Monday 22nd December 2014 - Towards retirement

Impressions often count more than reality.  A consequence of my blog on 4 December, when I pointed out that the advertisement for my successor as Deputy Vice-Chancellor had now been published, was that many people have assumed that I am retiring and leaving the University.  Re-reading that blog, I found I never used the word 'retiring' or 'retirement' in it.  I talked about a chapter towards ending my academic career, but not to an actual date.

So in the period since 4 December I have been explaining to a lot of people that what I will be doing will be stepping down from the University's Executive Board, 'retiring' from it, but not 'retiring' completely.  There are still research papers to be completed, a possible textbook to be written, a research student to see through to completion, a number of national level committees to attend, various other projects to maintain, and perhaps (who knows) even some more teaching to do.  In other words, I expect still to be active within the university once my successor is in post.  BUT, I intend to leave it to him or her to get on with their new job, rather than carping from the sidelines or continuously meddling in their activities.

I am in the first recent generation not to be given a fixed retirement age.  But the period when that applied was actually quite short.  Both my grandfathers worked well beyond the age of 65.  One was a printer doing night shifts who kept them up until he was 70; the other was a shipyard inspector of rivets who was forced to retire short before his 70th birthday as a result of the bronchitis he had developed through working in very poor conditions on Tyneside.  On the other hand, my father 'was retired' at the age of 60 from his then job in human resources at the BBC - although he was relieved to get out of the hour-long commute from our house in West London to an office close to Broadcasting House.

So, to repeat, I will not be retiring from the University later this spring, but stepping down from the Executive Board (after what will by then be at least 11 years on it or its predecessor).  What am I looking forward to most?  Not having to oversee the major admissions decisions in the middle of August; catching up with academic reading in my field; and spending more time in Coffee Revolution.

Thursday 4th December 2014 - Replacement

I suppose it's time for me to start humming a very famous tune by Claude Francois and Jacques Revaux.  There are many other cliches that come to mind (incidentally, it appears to be impossible to add accents to letters in Blogger!).

I was helping another university with a senior appointment today and they had already seen it on the internet. Many others will do so over the next few days, or will see it in the paper, or will hear others talk about it.

Today has been the day when the public advertisement for my replacement as Deputy Vice-Chancellor has been published.  In some ways it's the beginning of the end - or certainly of the final chapter for me as a member of the university's executive board.  I'm not sure how I feel about that yet.  I've actually been too busy in the last few weeks really to think about it.  That has prevented me starting the process of looking back over what I have had a hand in achieving, but it has also meant that I haven't yet started to think about what I will miss and what I won't.  

So what is that tune by Claude Francois and Jacques Revaux?  Paul Anka changed the words from the original French so that in the English-speaking world it's no longer known as Comme d'Habitude - instead it's 'My Way'.

Sunday 30th November 2014 - A Norman tapestry returned

Last night I was involved in the completion of something that started, for me, in late June.  Then, as I blogged on 17^th June, 2014, I helped to present an 18^th century tapestry to its rightful owner.  It had been stolen from his family’s chateau in Normandy during the Second World War and from 1959 onwards, as a result of a legitimate purchase, had graced the room that we had come to call the ‘Tapestry Room’ in the University.

Yesterday evening I was one of 23 people assembled by the present Count to celebrate the return of the tapestry and its placing on a wall in an elegant salon in his chateau.  Several of the other guests were owners of other neighbouring chateaux, many of them with similar stories to tell of losses of works of art during the war.  But we were celebrating a happy story of return.  The British Ambassador to France and his wife were present, and the French Minister of Culture was represented by her Commissioner for the Normandy region.

It was a moving occasion, just as the event in Sheffield in June in the University Librarian’s office had been.  The Count’s local guests had not seen the tapestry before.  Once glasses of champagne had been served, he embarked a substantial and emotional speech (in French of course) about the loss of the tapestry, the death in a concentration camp of his uncle who had been the owner of the chateau at the time, the other two tapestries that had been similarly stolen, the specific significance of the tapestry to the family (since it was commissioned by them and included a coat-of-arms of a now defunct branch), the discovery a few months ago that the University of Sheffield was now the owner, and his intense gratitude at what he called a  “noble and elegant donation” by the university in returning the tapestry and the “miracle” that this constituted.   The Count had clearly prepared his speech fully, and took me by surprise, since I had not realised there was to be a formal element to the proceedings.  So I felt I had to give an off-the-cuff response – in French – expressing the pride of the University that we had been able to right a wrong (albeit one not of our making), and I was able to add that although I had spent many hours in the presence of the tapestry while it hung on the walls of our university, it looked so much better in its rightful place in the chateau.  The university’s actions were cheered with shouts of ‘Bravo” all round, and throughout the evening guests came up to me and called our actions “honourable”, “principled” and what one should expect from a good University.

So it was a wonderful occasion – worth the long journey out to deepest Normandy for a single night’s stay.  It was a time to be very proud of the University and of our actions, and to make new friends for Sheffield.  We assembled for drinks at 2000 and the party broke up at midnight after coffee and calvados.  But speaking French over dinner for two-and-a-half hours was a challenge – although I don’t think I have ever been flanked by two charming Countesses before in doing so.

