take this as an indicator of an overall rejection of the principle tenets of personal hygiene. I'm told by local cider-imbibers and Salvation Army volunteers that I don't smell that bad. But keeping fingernails trim is one of life's irritating little chores that demands a level of attention far beyond the overall importance of the untrimmed subjects on hand.

The trimmed 'subjects'

In pursuit of the trivial

Back to the trivia. I pondered the notion that my own finger nails would continue to grow after my own corporeal negation and found that it irritated me. On the irrato-meter it was way up there with scraping dog shit off children's shoes and responding to ridiculous letters from without-a-clue lawyers... possibly located in the region of an eight or nine. At the root of this irritation was the gradual realisation that I would have to continue to keep them trim even after being finally entombed within my mahogany-veneered chipboard sarcophagus. [Note to self: remember to have a decent set of sharpened nail scissors in the coffin prior to cremation.] I also recall another piece of trivia... that former US President Harry S Truman had a hand lettered sign on his desk that announced that 'THE BUCK STOPS HERE'. For the life of me I can't remember where I read this but it was not in today's Guardian.

Oh dear...

What was in today's Guardian was their annually published University league tables. They didn't make comfortable reading for this writer and it is unlikely they'll make comfortable reading for Vice Chancellor Hall or his deputy Adrian Graves. For the Guardian tables show that the University of Salford has for the year 2011-2012 slipped once again, from the position of 100 to 109. Nine points may not seem much but it places Salford in the unenviable position of residing tenth from the bottom which according to the Guardian stats means the University has descended 23 places since 2009. Mind you, it could be interpreted as 108 places from the top depending on whether you're a half empty or half full merchant and the size of your salary. No University, even one on silent running, could stand for long the enormous pressures exerted at these sorts of levels of descent especially when being bombarded from above by University League Table depth-charges. Rivets must be popping off bulkheads left, right and centre.

"Sir! I think someone's got the staff to submarine ratios wrong"

A collective pat on the back

Despite the overall declination, there are a few rays of sunshine. Notwithstanding the loss of many academic and teaching staff through Project Headroom in 2009, staff have managed to achieve good results with an 80% satisfaction rate with teaching at Salford. Staff including non-academic staff deserve a huge pat on their collective backs for this achievement. You might be asking 'Why should these staff be singled out and not well-paid senior executives?' According to the Guardian's figures, Salford has the second highest staff/student ratio out of the 119 Universities that make up their tables at 23.8 (slightly higher by 0.1% than figures quoted previously on Vagrants). To put this into some sort of context, 41 Universities out of 119 have a staff/student ration of 20 or above.(1) The staff/student ratio is an important component in deciding the overall position in the national University League Tables.

Might a reasonable person hold staff more widely responsible for any increase in the s/s ratio? It's unlikely. The overall responsibility for an increase in this ratio must be laid squarely at the door of members of the Strategic Leadership Team (SLT) of which Hall and Graves are the two most senior members. Any decision to axe jobs in any real numbers is made at a strategic level. Indeed there was widespread support  from staff across the board as well as students in the grass roots campaign to oppose the decision of the SLT to seek job losses in such numbers under Project Headroom. I am proud to have played a role in this union-backed campaign. Given this increase in the s/s ratio announced in the Guardian's tables, it would therefore seem rather an unorthodox policy to announce another 218 jobs losses.(2)

A sign for the future?

Sadly, the general pattern for Salford (no relation to General Patton) in the national league tables has been a more general downward trajectory for the last ten years or so. Having studied and worked at Salford for around eleven years, I can personally attest to its value and the contribution it makes to the lives of staff, students in particular those from disadvantaged backgrounds who have chosen to study there, as well as the real measurable value it imparts within wider academia. I garner no comfort from, nor rejoice in the above evidence of the University's further descent. But I do have some questions.

Questions... questions...

Given this general trend downwards, is it not time that Hall and Graves recognise that existing strategic plans such as Realising Our Vision (ROV) have not been able to effectively halt the downward trajectory of the University in the national league tables never mind reverse the current trend? That further job losses may exacerbate the problem with regard to staff/student ratios? What action is proposed to arrest any further potential decline in the national tables? What do members of the University's governing body - University Council - think about the existing trend and are they concerned? If they are concerned, what action do they propose to take? I also want to know in whose office and on whose desk resides the sign that states: The Buck Stops Here?