Friday 28th November 2014 - Postgraduates from widening participation backgrounds

Having been involved in widening participation initiatives for some years, I have also, for some years, been concerned that outreach and financial support activities intended to bring people from disadvantaged backgrounds into undergraduate studies aren't enough.  Doing an undergraduate degree in Law isn't enough to become a solicitor or barrister - a postgraduate course is needed; a first degree in sociology or geography is not enough to become a professional town planner - a postgraduate professional qualification is needed; it is increasingly difficult get a postgraduate scholarship to do  a research degree without having a Masters qualification first.  And financial support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds undertaking postgraduate qualifications have not been available.

Three or four years ago I proposed to the Office of Fair Access that the University should be allowed to allocate some of its widening participation expenditure towards postgraduate support - but was told that that was not allowed.

This evening we held a celebration for 99 students from disadvantaged backgrounds or difficult circumstances who are now in receipt of scholarships.  Times have changed, and the funding council has created a two year project to explore how postgraduate support can be financed and what the effects would be.  We have matched their funding with finances from other sources, including alumni.  The project will last two years, and the demand from potential students has shown what a pent-up interest there is for such support.  Today has seen the fulfilment of something I have wanted for some years.

But it is the personal stories that are the most affecting.  As I left to collect my coat a woman leaving with me turned to me and said 'Thank you for this.  I'm a mother with three children and without this support I couldn't fulfil my dream of doing a Masters course.'  It's taken too long to get to this position, but that testimony shows the importance of what we are doing.

Tuesday 11th November 2014 - Remembrance

Along, I guess, with several other members of the University Executive Board, I am from the first generation in over a century not to have had direct experience of war or of a wartime economy.  My parents’ and grandparents’ generations were of serving age in the second and first world wars respectively.  I know of relatives who were involved in the Boer War, and one of my wife’s ancestors was a Troop Sergeant Major in the Crimean War and took part in the Charge of the Light Brigade.  I know that the parents of many UEB members did war service, or were conscripted into National Service during the later 1940s or 1950s.  And I know that the father of one UEB member was held as a prisoner-of-war: others of my colleagues may also have that experience written into their family histories – I don’t know.

The modal age decade of University Executive Board members is almost certainly in their 50s (although there are some younger and some older).  For our undergraduate students, many born in the 1990s, it will have been their great grandparents or grandparents who would have been involved in the Second World War.

My own father was in an occupation that was initially ‘reserved’, but that classification later changed and he was called up into the Royal Air Force well before his twenty-first birthday – in other words at the age of many of our final year undergraduates.  My mother was in a reserved occupation throughout the war, but I had female relatives who served in various ways.  I sometimes wonder how our current students would fare put into the same sort of situation. War is now something that passes most of us in universities by.  And I am thankful that is the case.  But I am, of course, cognisant of the students and ex-students who were called up to serve in the two World Wars, and who left their studies to serve in the trenches, in Normandy, the Far East, or in the Royal Navy. 

I was chairing today’s Executive Board, with a very long and complex agenda.  But at 1100 I stopped the proceedings and we observed the two minutes silence.  The Vice-Chancellor had previously left the meeting to lay a wreath at the University’s war memorial.  These were the right things for us to do – both as representatives of the University and in personal capacities as individuals who have grown up – in the UK, in Australia, in the USA – in circumstances of peace.

Here’s a final twist – I’m entering this blog whilst on the train to London to have dinner with an ex-student who has become a very successful businessman and who is deeply grateful for his education at our University.  It will be delightful to catch up with him, and to hear about life in the country he is from and which is now a close partner of the UK.  He is German. 

Tuesday 28th October 2014 - What I did in China

This time yesterday I was on the 11½ hour British Airways through flight from Beijing to London.  This had been my first visit to China since 2007, and my first to Hong Kong since 2006.  There were several of us from the University involved in a wide variety of tasks. So what was I doing during the 9½ days of my travels?   The menu reads as follows:

3 group dinners at which I sat next to representatives of organisations such as the British Council, the British Consulate, and the Chinese Ministry of Education.  These were working dinners, drawing out aspects of our plans but also listening to local intelligence on the higher education (and wider political) landscape in China (in both parts of the ‘one country, two systems’ arrangement).

3 working meals with colleagues from the new operator of the University’s pathway provider college, and various of the agents they are working with in recruiting overseas students to come to Sheffield.  These were 'getting-to-know-you' sessions involving lots of explaining Sheffield's approach to a multitude of issues around both undergraduate and postgraduate education.

2 private meals with significant alumni of the University who have in some way indicated an interest in assisting their alma mater.

2 meetings with current Sheffield students taking a year abroad in institutions in Hong Kong or Nanjing

2 major alumni events, for graduates of the University to get together for networking and to hear about developments back in Sheffield.

2 half-day visits to Chinese universities that we see as major partners.  In both cases I was the leader of a Sheffield delegation, discussing a wide variety of connections and possible future plans.  Such visits customarily involve an exchange of gifts between universities, with appropriate photo opportunities.  I had brought our gifts from the UK and am now returning with others which will adorn my office.

2 graduation ceremonies for students who had studied in Sheffield but who now had the chance to be presented to the Vice-Chancellor in front of their parents and friends.  At one of these I gave the oration for an honorary graduate.