Responses to the usual email address at vagrantsintheworkhouse@gmail.com

*This refers to a churchwarden pipe and not an actual Church Warden which would almost likely be an illegal act, or at least classed as an obscenity in the eyes of the good Lord. It would also be a sheer waste of a quality rough shag.**

** This refers to a type of tobacco and not a form of primitive intercourse in the countryside

(1) If there are errors in these statistics they are genuine errors and the author asks that any potential legal action be directed towards the Guardian as they have lawyers on tap for this sort of thing. The Author is happy to make any  adjustment on request. Evidence must be provided.
(2)Manchester Evening News, April 14th 2011 sourced at http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1417964_200-jobs-at-risk-as-salford-university-looks-to-save-7m?rss=yes

Related articles

• University announces 200 job cuts (bbc.co.uk)
• University Guide 2012: Cambridge tops the Guardian league table (guardian.co.uk)

A Certain Ratio

"We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."

George Orwell 1939

Well in my book it's a little unusual. It maybe something and it maybe nothing. No, I'm not referring to the hacking cough which as a constant companion, has led to neighbours burning wicker-Callans in my moss-infected back garden. Nor am I referring to the pre-dawn presentation to a bewildered son of a Chartist-sized petition for my forced incarceration in blankets on a balcony in Switzerland in 1902. But someone did raise the issue and being a circumspect sort of chap, I thought I'd clear this one up for the record.

Tis the stuff of conspiracy theoratum... or 'tis it?

My first consideration was to wait a week. I thought then to wait a further week. It was proving elusive. I decided to read through it in its traditional format. Immersing myself wholly within the concept of latitudinal thinking I turn't my computer screen on its side. I even asked a neighbour to read through it wearing a two dimensional (2D) vest whilst re-soling a shoe with a truncated monkey paw and a cobbler's last... she could see nothing. I then got to thinking. Maybe it's been written in termite semen as some sort of ancient cypher akin to heterodox Hausa on clay tableaux unearthed near Herto in 1938 by a ream of hirsute historical harchaeologists?* Was it then deftly photoshopped and uploaded utilising an arcane electronic transcendence methodology on loan from Bletchley Fun Park, a tattered Mayan calendar with a page missing and as such is only visible once every 76th year in the subdued cosmic light of an inverted Halley's plague Comet? I spent hours googling this and eventually concluded that this line of reasoning was malicious. Inexorably I was drawn to a second conclusion that I considered had some merit and some readers may agree. It's a tad complex but bear with me. It goes something like this... as Vice Chancellor Martin Hall hasn't mentioned on his blog in any way whatsoever the axing remodelling of nearly ten percent (ten percent) of University of Salford staff jobs (sorry 'roles') in this latest round of staff job cuts 'role' reformations, then it isn't going to happen.

The sodial stomach

It is almost a truism to say that the receipt of a libel claim tends to focus one's analytical powers. So just to be sure, I trawled through past articles on his blog which I have to say were a thoroughly interesting and engaging read, particularly Prof Hall's forthright views on defamation and the use of deliberate misinformation. Yet despite its generally pleasing disposition and stimulating tone, there was no mention of any role re modellings proposed for 2011. This was all very positive and appeared to corroborate my as yet unpublished thesis. It was clear that my investigation needed expanding. My Autumn Almanac was to hand. I glanced through its dog-eared pages. No mention there. I also took the exciting opportunity to wade through the November 2010** University Council minutes (the most recently published). Apart from a few vague words such as 'transformation' and 'displacement' which are usually a concomitant of DIY programmes, ships and the study of ancient Greek bathers, there was no specific reference to the loss reformulation of 218 joles.

Pork jobs or bacon roles?

I recalled an almost half digested line from an obscure page on the University's Strategic Plan 2009/10 to 2017/18 which stated '[o]ur lean and informed system of corporate governance offers the potential to the University for a quick and responsive turnaround of informed decisions...' (1) This set my barely hinged mind reeling. Had the current system of corporate governance become so lean that it was now rind-less, vacuum-packed and on offer at the local Cut Coster - buy two pay for three? I decided to ignore the  almost Racinian neoclassical perfectionism involved in the transliteration of ordinary English via note-taking into corporate-speak, which combined with a raft of autocomical perambulations within the confines of hallowed corridors could not detract from the simple catechism: surely University Council would know if a cardinal decision to scythe modify 218 robs had been made? I now began to seriously question the ability of antique pince nez to collate and process the visuality of a modern plasma screen. Christ!! Even the most dreary cacophonous twot knows that among the fraternity of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, a competent Swiss time master could set his watch by University Council minutes. If it's doesn't say 218 for the chop mid course correction, then clearly 218 people role modellers can sleep easier at night. It's elementary my dear Watson or his kin.