2 post-graduation receptions for those presented, parents, VIP guests and friends.  These also involved innumerable photos taken with graduates in their gowns.  I had carried my own gown and cap from the UK.

One presentation to a symposium on global issues.

One visit to a joint Canadian – Chinese research facility.

One synchronous on-line discussion session delivered to my students back in Sheffield from my hotel room in Beijing, at the time when we normally meet in the UK – thus necessitating staying up until one in the morning Chinese time.

That adds up to 21 events in 9½ days, but it should be added that some days were taken up with a fair bit of travel.  Two days were chiefly used up in flying from Hong Kong to Shanghai (especially as the flight was delayed) and from Shanghai to Beijing.  And there was also rail travel to and from Nanjing on two mornings.  There were events in my list above every evening

But although I was working every day, including the weekends, I wouldn’t want to suggest that there was no relaxation.  Four of us went up the Peak by funicular in Hong Kong, and three of us explored the Hong Kong Park.  I had two trips on the Star Ferry across from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon with three different colleagues. I paid two visits to old Shanghai, again with three different colleagues.  I spent part of an afternoon in the Temple of Heaven Park in Beijing.  And the leisure highlight was the day when three of us hired a driver and guide to take us out to visit the Great Wall at Mutianyu.  Finally, on a complex visit like this, with various people involved, it was good to get together in the bar at the end of the day.  Particularly memorable was an evening in the hotel in Beijing with a 5-piece group playing American standards to an international group of colleagues drawn from China, Mexico and the UK - the musical group having a superb female singer with a smoky voice, and a fantastic lead guitarist in the style of Eric Clapton or Jeff Beck in their heyday.

But now the most gruelling part begins – finalising the reports and action points that result from all the things we have done.

Thursday 23th October 2014 - Two days in China

I am currently in China on a multi-purpose visit.  Something of the variety of activities can be discerned in the timetable of the last two days.

Wednesday 22 October

0630 Leave my hotel to travel by metro to Shanghai Railway Station.  The metro is half full but there are no westerners at this time of the morning – tourists are probably still in bed.

0700 Arrive at the station and go through the airline-style security clearance to check in.  Our group of three for a visit to Nanjing assembles from different hotels.  We have all been told that the journey to the station, plus the security check, will take an hour and a half: in reality we could have done it all in 45 minutes.  We have a long time to wait.

0800  The high speed train for Nanjing departs.  I am very impressed by the style and speed of the train – but the wifi isn’t working.  Spend the journey discussing the day’s itinerary with a colleague, and reading the excellent briefings prepared back in Sheffield.

0940 Arrive in Nanjing.  Last time I travelled from Shanghai to Nanjing was in 2007, by car, taking nearly 4 hours on an empty motorway (it was early on a Sunday morning): this journey has been less than 2 hours by train.  After some confusion over which station exit we are being met at, our group of three from Sheffield splits with two of us visiting Nanjing University and one heading to another institution.

1015 Arrive at Nanjing University campus after a ‘challenging’ car journey.  I certainly wouldn’t like to drive in China.  We are allocated a student guide for a campus tour.  I am surprised how much I remember of the University’s beautiful campus from my visit 7 years ago – including some of the more interesting features that our guide would otherwise have omitted. 

1100 We meet with three senior colleagues – a Vice-President (who is, like me, a geographer), a senior member of the Nanjing University international office team (a law professor) and an administrative assistant.  At 1230 we head to a multi-course working lunch.  Over a three-hour period we review all the activities that currently link Nanjing and Sheffield, talk about possible future developments, and discuss the wider higher education landscape in our countries.  Sheffield has a long history of collaboration with Nanjing, and they are co-sponsors of our Confucius Institute (which we are currently considering expanding).  But we also send to Nanjing many of our students taking degrees in Chinese.  And we have a joint postgraduate degree in Applied Linguistics, as well as significant research collaborations in Physics and Engineering.   My colleague and I both take extensive notes of the discussions, and we will need to spend some time afterwards writing them up and allocating who should take various actions.

1400 We are driven to our nearby hotel.  My room is not ready so I spend an hour doing emails in the lobby.  We have set up a Virtual Private Network on my laptop, so I can ‘pretend’ I am in Sheffield and thus avoid the ban the Chinese authorities are placing on the use of Google products.

1500 I can have my room.  I spend the next three hours preparing a PowerPoint presentation to be given tomorrow in Shanghai.

1800 My colleague has been setting up an alumni event in a private room in the hotel.  She has had some difficulties over the arrangements and has asked me to test whether the hotel concierge can give the right directions to the room (it has been changed from the invitation).  In the lobby I meet the third member of our Sheffield party – she has spent the day on a quality assurance visit to another of the 53 universities in Nanjing, at which we have two articulated programmes whereby students spend 2 years in Nanjing and 2 in Sheffield.