From role to dole

No. I'm not having one bit of it! Despite my incipient consumptive fever this one is as plain as the nose on the face of an habitual park bencher. Despite the uncanny closeness of the word 'role' to 'dole', if two hundred and eighteen (two hundred and eighteen) jobs' 'roles' were being transmogrified, something that would be a tad important to 218 people 'role' fillers, wouldn't the Vice Chancellor have something to say about it on his blog? Take last week's blog which deals with the irksome issue of student fees. It's important so it's on there. On April 4th he had something up there entitled 'Learning through Teaching' which sounds a bit obvious but isn't. This week he deals with the knotty issue of some LS Lowry paintings.

It's not Project Headroom so stop saying it is.

I hear he's shit

Yet the perennial pessimists persist. A silly beggar suggested the other day that this allegorical non-existent job 'role' centric metamorphosis is a continuation of Project Headroom. This is patently nonsense as students and staff would be pooling their resources and forces to protest like they did in 2008-09. The posters would be up everywhere. The UCU, UNISON and the Students' Union would be mobilising their not inconsiderable human and financial resources to build an effective opposition. They might even decide to block traffic and take their demands to the front doors of the nerve centre - the Old (transformed) Fire Station - to demonstrate their opposition mightn't they? At the very least they'd request some mugs from the union head offices to hand out to annoyed people. Besides, I might be shit at most things, but I do a lovely cheese sauce and I pride myself on my ability to do sums convincingly and with a certain brutal conviction. Yet don't take the word of a serial sputum-merchant. Do the addition yourself. In January 2009 a University spokeswoman said:

"The cuts are taking place alongside the university's three-year, £12.5 million cost-saving drive, dubbed "Project Headroom", which aims to create a surplus for investment in the university's estate, new academic programmes and Salford's new Media City site."(2)

Any Dollfuss with half a brain and a tentative grip on power knows that it's unmistakably 2011. If there are three things that are immutable and cannot be fiddled with it's numbers, history and the calendar.

A classic strategy of the classical kind

If those septical types bothered to engage the remaining quarter of their brain they would remember that management led by the old Vice Chancellor Michael Harloe weren't reticent about discussing Project Headroom and other important issues back in the heady days of 2009 when it all seemed familiarly different. His (genuine) non-satirical monthly newsletters were popular as staff generally received them by email. As a strategy for the future, Project Hearoom was brilliantly simple in its simplicity and brilliance. Few recognised then that the loss of around 150 student-oriented-knowledge-imparters would play such a central role in lifting the University Poseidon-like back up the League Tables. It's likely to have worked and it's Homburgs off to whomsoever dreamed that one up. Despite an almost superhuman commitment in repositioning the University generally in the vicinity of the University League Tables, for many, Harloe's departure appeared to draw a natural line under Project Headroom and the fear of further 'disinvestments'. Moreover, the timing couldn't have been better for Vice Chancellor Designate Hall as his arrival in the frothy wake of Project Headroom, meant largely avoiding association with this strangely unpopular policy. Yet the important point to emphasise here is that if Harloe and managers could talk about Project Headroom and the issue of significant sums of scholastic shedding openly, then surely Professor Hall  would do the same on his blog? It really is as simple as ACB.

From aspirations to respiration

Chest-wise these cannot be bettered

Besides, Professor Hall has stated that "[t]he University of Salford aspires to be in the top quartile of UK Universities by 2017...". I for one believe him and the University. After all, six years isn't long. He'll still be here and so will Dr Graves to see the fruits of their labour. Maybe the University Council will consider a remuneration package for the Vice Chancellor and his deputy based on achieving this aspiration. We could call it something like... payment by results. Besides, aspirations are a good thing and can nearly work miracles. I recently used the idea of aspiration in a positive way that readers may be interested in, although I might add in the way of a disclaimer that this may not be suitable for everyone. It was quite simple really. I aspired to a packet of Hall's (no relation) Extra Strong Vapour-Action hard boiled sweets. I made the corporate decision to purchase a single packet and visited the newsagents thereby meeting and fulfilling my immediate short-term goal. It produced clear results in that it transformed my airways, emptied my pockets of spare change, and led to a positive benefit to both my trachea and my neighbours' earea. In terms of the efficacy of apsirationally-based strategies for the future I can personally attest to any policy that helps relieve blocked passageways through direct purchase. As a consequence, I would now place myself firmly in the top centile, possibly in the top octile of aspirational-inhalers. This didn't involve any significant role changes other than a minor step sideways from consumptive to consumer.

A Certain Ratio

So, when Hall (relation) says that "This will require us to transform our performance in our core business. This means we need to achieve standing in the first quartile of UK Universities in both teaching quality - currently we are in the fourth quartile - and in research and innovation, where we are currently in the second quartile..." (3)  I do not for one minute think that the University would aspire to implement a policy that includes widespread individually-centred-daily-task-engagers transfigurations that might result in shifting Salford to the premier position on another league table - the staff-student ratio league tables? No group of managers at either a strategic level or a stratospheric level in the case of the Zeus-like one, would wish to implement a policy that saw any increase in this ratio would they? This reconfirms my earlier thinking.

These job cuts aren't really happening are they...?

Staff-Student Ratios 2009-2010***(4)

References and Notes

* If any readers wish to elaborate on the question as to whether such an animal as a non-historical archaeologist in fact exists you know the email address? One supposes that a good starting definition might be a post-historical archaeologist?

** Available on the University website at http://www.governance.salford.ac.uk/cms/resources/uploads/File/council_committees_minutes/Council%20mins%2010-11/Council%20Minutes%2024%20Nov%202010%20revised.pdf

***2009-10 Staff-Student ratios top five across the UK: 31.7 Ravensbourne, 27.6 Open University, 26.1 University College Plymouth St Mark and St John, 25.5 Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln, 23.7 University of Salford

(1) Sourced at http://staff.salford.ac.uk/transforming/documents/university_of_salford_strategic_plan.pdf

(2) Sourced the Times Higher January 2009, at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=405005

(3) Sourced at http://staff.salford.ac.uk/news/details/1449

(4)Source: University and College Union Staff-Student ratios and academic time data 2011. It is widely accepted that Project Headroom was implemented and completed in 2008-2009. It is not known if this had any bearing on the above staff-student ratios

Related articles

• University announces 200 job cuts (bbc.co.uk)

Embracing Chipboard

Vagrants have just been informed that management at the University of Salford which includes the well paid Adrian Graves and handsomely remunerated Martin Hall* have just announced that they (as the employer) are seeking to divest themselves of (make redundant) an estimated 218 staff (two hundred and eighteen staff). The axing of these staff is said to affect staff from all staff groups apart from the immediate staff group of three comprising the Vice Chancellor (Hall), the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Graves) and the Executive Head of hr (Watkinson).

The reason for these redundancies is to make savings of around £7 million. It's believed £7 million would just about cover the rental costs for its four floors at MediaCity for the next three years.

Have past savings resulted in the widespread adoption of chipboard
shelving which is now bowing in the middle?

According to the Periodic Table, iron is heavier than irony

An anonymous source located somewhere adjacent to the University claimed with more than a hint of heavy irony in his tone that:

"A lot of people will naturally blame Martin Hall for these job losses, particularly the people being thrown on the scrap heap. He does after all head the University. But they couldn't be more wrong. I'll tell you who's really responsible. It's that allegedly defamatory bastard Duke with the wandering facial hair, loose morals and even looser tongue who is ultimately responsible for this jobs slaughter. If we weren't having to spend vast sums suing this quillard because of the allegedly nasty things he's said about our wonderful Vice Chancellor and Deputy Vice Chancellor, these jobs would be as safe as that terraced house we've built indoors."

Duke who is widely described as 'appalling', is a regular contributor to this non-defamatory, right of reply respecting website and has today stated that "It's patently ridiculous to assert that I'm somehow responsible for the loss of these jobs. I'll save up two weeks dole money and put it towards seriously counter-suing the person who goes so far as even to suggest that it cost 150 jobs under Project Headroom to pay for all the University's legal fees to take me through the Disciplinary Procedure, dismiss me and now pay for all their lawyers and barristers at the Employment Tribunal."