1830 The alumni event starts.  About 30 Sheffield graduates living in or around Nanjing arrive.  They are superb networkers and a buzz very quickly develops, despite the fact that they are from very different cohorts – the oldest graduated around 25 years ago and the newest this year.  They all exchange business cards, in the formal Chinese manner, and so do I.  My card has my name in Mandarin (or at least a phonetic version) on the reverse.  We have also asked our current students in Nanjing (those on the Chinese Studies degree in Sheffield) to come.  They have only been here about 6 weeks and look a little shell-shocked by the culture change they are experiencing.  I make a brief speech about what is happening in Sheffield, and about how important our international community of Sheffield friends is, and at the end of the event my colleague who has organised the evening indicates how we want to support an alumni network in Nanjing, and how it could be mutually beneficial  to all concerned.  She speaks Mandarin, and later shows me how active the network’s ‘We Chat’ pages are (We Chat is the Chinese version of Facebook).

2100 The event was badged as finishing at 2100, and on the dot our guests all leave.  The three of us staff from Sheffield repair to the hotel buffet restaurant for a slightly dismal meal – everyone else in the hotel has eaten earlier and what is left has been kept heated for some time.  It takes the waitress nearly half an hour to bring us a bottle of wine – but it’s good and we feel we deserve it.  We split up to go to our rooms at 2230, the last to leave the restaurant.

Thursday 23 October

0630 I get up to do emails, including setting up a discussion forum for students on my module back in Sheffield for whom tomorrow is the day when I would normally be fully available all day for consultations about their projects.  We are going to try to maintain communication via an internet discussion forum, but it will depend on me having wifi access and using the Virtual Private Network.

0845 The three of us meet in the hotel entrance to be driven back to Nanjing station through appalling traffic.  On arrival there I buy a packet of biscuits which will have to suffice for breakfast.  Our train leaves at 1000.  En route I discuss a number of staffing issues with the colleague who visited the other university yesterday.

1140 We arrive at Shanghai and have to queue a long time for metro tickets to take us back to our respective hotels.  It’s 1230 before I get back to mine.  I get on the internet to take forward some of the issues discussed on the train.

1330 I now have a few hours of ‘down time’.  With a colleague who has a similar break in schedule we have a bite of lunch, take the ferry across the river, visit a park, a market area and some of old Shanghai before catching the metro back to our hotel.

1700 I prepare for a graduation ceremony and symposium on global affairs this evening.  The Sheffield party meets up at 1815 to get our robes on.  Guests have been arriving since 1700 and eventually there are about 50 students to be graduated in front of their friends and family.  In total there are around 200 people there, including some invitees from other universities and various alumni living in Shanghai.

1845 The degree ceremony. I am grateful that I am not reading out the names – we have a local person from the British Council to do that.  I later find out that she took a postgraduate degree in Oxford and that we have a mutual acquaintance there – someone who taught me when I was an undergraduate many years ago.  The ceremony does not exactly run in the same way as at Sheffield – parents are much more active in bouncing up and taking photographs, and one man contrives to cross the platform twice because the photos taken of him on his first visit were not deemed good enough.  The Vice-Chancellor does part of his speech in Mandarin, which is greatly appreciated.  At the end of the ceremony there is a queue of students wanting photographs of me and a colleague, both dressed in our academic robes.

1945 We have a brief pause, and then hold a symposium on global problems.  I am the second speaker up, dealing with global population change.  I am surprised and delighted by how attentive the audience is, despite the fact that some must have very limited English.  I deliberately made my presentation quite visual, with a lot of illustrations, and it seems to have paid off.

2030 Following the symposium we move to a buffet reception.  Many students and parents want to talk and they are all immensely grateful for having studied at Sheffield, and proud that their university has come out to Shanghai to visit them.  They are all in employment and feel their degree got them there.  (I suppose those who are now unemployed or underemployed probably wouldn’t have come along.)  We move out onto the hotel terrace looking across the water to the Shanghai Bund (we are staying in Pudong, in the hotel where the ceremony has been held.).  It is a warm and still evening, and the buildings are beautifully illuminated.  There is something magical about the whole setting.  The international friendships formed through education can do nothing but good in the world.  But at 2200 the lights go out on the Bund (Shanghai goes to bed early).  We stay talking – Sheffield staff, Chinese graduates, UK graduates from Sheffield who are now working here, colleagues from other local universities and from the British Council – and it looks as though some will make a late night of it.  But at 2245 I collect my gown and head for the lift and my room on the 28th floor.

Thursday 16th October 2014 - Having too small a group of students

(This blog was written on the train to London on 16 October - hence the date.  However, wifi wasn't working on the train so it is only being uploaded on 21 October - from a hotel room in Shanghai.)

I know that many lecturers are delighted when the size of their specialist final year option class drops.  They look forward to greater interaction and more intense discussion with students.  This year I have the smallest final year class I think I’ve ever had – twelve in total.  (Perhaps there’s a message there, that’s it’s time for me to go!)  Over the years I have averaged about 25-30 in my classes – although one year it did go as high as 84.  But even so I have always maintained what has basically been a seminar format for the teaching.  In the year I had 84 students I split them into four separate groups and did 8 hours a week teaching (2 hours per group) although I was only credited with 2 hours in the departmental workload allocation. 

But my small group this year of 12 creates some problems for me because I have based the teaching methods and the student tasks for the course around much larger numbers.  Contributing to wikis and other collaborative activities has in the past been based on splitting the total group into 8 or more groups of 3.  Should I reduce the number of tasks (and therefore reduce the coverage of the final piece)?  Should I make students work on their own in the production of the initial materials to be edited by everyone?  That would seem somewhat burdensome on individuals since they would be needing to cover, on their own, tasks which in the past have been dealt with by three.  That would mean an aggregate of less reading as background to what is produced by the students.