Is he hapless?

The hapless Duke went further:

"Look, I did say around the time of Project Headroom that if they got away with axing those 150 jobs, they'd be looking to axe more jobs in the future. I didn't use magic to work it out but carefully used something called sums. It's clear that the University needs to be at the cutting edge and needs to stay at the cutting edge -  the cutting edge of the use of libel laws against a former employee. They are having to make significant and pressing investments for the future. Take for example, the large sums of money that Professor Hall and Dr Graves are considering investing in this necessary libel trial for the next year or two. Realistically it's only likely to be the equivalent of at the most twenty academic jobs for one year."

When pressed Duke elaborated:

"This is not written in stone and the money to pay for these civil proceedings could come from a different income stream, and of course things could change dramatically. Obviously if the University are granted an injunction by the courts, this will have terrible implications for my right to exercise freedom of speech regularly. However, if I then win the libel trial or they decide to drop their case, I'll seriously consider saving up at least four weeks dole money and suing them for even more academic jobs for one year. I do have some rights you know under the European Convention on Human Rights."

Dr Graves in smiling mode: his job is safe but has he yet to 
make permanent the move from real looking wood shelving 
to its white chipboard counterpart?

No ballot for industrial action?

It appears that the loss of 218 jobs is in the first 'tranche' with more to come. Unlike other UCU branches facing job cuts across the country who think it's wise to ballot for industrial action as soon as job cuts are announced, according to a UCU bulletin to members, they're not considering balloting members yet. It's believed they'll only consider anything remotely contentious if management move towards compulsory redundancies. However, in the short and medium term, it's believed that much fiery militant rhetoric will be bandied around.

Is it a simple case of computers versus humans?

It's not clear whether anyone within either the UCU or UNISON branch executives has had the temerity to bring up the issue of the estimated £2.6 million pound overspend voted through by the University Council last year in order to complete the upgrading of the University IT and computer systems. However, rumours of the development of a super-computer that can do the job of every one except Graves, Hall and Watkinson have been called "absurd" by a former employee with IT skills. "You make it sound like something out of Demon Seed with Julie Christie. It's nonsense! Computers can't carry complex pieces of furniture like tables into the Old Fire Station.** Nor can they yet chauffeur senior executives around."

MediaCity UK

Some have argued that the figures quoted in the Salford Star of a conservative £50 million pound spend at MediaCity over the next nine years could be different. A spokesperson from Eccles Help the Aged stated that: "218 staff to save £7 million.... according to my 1970 decimal conversion chart, at that rate, in order to make the sorts of savings to cover £50 million they'd have to lay off 1556.52 staff and that's plainly silly. There's no such thing as 0.52 of a person. In old money it's just over half a person."

A Paradigmatic shift within the Salford sector of HE?

It's not clear if the University are planning a paradigmatic shift toward the use of chipboard based furniture products as a means to save money. A senior member of staff at Stoples who refused to be named has cautiously extended a pre-welcome to any moves by the University towards the wholesale adoption of compressed composite based office furniture: "I can only speak personally but personally speaking, I think any large orders of melamine coated MDF or mid-quality veneered chipboard - especially our range of book shelves - can only be a positive thing. However, I must hazard a personal warning to Dr Graves and Martin Hall. Unlike a bookcase made from solid wood, chipboard based shelving can tend to bow over time under the weight of academic tomes whose texts are much denser than ordinary books like the highly readable Harry Potter collection. Any move in this direction could ultimately prove to be a false economy and might come back to bite their metaphorical arses."

Dr Duke: it's questionable if he
has human DNA never
mind human rights

The last word

Dr Duke had to have the last word as usual: "I can't be held responsible for either rising fuel costs, the overall rise in the rate of inflation or the state of the Portuguese economy. I'm only partly human after all. If it meant saving these 218 or so jobs, I'd be happy to plead guilty to the disappearance of Flight 19 in 1945 over Bermuda. I would however like to say just for the record that I'm not guilty for the disappearance of Flight 19 over Bermuda in 1945."

*This is of course in relation to staff at the University of Salford. This comparison is not made against the pay of other Registrars and Vice Chancellors at Universities across the UK. 
** The Old Fire Station is where Dr Graves and Professor Hall the Vice Chancellor are principally based. It used to be an Old Fire Station.