My solution so far is to reduce the number of tasks to be undertaken in small groups, and to compensate for that by dealing with the extra topics from previous years through class discussion.  I am reluctant to reduce the syllabus just because there are fewer students this year.

But I realise that in saying that I am reflecting ways of teaching that I never used earlier in my career.  Then I was the prime educator, with some student support.  Now I set the framework but I encourage the students largely to educate themselves, and each other, through collaborative activities.  And hence the more students the more potential learning there can be.  That in itself is an interesting reflection on new pedagogies of enquiry-based learning.

The most tricky topic will come later in the semester.  Normally the session on the break-up of the former Yugoslavia (a very relevant and contemporary topic given the abandonment of the Albania-Serbia football match earlier in the week) depends on role play.  And I need students to play the following roles: Slovenes, Croats, Serbs in Serbia, Serbs in Bosnia, Serbs in Kosovo, Bosniacs, Albanian Kosovans, Montenegrins, Macedonians (I can say that on a UK blog, but couldn’t use that term on a Greek site), Albanians, Greeks, Bulgars.  That totals 12 – 1 role each!  But it wouldn’t be a very fair division of labour.

Tuesday 30th September 2014 - In a world of their own: walking with earphones on

I turned the corner and within a couple of seconds a young woman walked straight into me.  I took careful note of the next three students walking towards me and took evasive action.  The next one made a beeline for me and when I moved aside to let him pass he careered into me nevertheless - I had already noticed that he wasn't walking very steadily anyway.

None of these individuals was drunk as far as I know - after all it was only a little after 2 in the afternoon.  But they were all walking while texting on their mobile phones - and not achieving both very well.   (I hope their texts were better than their movements.)  Should we instigate an induction session for new students in how to walk and text at the same time?  Or a health and safety briefing on the dangers of doing both together?

When I drive my car into the car park in the morning pedestrians commonly carry on regardless of my approach, immune from the sounds of traffic by earphones, travelling in their own little world of sound.  How does the accident rate of those listening to music differ from those who don't?

Why aren't those texting students actually dictating their messages into their smartphones?  Surely most of them have got models with voice recognition and activation?  Or do they need a lesson in how to use that?

And those groups of half a dozen students walking along together all texting - are they actually texting each other rather than talking?

And finally, should I forgive those colleagues to whom I say 'hello' as I walk around the campus but who fail to reply because they are plugged in and don't notice me?

Perhaps someone could write a book of etiquette for the uses of mobile devices in public places, with a co-author to produce a risk analysis and safety instructions.

Tuesday 23rd September 2014 - What are portraits for?

Firth Hall, the main 'ceremonial' hall of the University, has been under refurbishment over the summer.  As a result the portraits that hang there have been removed.  I have mentioned an issue about the portraits before, in a blog of 2011 - the fact that they are all of men, all but one of them dead.

The Hall is now starting to take shape again, and I looked in today to see how it is getting on.  The portraits are not there (yet), but I reflected that I actually like the Hall better without.  The portraits clutter it up a bit.  It has simpler lines without them, and a cleaner feel.  (I have been reassured that when the portraits come back they will have been cleaned - but I'm still happy without them.)

What are portraits in public or semi-public spaces (such as Firth Hall) for?  I can think of two overt reasons, and one that is perhaps subliminal.  My two overt reasons for having them there are:
1. Because they are intrinsically good and interesting paintings in their own right.  How many portraits can be claimed to fill that criterion? Very few in my view.  How often one wanders through the portraited rooms of a stately home passing dozens of dreary pictures of the dead ancestors of the family, none displaying any flair or artistic merit.
2. Because they are of interesting people who onlookers will want to see and consider.

In relation to portraits in a university hall such as Firth Hall, I would observe that few portraits have any artistic interest, and that most of those depicted are also unlikely to create any glow of recognition or interest in the onlooker.  I have hosted alumni events where some of the older graduates present have reminisced about a particular vice-chancellor who presided over their graduation ceremony, but were we only to retain portraits of figures for whom that could be said we would now discard the paintings of those who presided over the university before about 1940.

I was thinking about this when I came across an article in yesterday's 'Guardian' newspaper about the Oxford college I attended - Hertford.  They have just taken down all the portraits from their Hall.  They found that they didn't even know who some of them were of.  In my view the College owns three portraits that merit display - but probably no more.  Two are of interesting and famous people (men) who were students of the college or its forerunners - William Tindale (the first translator of the Bible into English) and John Donne (the cleric and poet).  The third (which does not hang in the Hall) is of a recent Principal of the college - Geoffrey Warnock, the philosopher - painted by David Hockney.  To my way of thinking that would get in on artistic merit.

So what has Hertford College hung in its Hall instead?  It has put up photographic portraits of women associated with the college in the 40 years since it led the way to co-education in Oxford colleges by admitting women in 1974.  And therein lies the subliminal message that portraiture can convey - a message about what matters and is thought worthwhile.  All the Firth Hall portraits to date have been of men - former Vice-Chancellors of the University of Sheffield and others associated with its foundation.  I am delighted that we are about to unveil at least one portrait of a woman - but they will still be very much in the minority.  That doesn't seem to me to be a very appropriate subliminal message conveyed through the pictures on the wall.  (I will observe, before anyone points this out, that Sheffield does possess an excellent collection of portrait photographs of women, but they need seeking out.)

Putting on one side the former women-only colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, and some gender-segregated universities elsewhere in the world, I wonder what the overall male / female balance is in university portraiture.  Should we take that for granted, or think of new curatorial policies, and possibly new commissioning exercises? 

Tuesday 16th September 2014 - Advice on university choice

It's that time of the year again.  I don't mean the time when students reappear in large numbers on the campus (although that has started to happen today).  It's the time when candidates for university admission for next session seat casting around for advice.

I suspect I am not alone in having been asked, over the years, to talk through their choices with a number of friends, relatives and neighbours - or with their offspring.  And despite the fact that there is now a wealth of material available to try to guide choices, it's interesting to see how poorly informed many applicants are.  This applies to those attending good as well as poor schools; those with parents who are themselves graduates as well as those with no family background in higher education.  I participated in a breakfast discussion at the Guardian newspaper a couple of years ago on this topic, and we all agreed that as more information has become available to applicants, so they have become overwhelmed by the volume and come to depend more on gut instinct, advice from trusted sources, and peer group pressure - much of it misleading.

To those of us who work in universities it can come as a surprise to find that none of the things we 'know' about university hierarchies, appropriate A level combinations, the fees regime, subject choices and many other things are completely unknown to the people around us in our own families or living on our streets.  I've been told that universities that languish near the bottom of every league table are among the Russell Group; that subjects that are not taught by any of the elite universities are amongst the most prestigious; and I've even had people mix up the two universities in various cities when one is a high-performing institution with a world class reputation and the other is, let us say, not!

And I'm sorry to say that schools often don't do what they ought to help.  I have talked with a pupil who already had 4 grade As at AS level and who is clearly in the top few percent of the national distribution but whose school has given her advice on both subject and university advice which would clearly vastly underplay her talents and potential.  

I know of another pupil who was told to aim for Cs at A level, and the university choice to go with that, but who was fully capable of As and Bs.  The school perhaps preferred to provide advice en masse for its students rather than nurturing the best.

I have watched as graduate parents, or others directly connected with universities, have allowed their offspring to take A level combinations that immediately preclude them from applying to institutions that would stretch their abilities because those combinations do not lead to any recognised degree programme.

This is all somewhat distressing, but I don't really know what to do about it.  The task of bringing light to the advisory process seems so great.  I suspect that many schools and colleges do not have the time to devote themselves to individual advice to each pupil, and that in many schools the range of experiences that teachers have is itself somewhat limited.  How many schools in the UK do not have a single teacher who attended a top-rated university?  How many A level teachers of key subjects (such as Physics, Economics or History) do not actually have a degree in that subject but in something else?  One proposal that emerged a few years ago was for universities to be tasked with a primary role for the provision of advice on higher education in schools.  It's not a bad idea - although it would need heavy resourcing.

Over the years I have tried to help a number of sixth formers on an individual basis.  I do take some comfort that in every case they do seem to have been satisfied with the courses they were admitted to - and in almost all cases they listened to my advice.

Friday 22nd October 2014 - Literature searching by students

We make a lot about research-led teaching.  I've often argued, including in this blog, that there is also teaching-led research.  I have several examples in my own biography of students asking me questions that have led me into investigations to find the answers - and which have sometimes led to publications.

Today I have been involved in one other aspect of teaching that influences research.  I have just been revising the reading lists for the various alternative project titles that I set my students as a crucial part of the delivery of my final year module.  I don't regard these simply as assessment tasks but also as key learning elements.  What I ask students to do is to produce an essay on a particular theme, comparing the way it works out in two different European countries.  For most this is the first time they have ever had experience of 'comparative method' and its benefits and pitfalls.  So it is a learning task as well as a party of the assessment for the module.

Of course, I give students suggested readings for each of the themes.  But I also encourage them to exercise their powers of literature search to identify further materials that are of relevance for the particular comparison they choose to make.  And many students display great skill in identifying materials of which I was unaware.

So what I have been doing today is to go through last year's essays to identify possible new references to give to this year's students - once I have checked them out to satisfy myself that they are indeed worthwhile additions to make.  And those references are now added to my own stock of understanding and ideas for future research use.  It's another example of how teaching can act to facilitate future research.

Thursday 14th August 2014 - Disposing of old journals; and media priorities on A level results day

I subscribe to four academic journals, each arriving regularly through the post.  I am also on the editorial boards of two more, one of which is published elsewhere in Europe and which similarly comes as hard copy, whilst the other went into on-line-only delivery about 4 years ago.  Those five physical journals bring me around 28 copies per year each.  That's quite a bit of shelving.

Some time ago I adopted what I learned from my librarian colleagues as a 'Zero Net Collections Growth' policy for my journals.  For every new copy that comes in I should throw one away.  The rule I have made for myself is to keep only 20 years' copies of journals.  Over the last couple of days I have been going through journals from 1993 and throwing them away - in principle putting on one side those copies where I want to cut out and keep one article for my offprints file.  In fact there are very few such articles - today I threw out about 16 copies but found only one article that I wanted to keep.

It's a reminder of one's past life, reading through the contents lists of journals published 20 years or so ago.  I'm surprised how many of the authors I either knew at the time or have got to know since.  In many cases I wonder what has happened to them since because what were household names in my field have often dropped away - I'm sure many are not yet of retirement age but I'm also sure they are no longer academics.  I've come across book reviews by me that I don't remember writing (nor remember reading the book - although I'm sure I did).  And in one or two cases (including a very distinguished colleague here in Sheffield) I'm surprised that the authors were publishing in these journals 20 years ago because I hadn't realised they were old enough to have been on the scene then.

But the major reflection is how few of the articles are really still of anything other than historical interest.  One or two in the copies I've thrown away were early analyses of the changes in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989-92, but most of their speculations about the future have proved wrong.  I would guess that in the social sciences the half-life of the average journal article is probably longer than in many other fields, for example in science, but there are very few articles from 1993 that are worth reading again, let alone keeping for future reference.  

Perhaps I ought to cut the period of retention to 15 years, or even 10. Or perhaps I should just cancel my subscriptions entirely and depend on the on-line versions.

Oh - one other thing happened today.  Today was A level results day.  I spent the whole morning in the helpline room, and recorded two significant interviews for television channels - commenting on the significance of today for school leavers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.  But at least one of those interviews wasn't broadcast.  The television station decided that accusations about sex abuse in the 1980s relating to a now 73-year old pop singer were more important than the futures of around a million of today's young people.    I don't share those views on relative priorities. 

Tuesday 29th July 2014 - Student fashions for graduation ceremonies

Last year, on 18th July 2013, I made some observations about the students who had come across the graduation platform that week.  It was a blog that attracted some interest and amusement.  This week's graduation week finished last Friday and I have since been reflecting on what I saw during those 5 days.

This year I attended 11 ceremonies, of which I was the presiding officer at 3.  Those 11 ceremonies covered all faculties.  Last year I made certain points as hypotheses, but in some cases I would make the same observations in 2014 as in 2013: I know that two observations don't make a data set, but hey ... two data points are twice as many as one.  On the other hand, some observations I made last year have been overturned this year.  I, of course, acknowledge that there is not a robust statistical basis for what follows.

So what has been different this year?

• The Faculty in which the greatest proportion of males have worn 'affiliation' ties (relating to the University, Faculty or a sports club) this year was Medicine, Dentistry and Health: last year it was Engineering.  The MBChB ceremony (for graduates in Medicine itself) was particularly notable, with (I estimate) the majority of males so attired.
• The dominant colour for dresses has changed - this year cream has been dominant (with one number crossing the stage at least 21 times by my count).  My PA also tells me (she was marshalling) that another common colour was 'nude': I would have called it 'beige'. 'Nude' actually sounds rather racist to me since it refers to Caucasian skin colour rather than to other ethnic groups.  I was impressed by the medical women, many of whom seemed to have chosen a red dress that matched the colour of their hoods.  Green and yellow were rare colours.
• I hadn't realised that the V-neck pullover had come back into fashion.  Nor had I realised that it was possible to buy three-piece suits (in other words with a waistcoat) any more.  Yet both these fashions appeared on stage.
• Last year I commented that the curtsey was perhaps going out.  But this year I detected more of them - albeit quite discreet, as if the woman performing it wanted it to be kept a secret - but definitely there.  And this happened in all faculties.

What about things that were the same?

• Last year I put forward a hypothesis that the taller the woman the more likely she was to wear high heels.  This is where I now have a second confirmatory data point.  The same observation would be true this year.  But there was one difference this year.  In 2013 I noted that women in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health perhaps realised the risk in tottering across the stage and their average heel height was lower than in other faculties.  But perhaps the MDH women had read last year's blog and decided to prove me wrong.  This year they were up there with the others.  I commented on this to a head of department in Medicine. His response? "When it comes to graduation, fashion wins over common sense."
• As last year, Chinese males displayed a bi-modal fashion pattern - either wearing smart new shiny suits, or crossing the stage in battered jeans and old trainers.  Chinese women seemed more interested in looking smart.
• Many many more women than men appeared in 'national dress'.  I saw one kilt and one male in Malaysian costume, but otherwise the men wore fashion that could pass anywhere:  many African and Asian women wore clothing relating to their countries of origin.

Finally, another couple of observations from this year:

1. Those crossing the platform generally can't help smiling - either as soon as their name is read out, or by the time they reach the Presiding Officer.  I could look at the ceremonies again on dvd if I had the time (which I don't) but I simply put it as a hypothesis that the least likely to smile were males in the departments of Computer Science and Mathematics.
2. The weather this year was uniformly sunny and hot.  So why is there such an incredible variation in the temperature of students' hands when one shakes them?  Someone had a go at explaining that to me last year, but I've forgotten the reasons - but the variation was even more marked this year.

   

Monday 21st July 2014 - Graduates as useful citizens

I have been working on graduation speeches in the last couple of days.  I try to vary them year by year, and also for each ceremony, although some elements that seem to work stay the same.

At a recent meeting in London I heard mention of work done by Birkbeck College and the Institute of Education in London detailing some of the ways in which graduates have different futures from non-graduates.  Some things are obvious, relating to employment prospects and other economic indices.  But other elements make very interesting reading.  The report provides evidence on the balance of benefit from graduation.  By that I mean the balance between private benefit (accruing only to the graduate) and public benefit (accruing to society more widely).  The funding of university education in the UK has shifted almost entirely to the student / graduate, and thus to a view that the only benefits of university study are for the graduate.  Were the public benefits to be quantified and highlighted then the argument would follow that the public purse should bear a significant proportion of the cost.

So what does the research show?

• Graduates are more tolerant of diversity, particularly ethnic diversity.
• Graduates are less likely to take up authoritarian views
• Graduates are more interested in politics and more likely to vote.
• Graduates are more likely to engage with civic life, for example through volunteering and charitable activities, or through joining clubs and societies 
• Graduates are less likely to be involved in crime
• Graduates are less likely to smoke, more likely to eat healthily and less likely to become obese
• As a result, graduates are likely to experience better health and to live longer
• They are more likely to take regular exercise
• They are also less likely to suffer depression

It's a pretty impressive list.  And if it were to be translated into a cost-benefit analysis it would show that - in health terms alone - graduates make less call on publicly-funded health services.  Less crime, and more civic and volunteering activities are also strong benefits to society as a whole.

So I've found a theme that I can make use of in at least one of this week's speeches.  Graduation is not just a good thing for the graduates: it's good for everyone.

Tuesday 17th June 2014 - Returning a tapestry

In my job, every day brings something new.  Today I have given an eighteenth century tapestry (back) to a French Count.  And it was a very moving event.  The key lies in that little word in parentheses - (back).

In 1959 the then Vice-Chancellor of the University bought, from a reputable art dealer, a handsome tapestry to hang in what was then the principal meetings room of the University - a room that henceforth became known as the Tapestry Room.  I have often admired the tapestry - and will confess that sometimes I have done so whilst chairing meetings at times when the discussion could go on without intervention from me.

Recently the room was modernized and redecorated, and the tapestry no longer matched the style so, with some reluctance on various people's parts, a decision was made that it should be sold.  But when it went into the auctioneer's catalogue it was spotted on the missing art register as being a tapestry that had once hung in a chateau in Normandy, France, and that had disappeared in the period immediately after D-Day, when armies were criss-crossing the province and chaos and confusion reigned.  The University withdraw the tapestry from sale, and we took the obvious decision to give it back to its rightful owners.

This restitution of property alienated from its owners at the end of the second world war is something I have taught students about - specifically in relation to the restitution of Jewish property in East Berlin after 1989 and the impact that had on gentrification processes in districts such as Prenzlauer Berg: this was one of the themes explored by students in projects during the 13 years I took students to Berlin on field classes.

But here was I, today, being involved in our own bit of property restitution.  When I took the Count into the room where the tapestry was laid out he was visibly moved.  He knew all about the history of the tapestry, knew about its association with the last pre-war occupant of his chateau - a great uncle who died in a concentration camp as a result of his activities in the Resistance.  There was still a space on the wall for the tapestry's return.  He had seen pre-war photographs of the tapestry in place, but this was the first time he had seen it for real.  He particularly pointed out the arms of one of his ancestors, woven into the design, so that this tapestry was much more particular to his family than to anyone else who might see it.  We made little speeches in French - the Count explaining what the restitution of the tapestry meant to his family, and me explaining  how pleased we were to be returning it to its rightful owners - not having realized its provenance.

But one other nice touch was the Count's delight that the tapestry had come into the possession of a University where such things would be cared for an respected.  All in all it was a lovely and very fitting occasion.  And he has invited us to celebrate its return with a visit to the chateau.  That will be an appropriate ending to an interesting story.

Friday 13th June 2014 - Reflecting at the end of the student year

I suppose many jobs have something of an annual cycle about them - but in few is it as marked as in education.  Today is the last day of the semester, and I've just walked across the university concourse where students who have just finished their final exams are partying, paying for fairground rides and generally getting in the mood for a good celebration.  I stopped to talk to a student I have taught: apart from seeing her at graduation events in a month's time I will probably never see her again.  Yet a semester ago she was a frequent visitor to my room for advice about her project.

I have recently done a number of achievement ceremonies for school children now taking GCSEs or A levels who have been working with us on aspiration raising activities.  The teachers at some of these have been almost in tears at seeing the departure of their students for the next stage of their education, or as they enter a chosen career.  I'm not in tears, but the end of the academic teaching year does mark the passing of time and the departure of another cohort.  And with that comes the departure of students that one has got to know - who have come up with interesting ideas in seminars,  who have challenged my understanding of the things I am trying to help them to learn, and who have shown me how to present ideas in different and novel ways.  Academics learn a lot from their students - possibly more than many of them realise.

And in my position, the end of the teaching year also brings shortly afterwards the goodbyes to the Student Union officers with whom I work closely during the year.

So it's a reflective time of year.  I'm not whether those in other jobs with an annual cycle to them - the snowplough driver, the beach lifeguard, or garden centre employees - get the same feelings.  I suspect not, because our lives as academics give us closer insights into the thoughts, projects and ideas of others than is the case in many other jobs.